Transgender

Forum













%expand(%include(D:\http/ads/ads0.html))


TS Commits Suicide While Kevorkian Is Present

By the Associated Press
Contributed by Laura Mason

PONTIAC, Michigan
January 11, 1999


Dr. Jack Kevorkian was present when a transsexual committed suicide Sunday evening at a motel here, his attorney said.

Carrie Hunter, 35, of San Francisco suffered from AIDS-related complications, said attorney Michael Schwartz. Both Kevorkian and Dr. Georges Reding . a Kalamazoo psychiatrist who has said he is doing a ""fellowship'' in assisted suicide with Kevorkian . were present at the woman's death, Schwartz said.

Ms. Hunter, who began her life as a man and had an operation to change her sex, had uncontrollable nausea, an enlarged spleen and trouble controlling her bowels. She also had lesions in her lungs and indications of a form of pneumonia found in AIDS patients that is often fatal.

Police were notified of the body by owner of Oakland County's Sagamore Motel about 8 p.m. Pontiac police Sgt. Robert Ford said the body was found with a note with Kevorkian and Reding's names, along with the woman's name, age and disease. Kevorkian, 69, has refused to name the exact number of suicides he has attended. But at a recent news conference he put the number at ""somewhere between 80 and 100.'' The state Legislature has tackled the question of assisted suicide in recent days. Although the state Senate approved a bill banning the practice, the House is expected to vote it down.

Another bill to put the question to voters was also put forward in the House, increasing the chances that the competing bills with mean a legislative deadlock on the issue. Last year, Kevorkian, Reding and another associate were charged with 19 criminal counts covering 10 deaths. The charges were filed by former Oakland County prosecutor Richard Thompson. All charges later were dropped by Thompson's successor, David Gorcyca.



Back to
TGF's
Home Page