Real Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Theories Book III

Dr. Jack Kevorkian

Murad Jacob Kevorkian (May 26,1928 – June 3, 2011) was an American pathologist and euthanasiaproponent. He publicly championed a terminal patient's right to dieby physician-assisted suicide, embodied in his quote, "Dyingis not a crime". Kevorkian said that he assisted at least130 patients to that end. He was convicted of murder in 1999 and wasoften portrayed in the media with the name of "Dr. Death".There was support for his cause, and he helped set the platform forreform.

In 1998, Kevorkian was arrested andtried for his direct role in a case of voluntary euthanasia on a mannamed Thomas Youk who suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease or ALS. Hewas convicted of second-degree murder and served 8 years of a10-to-25-year prison sentence. He was released on parole on June 1,2007, on condition he would not offer advice, participate, nor bepresent in the act of any type of suicide involving euthanasia to anyother person; as well as neither promote nor talk about the procedureof assisted suicide.

Early life and education

Kevorkian was born in Pontiac,Michigan, on May 26, 1928, to Armenian immigrants from present-dayTurkey. His father, Levon (1887–1960), was born in the village ofPassen, near Erzurum, and his mother, Satenig (1900–1968), was bornin the village of Govdun, near Sivas. His father left Armenia in theOttoman Empire and made his way to Pontiac in 1912, where he foundwork at an automobile foundry. Satenig fled the Armenian Genocide of1915, finding refuge with relatives in Paris and eventually reunitingwith her brother in Pontiac. Levon and Satenig met through theArmenian community in their city, where they married and began theirfamily. The couple had a daughter, Margaret, in 1926, followed by sonMurad, and their third and last child, Flora.

When Kevorkian was a child, hisparents took him to church weekly. He started questioning theexistence of a God, as he believed an all-knowing God would haveprevented the Armenian genocide on his extended family. He stoppedattending church by the time he was 12.

Kevorkian was a child prodigy. He waspromoted to junior high in the sixth grade and taught himselfmultiple languages such as German, Russian, Greek, and Japanese. Assuch, he was often alienated by his peers. Kevorkian graduated fromPontiac Central High School with honors in 1945, at the age of 17. In1952, he graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School inAnn Arbor.

Kevorkian completed residency trainingin anatomical and clinical pathology and briefly conducted researchon blood transfusion.

Career

Over a period of decades, Kevorkiandeveloped several controversial ideas related to death. In a 1959journal article, he wrote:

I propose that a prisoner condemnedto death by due process of law be allowed to submit, by his own freechoice, to medical experimentation under complete anaesthesia (at thetime appointed for administering the penalty) as a form of executionin lieu of conventional methods prescribed by law.

Senior doctors at the University ofMichigan, Kevorkian's employer, opposed his proposal and Kevorkianchose to leave the University rather than stop advocating his ideas.Ultimately, he gained little support for his plan. He returned to theidea of using death row inmates for medical purposes after theSupreme Court's 1976 decision in Gregg v. Georgiare-instituted the death penalty. He advocated harvesting the organsfrom inmates after the death penalty was carried out for transplantinto sick patients, but failed to gain the cooperation of prisonofficials.