New questions raised about suicide pod death, as officials vow to keep investigating

Last year, a 64-year-old American woman became the first person ever to die in Dr. Philip Nitschke’s “Sarco” death pod. Present at her death were Florian Willet, co-president of The Last Resort, which is an affiliate of Nitschke’s Exit International, and a photographer for Dutch newspaper Volksrant. Both were detained by police in Switzerland, where the death took place. Now, several months later, disturbing details continue to come out, as well as more questions — as police vow to investigate for as long as it takes to learn what really happened.

Just over a month after the woman’s death, information was revealed about her not-so-peaceful manner of death. Sarco works by flooding the compartment with nitrogen (nitrogen hypoxia). The manner of death, therefore, is asphyxiation, meaning the person suffocates to death.

Though Nitschke has boasted that death is quick and painless, there are questions about whether or not that was true for this woman. Though she was alleged to be unconscious within 30 seconds, a motion-activated camera turned on in less than three minutes. The window to the outside of the pod was fogged up, and suddenly had a dark spot on it, which Willet said was likely due to the woman’s body cramping, and her knees hitting the window. At just over six minutes in to her suicide, an alarm began to sound; Willet, who was on the phone with Nitschke, seemed concerned.

“She’s still alive, Philip,” he said.

It reportedly took the woman 30 minutes to die. Later, a forensic scientist said she had “serious neck injuries” reminiscent of strangulation, though a source from Last Resort said the woman’s medical diagnosis of skull base osteomyelitis caused the marks.

While assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, there can be no “external assistance,” and anyone who helps the person to end his or her own life cannot do so for “any self-serving motive.” Politicians quickly questioned whether or not the death violated the law.

The Daily Mail is now reporting that Willet is still under investigation, even though the charge of “intentional homicide” has been dropped. Instead, they are considering other charges. “There is still suspicion of aiding and abetting assisted suicide and suicide,” chief prosecutor Peter Sticher told the Daily Mail. “There are indications of aiding and abetting suicide for selfish reasons.”

It’s suggested that the presence of the photographer and subsequent publicity could be considered evidence of the self-serving motives; by drumming up media attention about the death, more people could potentially want to use Sarco. But Nitschke denies this.

READ: Assisted suicide ‘Dr. Death’ activist approved for non-profit status

“It’s a ludicrous comment,” he said in response to Sticher. “There was no money transfer and if they’re trying to say we did it for personal aggrandisement because of media involvement, as a political activist – which I’ve been for most of my life – you can’t affect social change without involving the media.”

He also claimed that he has no idea why Swiss authorities are investigating them so doggedly.

“We were never warned that a prosecutor would act in this way and we still don’t know why,” he said. “We know there was a degree of embarrassment because the Minister for Health had been talking to the Swiss parliament at the very moment the button was pushed, saying this device will never be used in Switzerland. We know that embarrassment may have caused some anger on the politicians’ part, but how that’s managed to flow into the legal system is a worry. None of us have a clue about the strangulation thing. We know that there was a phone call made from the autopsy on the day after the death [about marks] that were consistent or could be consistent with strangulation. We’ve got some very good photos ourselves of the person who used the device and it’s pretty clear that she just had some marks as part of the ageing process. But we just don’t know. Until we get the full autopsy report we just find ourselves jumping at shadows all the time.”

Sticher, however, said Nitschke was strictly warned not to use Sarco in Switzerland, and chose to do so anyway. “We warned them in writing,” Sticher said. “We said that if they came to Schaffhausen and used Sarco, they would face criminal consequences.”

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