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Disability in the News Archive

Paralyzed Student Ends Life With Assistance of Dr. Kevorkian

By Jim Suhr
Southfield, Mich. (AP) -- Paralyzed and unable to breathe without a respirator, Roosevelt Dawson wanted to be released from the hospital so he could die.

The 21-year-old Oakland University student from Southfield got his wish with Dr. Jack Kevorkian's help Thursday, hours after getting out of a Grand Rapids hospital, Kevorkian attorney Georffrey Fieger said.

"It's a tragedy any way you look at it," Fieger said outside the apartment building where Dawson became the youngest person known to have committed suicide with Keverkian's help. "There's a slight solace in that he got to come home, got to be with his mother and got to die in peace."

Dawson, who told his mother "I love you" three times before he died, had been unable to use his arms and legs and had depended on a ventilator to breath since a viral infection attacked his spinal cord 13 months ago.

"Roosevelt was in a condition no human being would find acceptable," said Fieger, who also represented Dawson.

On Wednesday, a psychiatrist working for Kent County Probate Court denied a request by Grand Rapids' Metropolitan Hospital to hold Dawson involuntarily, hospital spokesman Jim Childress said. The hospital had sought a commitment order earlier this week after Fieger said he intended to seek Dawson's release.

Accompanied by his mother, Dawson left the hospital at 2:30 p.m. in an ambulance, saying he was headed home, Childress said. He died about five hours later, Feiger said.

Kevorkian, 69, has refused to disclose the number of deaths he has assisted. At a Dec. 31 news conference, he estimated the number at 80 to 100. Since then, he has been connected to four more deaths.

the youngest person previously thought to have died with Kevorkian's help was 27-year-old Heidi Aseltine, an AIDS patient whose body was found in a suburban Detroit motel last April. Dawson also was the first Black person thought to have died with Kevorkian's assistance.

Police were handling the case "just as we would any other death investigation" and had few details about the matter late Thursday, Southfield police Lt. Dan Mukomel said.

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