EBay delists Kevorkian suicide van

DETROIT – Online auction site eBay pulled a listing Monday for a van used by Dr. Jack Kevorkian to perform several assisted suicides, saying the sale of the van would violate the company’s policy against the sale of “murderabilia.”

Jack Finn, a retired used auto parts dealer, put the 1968 Volkswagen van once owned by Kevorkian up for auction on eBay last week. With three days left in the auction, the top bid placed for it was $3,400 at 9:30 a.m. Monday, but the ad had been pulled an hour later.

In an e-mail message, eBay told the Associated Press it “does not allow the sale of items closely associated with notorious murderers within the last 100 years.”

“I don’t run eBay, Craigslist or the world,” Finn said. He said Auburn, Ind.-based Kruse Auctions has agreed to sell the van at its May 13-16 auction.

Kevorkian used the van while assisting in several deaths, including the poisoning of an Alzheimer’s patient that launched his public effort in 1990.

Finn said he bought the van in 1997, when he was in the used auto parts business. He said he since has retired from the Auburn Hills-based company, Recycled Bugs, and put the van up for sale to clear out warehouse space.

Kevorkian claims to have helped at least 130 people die from 1990 until 1998. He was released from prison in 2007 after serving eight years for a second-degree murder conviction for assisting in the 1998 death of a Michigan man with Lou Gehrig’s disease.