Kevorkian Helps Two Ms Patients Kill Themselves Doctor Being Held In Police Station Detention Cell

Dr. Jack Kevorkian stepped up his campaign for doctor-assisted suicide Thursday, helping a woman with multiple sclerosis kill herself and then bringing the body of another MS sufferer to the same hospital eight hours later.

The bodies were the third and fourth Kevorkian has delivered to the hospital in eight days, the largest cluster of deaths since he helped six people die in two weeks in February 1993.

Before the latest body was delivered, Kevorkian had acknowledged helping 37 people die - nine since his most recent acquittal in May on assisted suicide charges.

Kevorkian attorney Geoffrey Fieger said he did not know anything about the body that Dr. Robert Aranosian, director of the trauma center at Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital, said Kevorkian took to the hospital about 9:10 p.m.

The Oakland (Mich.) Press later identified the man as Pat DiGanci, 66, a history teacher from New York state who suffered from multiple sclerosis.

Kevorkian was taken from the hospital to a police station holding cell after he refused to obey police and “became very loud and abusive toward the officers,” Pontiac police Sgt. Ken Lewis said.

Kevorkian was talking with his attorney in the detention cell and had not been formally charged late Thursday, police said.

Earlier Thursday at the same hospital, Kevorkian had brought in the body of Patricia Smith, a 40-year-old nurse from Lees Summit, Mo., who suffered from “rapidly progressing multiple sclerosis,” Fieger said.

Her husband, corrections worker David Smith, and her father, James Poland, also were with her when she died, Fieger said.

Their deaths came two days after Louise Siebens, 76, of Texas, who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease, had received a lethal injection.

Kevorkian also helped Judith Curren, a nurse from Pembroke, Mass., who suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and other ailments, kill herself Aug. 15.

The death of Curren, whose marriage had a history of domestic violence and whose ailments were not fatal, led some in the medical community to question how thoroughly Kevorkian examines the backgrounds of those seeking his help.