Assisting Persons Can Have an Agenda

Michelle Carter assisted boyfriend's suicide,
"wanted sympathy, attention"

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

Persons assisting a suicide can have an agenda. Consider Tammy Sawyer, trustee for Thomas Middleton in Oregon. Two days after his death by assisted suicide, she sold his home and deposited the proceeds into bank accounts for her own benefit.[1]

In other US states, reported motives for assisting suicide include: the “thrill” of getting other people to kill themselves; a desire for sympathy and attention; and “want[ing] to see someone die.”[2]

Medical professionals too can have an agenda, for example, to hide malpractice. There is also the occasional doctor who just likes to kill people, for example, Michael Swango, now incarcerated.[3]

Footnotes

[1]   KTVZ.com, “Sawyer Arraigned on State Fraud Charges,” 07/14/11. 
[2]  Associated Press for Minnesota, “Former nurse helped instruct man on how to commit suicide, court rules,” The Guardian, 12/28/15 (“he told police he did it ‘for the thrill of the chase’”); “Woman in texting suicide wanted sympathy, attention, prosecutor says,” CBS News, June 6, 2017; and Ben Winslow, “Teen accused of helping friend commit suicide could face trial for murder,” (Deputy Utah County Attorney argued that the defendant “wanted to see someone die”). 
[3]   CBSNEWS.COM STAFF, “Life in Jail for Poison Doctor, July 12, 2000; Bill Vourvoulias, Blind Eye: How the Medical Establishment Let a Doctor Get Away With Murder and  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Swango