Terminally Ill Woman Kills Self At Kevorkian's Newest Clinic

SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Five years after proposing "obitoriums" for the terminally ill who want to end their suffering, Jack Kevorkian attended his 24th death, this time in a clinic he opened for that purpose.

But after the suicide doctor's attorney announced that a woman with Lou Gehrig's disease had taken her life inside the nondescript building on a rural highway, the landlord said she wanted Kevorkian out.

Erika Garcellano, 60, died yesterday at the clinic established "for the purpose of alleviating the suffering of patients," said Kevorkian attorney Geoffrey Fieger.

Garcellano, who lived in a Kansas City, Mo., nursing home, had suffered for at least three years from the degenerative nerve disease also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Fieger said.

Fieger would not say how she died. Most of Kevorkian's past patients inhaled carbon monoxide.

The Oakland County prosecutor's office said it was awaiting sheriff's reports before deciding what action to take.

Kevorkian has not been charged with two deaths he attended in May. But a spokesman for Gov. John Engler said Kevorkian will be prosecuted for Garcellano's death.

The Margo Janus Mercy Clinic - named after Kevorkian's sister, who died of a heart attack in September - sits beside a shuttered restaurant about 40 miles northwest of Detroit.

Police entered the clinic about 9:30 p.m. yesterday after obtaining a search warrant. Garcellano's body was on the bottom berth of a bunk bed, sheriff's Lt. William Kucyk said. Two folding chairs and a folding table were inside the room. Sheets covered three windows of the building.

Kevorkian began leasing the building this month on a month-by-month basis, the lieutenant said. The owner, who The Detroit News identified as Wanda Rothermel, told police she had been unaware who her new tenant was or how he intended to use the building.

"She does not intend to allow similar activity to take place," Kucyk said.