This has happened before and it will happen again. A teenager has apparently committed suicide using the death information contained in Derek Humphry’s book Final Exit
Who is Derek Humphry? He founded the Hemlock Society—now Compassion and Choices—with his second wife Ann Wickett, after becoming famous for a book he wrote about assisting the suicide of his first wife, called Jean’s Way. Humphry abandoned Wickett when she was diagnosed with breast cancer (as did the rest of the “right to die” community), and she was ultimately befriended by Rita Marker, the hated enemy of “the ultimate civil liberty.” Wickett eventually committed suicide, telling Marker in a note that Humphry’s first wife Jean had actually died “by suffocation,” rather than from the drug coctail Humphry said he gave her to drink. Wickett also told Marker that she and Humphry did a double assisted suicide of her parents, in which her mother was coerced into dying by her father. Read all about it in Marker’s Deadly Compassion.)
But I digress. From the story:
A book called “Final Exit” is being blamed for deaths in the metro area and across the country.Suzanne Torregrossa said she found the book lying next to her son’s body after he committed suicide back in January.Don’t worry SHSers: Humphry won’t miss a wink of sleep. This has happened before and he never does.
The book, “Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying,” is a how-to guide on various pain-free ways to kill yourself. Torregrossa said her son even referenced the book in his suicide letter. He explained how he would replace the air in his lungs with helium, using a technique he learned in the book.
