Jack Kevorkian was the only son of Levon Kevorkian, a former auto-factory worker who owned an excavating company, and his homemaker wife. His parents were Armenian refugees who had relatives among the 1.5 million victims of Turkish atrocities in World War I.
As a young boy, Kevorkian quit Sunday school because he did not believe in Armenian Orthodox teachings. He taught himself German and Japanese in high school during World War II.
Kevorkian graduated from Pontiac High School with honors in 1945 at 17. He then enrolled at the University of Michigan, from which he graduated from Medical school in 1952. He completed an internship in Pathology at Henry Ford hospital in Detroit, during which period he had an epiphany when he saw a woman who was dying of cancer.
It was then that he began to think of ways to alleviate suffering in his patients. In 1953, he got his medical license for Michigan state. He then did a 15-month stint in Korea as an Army Medical Officer during the Korean War. He returned and completed his residency at Pontiac General Hospital, Michigan.
He got his nickname 'Dr. Death' in 1956 when he started photographing the retinas of patients at the moment of death to differentiate between coma and death. From 1956-57, he did research in West Germany. In 1957, he obtained his California medical license.
In 1958, he presented a paper on 'Capital Punishment or Capital Gain' at the American Association for the Advancement of Science' at Washington, DC. He suggested the harvesting of organs from death row prisoners. This was considered controversial because death row inmates don't necessarily have any rights.
By 1960, he was licensed in Pathological Anatomy and in 1965 in Clinical Pathology. In April 1960, he testified before a Joint Judicial Committee in Columbus, Ohio to revise the death penalty and to legalize medical experimentation on condemned inmates.
In 1976, he moved to Los Angeles, California. He changed jobs frequently. Between 1982 to 86, he mainly did his writing and research. In 1988, even the pro-suicide Hemlock Society founder, Derek Humphry, rebuffed his methods as "too perilous and risky".
In 1989, after reading about a patient who had asked for euthanasia, he began working on a lethal-injection machine that would be able to do the task at the 'flip of a switch'. It was called the Thanatron (and later Mercitron).
He got a lot of publicity because of this. On June 4, 1990, he performed the first of his 'edicides' as he liked to call physician-assisted suicide. His 'client' was a 54-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer's. She had contacted him herself after reading his ads in the papers. It was performed in the back of his VW van.
She received sodium pentothal (an anesthetic) and potassium chloride (to stop the heart). By the time of his 3rd medicide, his medical license was revoked for violating Michigan state laws regarding euthanasia. One of his 'clients' was even found on autopsy not to have any major pathology.
He continued to do his medicides by giving his clients carbon-monoxide. There were reports that one patient had asked her mask to be removed twice (maybe a change of mind) but Kevorkian had continued with his task.
On August 17, 1993, he was formally charged with violating the law. By then he had already helped 20 clients to their peaceful deaths. He was jailed first in November 1993 and then again in December 1993.
Kevorkian went on a liquid-only fast for 18 days and was acquitted in May 1994. By now he had even gained several supporters in the general community. By 1998, he had committed over 100 medicides. Relatives of some of his clients claimed that he had continued despite protests from his 'victims'.
He was now charged with 2nd-degree murder. During his trial, he was defended by the flamboyant lawyer Geoffrey Fieger. In March 1999, Dr. Kevorkian was sentenced by a Michigan jury to 10-25 years for his crime.
