Meet the new Dr. Death

Jack Kevorkian is dead. It was inevitable somebody would attempt to claim his title. Meet Dr. Lawrence Egbert, 83, who may have already surpassed Kevorkian's record. From a cluttered Baltimore apartment office, he says he has helped direct the deaths of nearly 300 people across the country. An Arizona jury acquitted him last month following a three-week trial in the death of a Phoenix woman. 

Jana Van Voorhis was descending into madness, relatives say. Born into a wealthy family, she had a bubbly personality. But she'd also battled mental illness since her teens and was increasingly complaining of aches and pains. Following the death of her mother, she began telling doctors that bugs were eating her kidneys and feet, and feared exposure to radiation and rat poisoning.

On April 12, 2007, she contacted the Final Exit Network and faxed paperwork to Egbert, who dispatched two regional exit guides to travel to Van Voorhis' Phoenix, AZ, home, where she reaffirmed her desire to "hasten her death." 

Final Exit's preferred method involves piping helium into an oxygen-eliminating hood placed over the individual's head. Largely for legal reasons, however, network members do not provide the materials and are hands-off in the actual suicide. Instead, Van Voorhis' guides arranged pillows. They advised her to activate a minimal amount of helium from a tank, purchased at a party store, so the hood would not fly off. About eight minutes after Van Voorhis eased on the tank, she fell asleep. She began breathing irregularly. Four minutes later, she was dead.

Her guides then moved some of the pillows, so her death would appear natural, and removed the helium tanks and the hood, and placed them in separate trash bins in an industrial park. Her body was not found until several days later. JWR