by Sean Scanlon and Deidre Mussen
Sunday Star Times 18 May 2008
Two investigations have started into claims an American woman [calling herself Cassandra Mae and Susan Wilson] helped a non-terminally ill Aucklander die in return for $12,000…
She allegedly flew here last August and assisted a woman in her 50s, suffering depression, to commit suicide. Police confirmed they and the coroner are investigating serious allegations it is illegal to aid a suicide in New Zealand.
Sources say the Auckland woman withdrew $12,000 from her bank account, money which remains unaccounted for, in the days before her death.
The American woman’s actions will also be scrutinised in a euthanasia documentary to be televised in England this week, and her behaviour and that of an American reverend she worked with were exposed in English newspaper The Guardian last week…..
Australian euthanasia campaigner and head of Exit International, Philip Nitschke, said … he believed Mae planned to bring Nembutal into New Zealand from Mexico [and] the Auckland woman [seeking to commit suicide] may have spoken to an Exit co-ordinator before her death, but he could not be sure.
It is not the first time a depressed but not terminally ill New Zealander has suicided. In March 2006, a Wellington woman killed herself with lethal drugs she smuggled home from Mexico after seeking advice from Nitschke.
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