The first person to use the suicide pod, a controversial euthanasia device created to provide assisted suicide for terminal patients, was allegedly “found with strangulation marks,” according to reports. Dr. Philip Nitschke created the pod and it was used for the first time in Switzerland in September 2024, on a 64-year-old unidentified woman from the United States.
But the device has not yet been approved for use, so several people have been arrested in relation to the woman’s death and an investigation is now underway.
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UNILAD reported that investigators on the case are now looking into whether or not the woman could have been killed. Chief prosecutor of Schaffhausen, Peter Sticher, has raised the possibility of “intentional homicide.”
“The public prosecutor’s office of the canton of Schaffhausen has opened criminal proceedings against several persons for incitement, aiding and abetting suicide (Article 115 of the Swiss Criminal Code) resulting in several persons being placed in police custody,” a statement from the police read.
“The public prosecutor’s office of the canton of Schaffhausen was informed on Monday, September 23, 2024 at 4:40 p.m. by a law firm that an assisted suicide with the Sarco capsule had taken place in the afternoon at a forest hut in Merishausen,” it continued. “As a result, the Schaffhausen police, including the forensic emergency service, and the public prosecutor’s office of the canton of Schaffhausen went to the scene of the crime.”
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The statement noted that the woman’s body was taken for an autopsy. “In addition, specialists from the Forensic Institute Zurich (FOR) and the Institute of Legal Medicine Zurich (IRMZ) were called in. The Sarco suicide capsule was secured and the deceased person was taken to the IRMZ for an autopsy,” it reads.
Although no official autopsy report has been released yet, a forensic doctor did state that the woman had suffered from serious neck injuries.
Dr. Florian Willet, who codeveloped the suicide capsule and is currently in custody, was reportedly the sole witness of the woman’s death while using the device. According to CBS News, he said that her passing was “peaceful, fast, and dignified.”
Dr. Nitschke told Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant that the woman “really wanted to die” and immediately took action once inside the pod. “When she entered the Sarco, she almost immediately pressed the button,” he said. “She didn’t say anything. She really wanted to die. My estimate is that she lost consciousness within two minutes and that she died after five minutes. We saw jerky, small twitches of the muscles in her arms, but she was probably already unconscious by then. It looked exactly how we expected it to look.”
