Jack Kevorkian is the most successful serial killer in history
Harold Shipman probably has a higher body count, but they didn’t make an HBO special gushing about what a swell, compassionate guy he was, did they? I don’t fucking believe they made a sympathetic Kevorkian biopic. Yeah. It won a Golden Globe last night.
Look, I’m not set against euthanasia. That’s a national conversation we’ll have to have some time. It has absolutely nothing to do with that sick fuck Jack Kevorkian.
In 1956, when he was still just a resident, he picked up the “Dr Death” moniker. He asked to be notified when any patient was close to death so he could stare into their eyes while they died. Sometimes he took pictures. He said he was searching for a way to pinpoint the exact moment of death.
What is the medical need to know the exact moment of death? There isn’t one. Who knows how many friendless people he robbed of dignity in their last moments of life.
He didn’t start in the assisted suicide biz. What he really wanted was permission to vivisect death row inmates. I’ve never read exactly how he thought medicine could be advanced by killing people under general anesthesia. I get the impression he just thinks it would be kinda neat to paddle around in people’s innards until they die.
When permission wasn’t forthcoming, 1987 he advertised himself in Detroit papers as a physician consultant for “death counseling.” By 1991, he’d lost his medical license.
He named his death machines Thanitron and Mercitron. He killed 130 people between 1990 and 1998 and was acquitted of murder five times. When authorities gave up prosecuting him, he forced one more arrest — he taped himself administering a fatal shot and walked the tape over to his friend Mike Wallace, who aired it nationally on 60 Minutes. He videotaped all his killings, presumably to enjoy again and again. He spent eight years and a bit behind bars.
Equal parts ghoul and attention whore, then.
Oh – about three quarters half [70 out of 130] of his victims weren’t terminally ill, just depressed and in pain. Five of them weren’t sick at all, their autopsies showed. He hadn’t bothered to find out; medicine wasn’t part of his deal.
He ripped out the kidneys of one of his assisted suicide victims and offered them at a press conference, “first come first served.” The “surgery” was so crude that the Oakland County Medical Examiner called it out of a “slaughterhouse” and a “bizarre mutilation.”
Say, have you seen his paintings? One of the pigments is his own blood. Isn’t that nice? And the captions show an absolute Loughnerian grasp of the English language.
So, basically, somebody who should have spent the last thirty years (at least) in a hospital for the criminally insane. A perfect hero for Hollywood. They called the film You Don’t Know Jack.
Hilarious.
Posted: January 17th, 2011 under personal, true crime.
Comments: 21
Comments
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 17, 2011, 7:25 pm
It was said at his trial that Gilles de Rais liked to sit in the open entrails of his dying victims and watch the light go out of their eyes.
That’s what Kevorkian reminds me of.
Comment from Steve Skubinna
Time: January 17, 2011, 8:05 pm
Oh, I dunno. Rachel Carlson’s got a much higher body count.
Comment from Nina from GCP
Time: January 17, 2011, 8:25 pm
See, Stoaty? This is one reason why I’m NOT an atheist. People like this have GOT to have it coming to them down the line, and I believe that they do. I ain’t perfect by any stretch, no denying that, but I am not evil and don’t wish evil on my fellow humanoids.
Justice, yes, I wish that on some of them, for good and for ill, but not evil, because almost nobody deserves that and anyway, I don’t want to make that call.
Comment from Monotone The Elderish
Time: January 17, 2011, 8:33 pm
and people wonder why i watch foreign films….
Comment from Elphaba
Time: January 17, 2011, 9:23 pm
Watch Obama put him in charge of the death panels. Sick.
Comment from David Gillies
Time: January 17, 2011, 10:34 pm
This is why legalised euthanasia is such a dangerous thing. After a while it stops being about ending suffering and more about convenience. When they made it easier in Holland, I predicted that people would be bumped off by doctors when there was no medical reason, and so it has proved.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 17, 2011, 10:44 pm
Totally agree, David Gillies. As much as I’d like to have it as a personal option (I’m a terrible coward), I am absolutely convinced that wherever euthanasia exists, it will be abused.
Comment from Scubafreak
Time: January 17, 2011, 11:00 pm
Personally, I don’t see it as a stretch to say that Kevorkian was the last true disciple of Joseph Mengele. Which brings about the very serious question: What kind of people worship this ghoul? It’s something that I think should be taken into account when dealing with these people, both publicly and privately.
Of course, they would NEVER accept any moral comparisson, ESPECIALLY if it involves them. But it should be kept in mind at all times when dealing with their agenda.
on a lighter note, lets all enjoy kittehs riding the vomit comet….. 😉
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 17, 2011, 11:10 pm
It’s not unfair, Scoob. In fact, Kevorkian wrote approvingly of Nazi experiments, if I recall correctly.
And they are similar in that most Nazi experiments and Kevorkian proposals were pointless and sadistic junk science of the lowest kind. Torture porn quackery.
Comment from Armybrat
Time: January 17, 2011, 11:15 pm
As a medical professional, I can say, short of witnessing or viewing homicide, I’ve seen death in many ugly forms. It ain’t death I’m afraid of…it’s that whole dying process. In the end, at the end, I would like to have some say in my end. That said, I view assisted dying with terror….too fraught with opportunities for intervention of less than benevolent intent.
And as to the original subject…..kevorkian has long been considered nothing more than a gouhl…..and hollyweird…..well, they do like to like to promote the abnormal as “just another alternative” normal.
Comment from Elphaba
Time: January 17, 2011, 11:44 pm
Taking a good look at the pic you used here, Kevorkian’s eyes have that same manic glow that Charles Manson’s have. Something is definitely not right in there.
Comment from lauraw
Time: January 18, 2011, 12:36 am
I never read up on this guy, or knew that he was anything but someone admittedly strange but trying to help people out of a painful end.
As I was told on the news. Gee, looks like they left a few details out, doesn’t it?
The media has so, so much evil to answer for, it’s astonishing. What other monsters have they enabled this way?
Comment from QuasiModo
Time: January 18, 2011, 2:56 am
I’m gonna have nightmares tonight cuz of that pic.
Comment from Scubafreak
Time: January 18, 2011, 3:19 am
Tell me about it, Quasi…. take away the glasses and you have the Arizona gunman…..
Comment from Oldcat
Time: January 18, 2011, 5:41 am
The media has so, so much evil to answer for, it’s astonishing. What other monsters have they enabled this way?
Well you can start with Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Che, Castro, Uncle Ho, Pol Pot and work your way down.
Its hard to say which is worse, the “craftsmen” killers or the orgainized and indifferent governmental ones.
Comment from JuliaM
Time: January 18, 2011, 5:43 am
“In 1956, when he was still just a resident, he picked up the “Dr Death” moniker. He asked to be notified when any patient was close to death so he could stare into their eyes while they died. Sometimes he took pictures. He said he was searching for a way to pinpoint the exact moment of death.”
I’d like to think, post-Dr Shipman, that anyone expressing such desires today would earn themselves a one way trip to the place with the big glass panels and sophisticated locking system, but I’m not too sure he/she wouldn’t simply be moved around the system so the body count didn’t end up all on one health authority’s plate…
Comment from Mark Matis
Time: January 18, 2011, 8:07 am
I suspect that JuliaM is more than slightly correct.
Comment from Fa Cube Itches
Time: January 20, 2011, 12:21 am
Kevorkian was a piker. Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin (an NKVD officer) routinely beat Kevorkian’s lifetime total *in a single night*. In one 28 day stretch, he killed one person every three minutes, for ten hours per day. He personally killed tens of thousands.
Comment from Jenny McCarthy
Time: January 20, 2011, 12:25 am
“Oh, I dunno. Rachel Carlson’s got a much higher body count.”
I’m doing my best!
Comment from bound4er
Time: January 20, 2011, 3:18 am
“What other monsters have they enabled this way?”
Barack Obama also comes to mind.
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