The Grinning Reaper: Kevorkian Defiant at Michigan Arraignment

REDFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Retired pathologist Jack Kevorkian snickered as he was ordered Monday to stand trial on a second charge of assisting a suicide, this one in the death of a 73-year-old cancer patient.

District Judge Karen Khalil set an Oct. 26 arraignment and released Kevorkian on bond.

After the brief court appearance, Kevorkian, 65, told reporters: “You people are witnessing the Inquisition. It’s still alive.”

Kevorkian has been present at 18 suicides since 1990.

On Sept. 9, police found Kevorkian at the deathbed of Donald O’Keefe, who died hours after Kevorkian was released on bond and ordered to stand trial on a charge of assisting in an Aug. 4 suicide. Kevorkian faces a Feb. 15 trial in Detroit in the death of Thomas Hyde, 30, who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease.

A motion by Kevorkian’s lawyer, Geoffrey Fieger, to dismiss the charge in O’Keefe’s death was rejected.

O’Keefe and Hyde died by inhaling carbon monoxide from a canister through a face mask. Kevorkian publicly admitted helping Hyde die and urged prosecutors to charge him to settle the issue of assisted suicide.

Kevorkian has remained silent on his role in O’Keefe’s death. Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Tim Kenny said O’Keefe’s death had Kevorkian’s “signature.”