Makers of Sarco suicide pod ‘pushed another woman to spend money before she died’

The makers of the Sarco suicide pod have been accused of ‘manipulating and exploiting’ an American woman looking to end her life into spending all of her money. 

Jennifer McLaughlin, 55, had traveled to Switzerland in July of this year to be the first person to use the capsule which allows its occupant to push a button and die. 

Prior to her scheduled death, McLaughlin disappeared and is said to have sought help to die from another assisted dying organization. 

In a letter penned by McLaughlin, seen by Swiss paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, McLaughlin claimed the staff at the organization had exploited her. 

McLaughlin said she had cashed out her life savings, which totaled $40,000, to fly to Switzerland for the procedure, when conflicts started to arise. 

Jennifer McLaughlin, 55, had traveled to Switzerland in July of this year to be the first person to use the capsule which allows its occupant to push a button and die 

The ‘Sarco’ pod, which creators say allows its occupant to push a button and trigger their own death

These conflicts are said to have happened between McLaughlin, and her minders from The Last Resort, a sub-group of euthanasia group Exit International. 

According to her letter, they arose from misunderstandings and different expectations from those involved. 

She complained that her arranged death, which would have been the first one in the Sarco pod, had become a ‘media circus’. 

McLaughlin also said that the group had pushed her to spend her money, telling her she ‘won’t need it after I die’. 

She said: ‘I felt manipulated and exploited. If I had known that the deeply heartless people who held my fate in their hands were mainly driven by their own media presence and marketing, I would never have subjected myself to this ordeal.’

The pod’s inventor, controversial assisted dying advocate Philip Nitschke, said at the time of McLaughlin backing out that her death was ‘permanently postponed’. 

In a statement released by The Last Resort after her passing, they said she had turned to the Pegasos Swiss Association for help in her assisted-death. 

They also said that McLaughlin was told that the use of the Sarco was withdrawn from her due to mental health concerns. 

She complained that her arranged death, which would have been the first one in the Sarco pod, had become a ‘media circus’ 

McLaughlin also said that the group had pushed her to spend her money, telling her she ‘won’t need it after I die’ 

Nitschke said in a release: ‘In the first week of July it became obvious that she was not coping with her chosen path towards her assisted suicide.

‘Ms McLaughlin should never have been helped to suicide. She was a person who urgently needed mental health care. This was why access to the Sarco was declined to her.’

An email from McLaughlin that she sent to her lawyer and close friends said she was going to have a ‘procedure’ to take her life.

The former insurance company worker from Columbus, Georgia, began suffering with ‘major health issues’ in 2017, with her lawyer saying she ‘never really recovered’.

She spent three months in hospital in 2017, he said. Several years later, she lost her beloved mother, who had been by her side throughout her ill health.

The Sarco, short for sarcophagus, is meant to allow the euthanasia patient inside it to press a button and die ‘within seconds’, according to Exit International. 

The pod fills with nitrogen to starve the occupant of oxygen, rendering the patient unconscious before they die.

On Monday, the Sarco pod was used for the first time with another American woman aged 64 believed to have been the first person to have died in the device. 

Police in Switzerland have said that several people were detained on Monday, and that an investigation into incitement and accessory to suicide has opened. 

Prosecutors in Schaffhausen canton were informed by a law firm that an assisted suicide involving use of the Sarco capsule had taken place Monday near a woodland cabin in Merishausen, police said. 

The woman who died in the capsule had reportedly been suffering with ‘a very serious illness that involves severe pain’ and had wished to die for ‘at least two years’.

Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke (pictured), also known as ‘Dr Death’, is a former physician and head of the voluntary euthanasia campaign Exit International

The Last Resort said in a statement: ‘On Monday 23 September, at approximately 16.01 CEST, a 64-year old woman from the the mid-west in the USA died using the Sarco device.’

It said the co-president of the organization, Florian Willet, was the sole person present for the death, contrary to police reports.

Dutch newspaper Volkskrant has reported that police detained one of its photographers who wanted to take pictures of the use of the Sarco.

It said Schaffhausen police had indicated the photographer was being held at a police station but declined to give a further explanation.

According to Last Resort, Willet said the woman’s death had been ‘peaceful, fast and dignified’, taking place ‘under a canopy of trees, at a private forest retreat in the Canton of Schaffhausen close to the Swiss-German border.’

A view of the Sarco suicide machine, a 3D-printed capsule that gives the user the ultimate control over the timing of her/his death

The organization said the woman ‘had been suffering for many years from a number of serious problems associated with severe immune compromise.’

Nitschke, said his device ‘had performed exactly as it had been designed to do,’ saying it had provided a ‘non-drug, peaceful death at the time of the person’s choosing’.

The Last Resort, who had anticipated that there would need to be an investigation after the launch of the device, said it had informed the police that it had been used.

Cops seized the Sarco capsule. A post-mortem will now be carried out on the deceased person by the Institute of Legal Medicine Zurich (IRMZ).

If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.