What on earth??? This is the third post in two days on assisted suicide.....is this a trend or an epidemic?? Homeless men hanging out and drinking beer.....okay, where did they get the money for beers??....oh well that is not the point but hey one says he wants to die and the other says okay, I will strangle you and godspeed good buddy...... life is so cheap?? Now the friend is charged with murder and being held on a million dollar bond. BTW, WA allows physician assisted suicide.
If a friend said they were depressed and wanted to kill themselves, most people would probably try to get that friend some help, they wouldn't try to help them do the deed. Joshua Stattman, then, is not most friends.
According to a report by The Seattle Times, Stattman, 32, and 21-year-old Pennsylvania native Michael Kniezewski, both homeless, were hanging out drinking beers late on Sunday night in Denny Triangle when Kniezewski told Stattman he was depressed and wanted to end his life.
Instead of trying to cheer his buddy up and convincing him to sleep it off, Stattman offered his assistance. The two men allegedly moved to a secluded spot between two garbage bins on a loading dock, where Kniezewski laid down on his stomach. Then Stattman pulled tight a nylon strap around his neck and leaned into his back, holding the makeshift noose tight for five minutes to make sure his friend was dead.
Police found Kniezewski's body later that night. While maintaining a perimeter around the scene, Stattman approached an officer and surprised him by admitting to the murder, or what he claimed was an assisted suicide.
Stattman later told police he had "no moral qualms" about what he'd done. He also said he wished his friend "gospeed" after strangling him.
Despite his insistence that he was just helping out a friend, King County prosecutors have charged Stattman with first-degree murder. He's currently being held on $1 million
8 comments:
Mike was not suicidal. Mike was not homeless. Mike didnt know the crazy transient who killed him. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know this because I am a relative.
Anonymous, I am sorry to hear of your family's loss.
It is thoughtless and cruel for Susie and others to use this tragic story for their own crusade against euthanasia when it has nothing to do with it.
This may have turned out to be a murder and not so called assisted suicide after all but the fact remains that if someone is depressed as or down on their luck and even if they ask someone to help them commit suicide, the answer is not to do it but to get them help. Being down on your luck and depressed are not permanent but being dead is. Assisted someone with suicide is never the answer whether you are a so called friend or a dr.
Ask anyone who works with end of life patients...there is a way to control the pain until natural death overtakes you. It is not for us to call the time and date of our death. And certainly not for us to help someone end their life be you a good buddy or a dr.
"It is not for us to call the time and date of our death."
Well, if you believe that is up to your God, then so be it. But not everyone shares your religious beliefs.
That aside, it was still thoughtless and cruel of you to use someone's death as an erroneous example to support your cause Susie. You owe his relative(s) an apology.
The family needs sympathy regardless if this is a case of assisted suicide or murder. This was widely reported in all the papers here.
The point is to legalize assisted suicide is wrong. You should not assist someone in ending their own life. Regardless if you are a person of faith or not. And if you want to get down to it, to ask another person to assist you to end your own life is asking a person to cooperate in murder. This man did not want to die or he would have done it already privately. This man clearly was depressed and not in his right mind and to help him die just because he voiced his wanting to be dead is wrong.
Those who advocate for assisted suicide are wrong.
"This man clearly was depressed and not in his right mind and to help him die just because he voiced his wanting to be dead is wrong."
Did you not read what his relative wrote Susie (or whoever this Anonymous is)? This was not a case of assisited suicide.
"And if you want to get down to it, to ask another person to assist you to end your own life is asking a person to cooperate in murder".
No it is different. If someone is terminally ill and or in sever chronic pain and chooses to end their life and ask a doctor to assist that is quite a different thing than killing someone not wanting to die.
Now Susie, where's that apology?
I am Michaels cousin, lets call me AMF. I miss him terribly every day. Susie, before you jump to conclusions as to who my cousin Michael was, he was a good Catholic. He went to church every Sunday. Even the Sunday he was murdered. Be a little more sympathetic next time Susie, where is my apology?
Susie--- its AMF... I am still anxiously awaiting for my apology. What would Jesus do? He would apologize... so be a good Catholic and apologize to us on behalf of the MURDER of our Michael
Post a Comment