Mystery surrounds the death of an American woman via the controversial Sarco capsule in Switzerland

The death of a 64-year-old American woman who died after using a controversial Sarco suicide pod in a forested area in Merishhausen in northern Switzerland is shrouded in mystery. As a result of the police investigation, some details about the woman’s last moments came to light. An autopsy allegedly revealed “strangulation marks” on her neck and a suspicious schedule for opening and closing the device.

Investigations

The cantonal prosecutor’s office initiated criminal proceedings for incitement and assistance in suicide. The Sarco capsule was secured by officers and the body of the deceased was transported to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Zurich for an autopsy. Swiss Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider stated that Sarco did not follow the law. Already this summer, after the presentation of the device by the suicide aid association “The Last Resort”, some cantonal prosecutors, including the one in Schaffhausen, announced that they would initiate criminal proceedings if the capsule was used in their cantons.

The last hours of life

According to the manufacturer of the device, the 64-year-old died of hypoxia inside the capsule after pressing the button injecting nitrogen gas into the chamber. On September 23, at 3:47 p.m., she reportedly approached the capsule with Dr. Florian Willet, president of The Last Resort, who removed the green tarp from the device in preparation for entering the capsule. “Are you ready…?” Willet reportedly asked. – Should I wear shoes? replied a woman wearing baggy black pants, a white woolen sweater, and sandals. He said he could keep them and at that point she placed herself in Sarco. What happened next led to Willet’s arrest, imprisonment and investigation on suspicion of crimes including “voluntary manslaughter,” according to Dutch newspaper de Volksrant, which said it had viewed footage of the suicide assisted.

Disease and marks on the neck

According to several local media, the woman was terminally ill and doctors gave her two years to live. Dutch newspapers report that the 64-year-old has been diagnosed with osteomyelitis – a disease that may have caused the alleged injury marks on her neck. This is a rare condition that occurs when bacteria or fungi infect a person’s bone marrow. Infections usually develop on the skin, at the site of a wound or surgery, and then spread through the bloodstream to the affected person’s bones. Clinical signs and symptoms vary depending on the area affected; swelling or restriction of movement may occur. In the delayed acute form, fever and severe pain are observed. Chronic infections and septic arthritis may occur; in the subacute form, symptoms are mild or even absent (asymptomatic).

How Sarco works

A person who wants to die lies down in the Sarco capsule and presses a button that immediately vaporizes the liquid nitrogen in the container and releases it into the device. In this way, the oxygen level inside the container drops below 5% in less than a minute, causing death by nitrogen asphyxiation. The cantonal prosecutor’s office of Schaffhausen was informed by a law firm that an assisted suicide using a Sarco capsule had taken place near a cottage in the Merishausen forest on Monday. Police added that “several people” were arrested and prosecutors opened an investigation on suspicion of incitement and complicity in suicide.