Just found this. Crazy. Wonder if the lady is telling the truth.
"MacNeill also had an affair with another woman for several months about two years before his wife's death, according to prosecutors. She told her psychiatrist she was having an affair with a "serial killer," an affidavit states. She said MacNeill told her he'd tried to kill his mother when he was young, but his sister called 911 and medical personnel revived her. He also said he'd killed his brother in a bathtub, told the woman he wanted to kill a daughter and offered to kill the woman's husband "to relieve her of an abusive relationship," an arrest warrant states.
MacNeill told the woman he had written an article in the Journal of American Medical Association titled, "It's Over, Debbie." The article was written by a doctor promoting "mercy killing," who euthanized a patient with an overdose of a sedative pain killer but was never held accountable, according to court documents.
"The defendant said he, too, had killed and discussed ways in which he could take another's life without being caught," prosecutors wrote in the charging documents filed Friday."
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=21854376
BBM I know of this article. I read it a couple of years ago for some research on my Euthanasia literature review for my research methods class in college. The article was published in 1988 with "anonymous" as the author. They never found out who the author was (was not released by the JAMA). Could it have been Macneill?? When was he a resident? Anyone know?
This was a very controversial paper in 1988- people didn't talk about euthanasia at that time and it was considered murder at that time.
Anyone could claim to be the author of this article. The only people who would really know would be the JAMA and the person who actually wrote it.
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-------anonymous account published in JAMA ("It's Over,
Debbie"), a physician claimed to have injected morphine
sulfate sedative into a patient who appeared to be in pain,
thereby causing her death.'----------------------------------
http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1757&context=facpub
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http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...apRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9hIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6870,5224855
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This is the article:
It's Over, Debbie
The call came in the middle of the night. As a gynecology resident rotating through a large, private hospital, I had come to detest telephone calls, because invariably I would be up for several hours and would not feel good the next day. However, duty called, so I answered the phone. A nurse informed me that a patient was having difficulty getting rest, could I please see her. She was on 3 North. That was the gynecologic-oncology unit, not my usual duty station. As I trudged along, bumping sleepily against walls and corners and not believing I was up again, I tried to imagine what I might find at the end of my walk. Maybe an elderly woman with an anxiety reaction, or perhaps something particularly horrible.
I grabbed the chart from the nurses station on my way to the patient's room, and the nurse gave me some hurried details: a 20-year-old girl named Debbie was dying of ovarian cancer. She was having unrelenting vomiting apparently as the result of an alcohol drip administered for sedation. Hmmm, I thought. Very sad. As I approached the room I could hear loud, labored breathing. I entered and saw an emaciated, dark-haired woman who appeared much older than 20. She was receiving nasal oxygen, had an IV, and was sitting in bed suffering from what was obviously severe air hunger. The chart noted her weight at 80 pounds. A second woman, also dark-haired but of middle age, stood at her right, holding her hand. Both looked up as I entered. The room seemed filled with the patient's desperate effort to survive. Her eyes were hollow, and she had suprasternal and intercostal retractions with her rapid inspirations. She had not eaten or slept in two days. She had not responded to chemotherapy and was being given supportive care only. It was a gallows scene, a cruel mockery of her youth and unfulfilled potential. Her only words to me were, "Let's get this over with."
I retreated with my thoughts to the nurses station. The patient was tired and needed rest. I could not give her health, but I could give her rest. I asked the nurse to draw 20 mg of morphine sulfate into a syringe. Enough, I thought, to do the job. I took the syringe into the room and told the two women I was going to give Debbie something that would let her rest and to say good-bye. Debbie looked at the syringe, then laid her head on the pillow with her eyes open, watching what was left of the world. I injected the morphine intravenously and watched to see if my calculations on its effects would be correct. Within seconds her breathing slowed to a normal rate, her eyes closed, and her features softened as she seemed restful at last. The older woman stroked the hair of the now-sleeping patient. I waited for the inevitable next effect of depressing the respiratory drive. With clocklike certainty, within four minutes the breathing rate slowed even more, then became irregular, then ceased. The dark-haired woman stood erect and seemed relieved.
It's over, Debbie.
--Name withheld by request
From A Piece of My Mind, a feature in the Jan. 8, 1988, issue of JAMA (Vol 259, No. 2). Edited by Roxanne K. Young, Associate Editor.
http://web.missouri.edu/~bondesonw/Debbie.HTM
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Very interesting. Thanks for that info. :seeya:
