Woman Who Sold Suicide Kits Will Be Sentenced For Tax Crimes

Sharlotte Hydorn sold mail-order suicide kits that resembled the device in this photo that include a plastic bag to fit over the head and a tube to attach to a helium tank

A 92-year-old woman who sold $40 kits for people to kill themselves faces sentencing in San Diego for failing to file federal tax returns.

Sharlotte Hydorn faces a maximum term of one year in prison when she is sentenced Monday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernard Skomal.

Both the prosecution and defense agree she should be spared prison and sentenced to five years’ probation. The prosecution team also believes she should be court-ordered to pay more than $25,000 to the IRS for back-taxes.

She pleaded guilty to the tax charge, but under an agreement with prosecutors she will not be in charged in state court with involvement in six suicides.

Ms. Hydorn began assisting physicians with patient suicides after her husband, Rex, died of colon cancer, said Charles Goldberg, her attorney. Her husband was in “agonizing pain” and did not want to die “filled with tubes in a hospital.”

Hydorn felt she could design a helium hood that would be more comfortable for patients than the ones she saw doctors using. She received “thousands” of orders for her hoods and began charging for her time and materials.

Agents who raided her home in suburban San Diego last year found checks that were not cashed and thousands of dollars in cash from buyers, her attorney said.

Prosecutors said she took no steps to verify the physical condition, age, identity or mental state of her customers and therefore had no idea whether her kits were being bought by people suffering from depression or by minors acting without the consent of an adult. Court documents say she sold more than 1,300 kits to people across the United States and abroad. Most of them contacted her by mail or phone.

Hydorn’s kits included tubing, material for the hood and a user diagram. A needed helium source was not included. Investigators determined that the kits were sold to at least 50 people in San Diego County since 2007 and that four of those people last year used the kits to commit suicide. None was terminally ill, according to investigators.

 Read more: Huffington Post