US / Jack Kevorkian Jack Kevorkian Dead at 83 Assisted suicide advocate hospitalized since last month By Evann Gastaldo, Newser Staff Posted Jun 3, 2011 8:20 AM CDT Copied In this Feb. 6, 1991 photo, retired Royal Oak, Mich. pathologist, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, left, listens as his attorney, talks with reporters. (AP Photo) Jack Kevorkian, longtime advocate of assisted suicide, died early this morning at age 83. Kevorkian had been hospitalized in Michigan since last month for kidney trouble and pneumonia. A friend tells the AP he recently spoke to Kevorkian about his pending release and rehabilitation, "then I left and he took a turn for the worst." Nurses played music by Johann Sebastian Bach for him before he died. No cause of death has been determined, but the friend says it was likely pulmonary thrombosis. (More Jack Kevorkian stories.) Report an error