A B.C. grandmother and an American priest are alleged to be part of an underground movement that is helping people around the world kill themselves.

By Asian Pacific News Service

Monique Charest picked January 7, 2002 to die. The cat lover, made arrangements for her beloved felines before taking her life in her living room while watching Coronation Street, one of her favourite TV shows.

The 64-year-old former nun was found dead in her apartment in Duncan, B.C.

Leyanne Burchell, 52, a Vancouver school teacher picked June 26, 2002 to die.

Months before her death, Burchell, took early retirement from her teaching job at the B.C. Children's Hospital to see old friends around the world.

A relative dedicated a bench at Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Park, where she spent much of her last few weeks. She was found dead in her nearby home.

Rosemary Toole of Dublin, Ireland picked January 25, 2002 to die.

The 49-year-old former Dublin bank teller, who was twice married, separated from her husband and had no children, asked for a smoke before committing suicide at a rented house in Donnybrook, Ireland.

The three women did not know each other in life. Their deaths, however, had a common thread that led police investigators to Evelyn Marie Martens, a 72-year-old granny from Langford a suburb of Victoria, B.C.

Police in Ireland and B.C. believe that Martens had a hand in the death of the three women. Martens is a member of the Right to Die Network of Canada that advocates suicide by C$50 Exit Bags, which are heavy duty plastic bags that are pulled over ones head and filled with helium. If Charest, Burchell and Toole had killed themselves this way, death from oxygen deprivation would have occurred within minutes.

Less than six months after the three women were found dead, RCMP arrested Martens on a Vancouver Island highway shortly after she disembarked from a ferry from Vancouver. They charged her with aiding and counselling the suicides of Charest and Burchell. Both women were believed to be terminally ill - Charest with respiratory and heart problems that prevented her from volunteering at her local SPCA and Burchell with a lingering stomach cancer.

Following Martens's arrest, RCMP said they were examining all sudden-death files from the last five years in British Columbia.

Three months ago, Irish police alleged that Martens supplied Toole with the "exit bag" which was bought over the Internet.

Police said Toole was not suffering from a terminal illness.

She had to give up her job in the bank due to a mental illness and was known to be suffering from acute depression - a view shared by family members.

Under Irish law, anyone who "aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another" is guilty of an offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

In Canada"the maximum sentence for the offence is also 14 years.

The cluster of suicides in January 2002 have led to an international investigation which has shed light on a global underground movement that is helping people kill themselves.

Police in Ireland, the United States, Europe and Canada believe that the group and individuals who helped these three women die have assisted in suicides of scores of others around the world.

The Irish investigation which linked Martens to Toole's death has also connected the case to an American Unitarian minister who assisted in the suicide.

Ireland is now seeking the extradition of Reverend George Exoo of West Virginia, who is suspected of assisting up to 100 suicides across the globe.

Police allege that Exoo and his gay partner, Thomas McGurrin, were paid US$2,500 to fly to Ireland on 22 January, 2002 to meet Toole.

Exoo and McGurrin, who belong to the organisation Compassionate Chaplaincy, an American group that helps people end their own lives, met Toole at the Dublin airport.

Toole paid for the Americans to stay in a Dublin hotel on 24 January before summoning them to a house she had rented in Donnybrook, an affluent south Dublin suburb.

Exoo, who has admitted his role in the assisted suicide, insists she was suffering from a terminal illness.

"She had reported to me that she had a build-up of something or other in her brain. The doctors were unable to control it ... She had gone through hell and there was no relief for her," he was quoted in the Irish media as saying.

The minister said that Toole appeared well prepared for her exit from the world.

There were Irish pills and she had ground them up before we got there.

Her doctors had supplied her with tons of stuff,' he told the Charleston Gazette.

Exoo said that he and McGurrin waited for half an hour after Toole stopped breathing before leaving the Dublin townhouse.

He claimed that they had been granted permission from Toole's father to help her end her life.

Following the suicide, Exoo and McGurrin flew on to Amsterdam. While in Amsterdam, Exoo claimed, they received a 'sign' from the dead woman.

"We always ask people to give us a sign when they reach the other side successfully. And they come within 24 hours of a person passing. She said her sign would be a bunch of roses. The very next night we were walking down the street in Amsterdam, and a guy brushed by us and he was carrying four bunches of red roses. I think that's reasonable evidence. Toole left 60,000 Euros (C$95,000) in her will to a euthanasia group, although Exoo said he does not know if the money was destined for his charity.

The Unitarian minister said he has 'nothing to hide' and is prepared to meet Irish authorities over the death.

The B.C. and Irish suicide cases linked to Martens have become a flashpoint for the debate over the ultimate civil right - should you have the right to kill yourself

Martens has made three court appearances in Duncan provincial court for her preliminary hearing, the latest of which was last week.

There is a publication ban on the testimony and evidence presented in court, which is deciding if she will have to stand trial before a judge and jury.

Joining Martens in the courtroom were members of the undergound assisted-suicide movement, academics and relatives of the suicide victims.

The Martens case has generated widespread support in the so-called right-to-die movement.

The Hemlock Society USA, an American right-to-die group, donated $5,000 to a Martens' defence fund.

Right-to-die groups across Canada have been asking their members to contribute money to aid her defence.

Martens' name is mentioned in a brief published on the Internet by John Hofsess, founder of The Right to Die Network of Canada.

The network was formed in 1991 to give Canadians a practical means of changing the law to permit choice in dying.

The Right to Die Network of Canada is made of up "many thousands" of people and includes four smaller organizations"Choice in Dying in White Rock/Surrey, the Goodbye Society in Vancouver, Dying with Dignity in Toronto and Choice in Dying in Ottawa.

Another Internet message thanks Martens for sharing the workload. Martens supporters in the Duncan area are also circulating a petition calling for a halt to the court case.

On the other side, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of B.C., based in Vancouver argues legalizing assisted suicide would create an uncontrollable situation, where many sick Canadians could needlessly die.

The coalition has filed a police report on the sale of exit-bags, part of a death kit priced at $50, which is described by one seller as being a "rugged, clear, plastic bag of proven size with a sewn-in Velcro collar and fastened-in, flexible plastic tubing."

The person who wishes to die puts the bag over his or her head, then pulls it down over the face.

Helium gas is then pumped into the bag and used to starve the brain of oxygen.

The gas dissipates soon after making the cause of death difficult to establish.

Martens lawyer, Catherine Tyhurst, said the issue of assisted suicide ultimately affects everybody because everybody dies some day.

"Yes, this certainly is a global issue," she said in an interview.

"The issue of when people are hopelessly ill, in pain and dying whether or not there should be legislation permitting some form of controlled mechanism to allow those people to end their lives."

Russel Ogden, a Vancouver criminologist who studies covert euthanasia, said it is difficult to estimate the number of assisted suicides because they are not documented or reported to official agencies.

He said there is a worldwide underground assisted-suicide movement that he calls the "deathing counterculture."

At the core of this death business is a shadowy group called NuTech"an international organization of doctors, nurses, lawyers, psychologists, social workers and lay people who meet once or twice a year to discuss ways people can end their lives without breaking the law.

Martens is reportedly a key member of NuTech or Self-Deliverance New Technology Group, which was launched a few years ago by right-to-die advocates searching for better ways to kill people.

Right-to-Die advocates say there is already a system in the works that is even better than the exit-bag, which will make it possible for anyone to kill themselves easily, ending the risk of assisted-suicide charges.

As for Martens, she has already chosen to be tried by a judge and jury if the case goes ahead.

She believes assisted suicide is an issue that should be judged by the community and her peers.

The charges against her could set legal precedents, even if she isn't committed to stand trial, she said.

"I hope it will help to change the law, so that every person has the right to choose their own destiny at the time of their choosing," Martens told reporters outside her court hearing.

Canada's right-to-die movement seems to have found a home in Vancouver Island.

The movement gained prominence in the early 1990s after the Supreme Court of Canada rejected a plea by Sue Rodriguez of Victoria for an assisted suicide.

Rodriguez, who had Lou Gehrig's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) committed suicide using barbiturates in 1994.

Federal NDP MP Svend Robinson said her death was an assisted suicide but the doctor who helped Rodriguez has never been identified.

More recently a Nanaimo woman Lorraine Miles, 40, killed herself as well as her ailing 74-year-old husband Tom Powell with a barbiturate overdose rather than face the legal repercussions for helping him die.

In another case, Saanich resident Linda Whetung died in her car last March of carbon monoxide poisoning, apparently to end the pain and discomfort of her arthritis.

A friend of hers, Julianna Zsiros, has been charged with assisting her to die.

In another high profile assisted suicide case in September 1997, Burnaby philanthropist Natverlal Thakore 78, was found dead in his motel room outside Detroit.

He'd been given barbiturates and a lethal injection of potassium chloride.

A two-page note indicated that American euthanasia advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian, dubbed 'Dr. Death' was involved.

A devout Hindu who considered Mahatma Gandhi to be the guiding force in his life, Thakore earned a master's degree at Simon Fraser University, where he taught the philosophy of education in the early '70s. He subsequently became a successful land developer and philanthropist.

The university has an award named after him for creativity and commitment to non-violence.