Harsh accusations from the first Sarco client Did death capsule operators want the money of those willing to die?

The first woman who was supposed to die in the controversial Sarco death capsule has made serious accusations against those responsible in a letter. They are defending themselves.

On July 17, the American Jessica Campbell* was to have become the first client of the Sarco death capsule. The woman turned 55 on that day - and wanted to say goodbye to her life. The premiere was postponed.

The invention for assisted suicide triggered a huge media response in Switzerland in recent weeks. The public prosecutor's office of the canton of Schaffhausen also issued a ban on the capsule. The operators around Sarco inventor and founder of the euthanasia organization Exit International Philip Nitschke reacted and postponed the inauguration.

The operators cited a "deterioration in the mental state" of the person who was supposed to die with the Sarco as the reason for the postponement. It is now clear that Jessica Campbell has now departed this life with the help of another Swiss euthanasia organization. In a letter that has now emerged and is available to the NZZ, she makes serious accusations against the Sarco operators.

Property and possessions sold

Campbell comes from the US state of Alabama. She needed dialysis due to a kidney disease, suffered from polyneuropathy, was confined to a wheelchair and was very overweight. She decided to end her life. A suicide attempt with painkillers failed - then she came across the new offer in Switzerland.

She sold almost all her possessions and traveled to Europe with 40,000 dollars. She arrives in Switzerland via the Netherlands - and then experiences "financial exploitation" and "media stress", as the NZZ reports.

Campbell was booked into a luxury hotel in Lucerne, which cost over 7,000 dollars for five nights. She felt completely out of place as a "simple southern girl".

"You don't need your money anymore"

She was also financially exploited by her supervisor Florian Willet and Fiona Stewart - the two run the Swiss Exit International subsidiary "The Last Resort" together. Both had insisted on charging personal expenses to Campbell's credit card.

The American woman paid for food, restaurant bills, tickets and even toys for Stewart's dog. "You're going to die soon anyway, so you don't need your money," Stewart, who is also Nitschke's partner, is said to have said to her.

Stewart's business partner Florian Willet contradicts the account in the letter: "Rubbing it in the faces of people who are dying that they will soon be dead anyway would be a coarseness and unsavory thing to do that could not be more disconcerting to us," he is quoted as saying by the NZZ.

Jessica Campbell was also constantly surrounded by journalists. Even at intimate moments such as the scattering of her parents' ashes, she was pressured into a media spectacle by her carers. "The media circus was always in the foreground, while I became sicker and weaker," she wrote in her letter.

Those responsible deny the accusations

The Sarco premiere ultimately failed due to Campbell's growing mistrust of those responsible. Reports about the possible criminal consequences of using Sarco had also increased her doubts.

After the abortion, Exit International left Campbell destitute in Zermatt. Fearing homelessness and worrying about poor medical care, she no longer wanted to return to the USA. "I sacrificed everything, used up all my resources and cut all ties, believing that Sarco would offer me a peaceful end," Campbell writes.

Those responsible at Sarco deny the allegations. Florian Willet told the NZZ that he doubted whether the letter came from the "right" Jessica. She would have borne her own travel expenses and there was no media stress. "She seemed to enjoy the attention and conversations with journalists in general," says Willet.

*Name changed