“My specialty is death,” Dr. Jack Kevorkian told TIME back in 1993 as he burnished his qualifications to counsel people on taking their own lives. The white-haired, wiry physician cited his specialization and, with no evidence of humility, declared, “If not a pathologist, who? Would you have a pediatrician do it? Or let’s get more absurd. What if I was a urologist? Could I help only men end their lives?”
When TIME did its cover on “Dr. Death” 18 years ago, Kevorkian was about to participate in his 16th assisted suicide. By the time his own end came — in Detroit, from kidney-related complications on the eve of the 21st anniversary of his first assisted suicide — the controversial physician was said to have had a role in more than 130 deaths. He had also served more than eight years in prison for second-degree murder and had the out-of-body pleasure of seeing Al Pacino portray him in an HBO movie called You Don’t Know Jack.
