November 8, 1995
Web posted at: 11 p.m. EST
PONTIAC, Michigan (CNN) -- A 58-year-old woman who took her life Wednesday morning with the assistance of Dr. Jack Kevorkian apparently was not terminally ill, according to the doctor who performed an autopsy on her.
Kevorkian's lawyer Geoffrey Feiger told reporters that Patricia Cashman of San Marcos, California, had suffered from metastatic breast cancer for three years and had been counseling with Kevorkian for "a number of months."
But Dr. Kanu Virani, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner for Oakland County, told CNN his autopsy revealed no signs of cancer.
"The autopsy findings are that Mrs. Cashman died of acute carbon monoxide poisoning," said Dr. Virani. "The autopsy does not show any residual cancer in the breast or any metastatic cancer in major organs like the lungs, liver, kidneys or adrenal glands or lymph nodes."
Virani said it would be at least a week before examination of the brain and spinal cord is completed, but there was no visible cancer.
"There was no terminal illness at all as far as the structure of the body and internal major organs are concerned," he said.
According to Fieger, Kevorkian "kept her alive, kept her going," but her pain was so great from the cancer that had spread to her brain and chest that Cashman finally asked Kevorkian to help her end her life.
"She had a mastectomy on the right side sometime in the past, but there is no residual cancer in that side of the breast or on the other side of the breast," Virnai concluded.
Cashman, the owner of a travel agency, came to Michigan with her sister, who was also present when she died, according to Fieger. She is the 26th person to commit suicide with Kevorkian present since 1990.
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