Memorial Service For Dr. Jack Kevorkian To Be Held Friday

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - After initially rejecting the notion of a public remembrance, a public memorial service for Jack Kevorkian will be held Friday at White Chapel Cemetery in Troy, attorney Mayer Morganroth said Monday.

"We weren't going to do anything, but we started getting call from all across the country and from foreign countries, too," Morganroth said. "There is just so much interest from people who wanted to do something to remember Jack."

Kevorkian, the retired pathologist who became the unrelenting voice for physician-assisted suicide, died Friday at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. Kevorkian, 83, was being treated for pneumonia and kidney ailments when he was stricken with a pulmonary thrombosis.

The 9:30 a.m. memorial will be open to the public. A small private memorial will be held later, Morganroth said.

Kevorkian admitted attending about 130 deaths and was acquitted in three murder cases before daring officials to charge him in a "60 Minutes" broadcast. The news magazine segment showed a tape of him delivering a fatal injection to Thomas Youk who had Lou Gehrig's disease.

He was convicted in 1999 of second-degree murder and given a 10-25 year sentence. Paroled in 2007, Kevorkian was the subject last year of a HBO bio-pic starring Al Pacino.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.