A king room on the Tremendous 8 motel in Kingston, N.Y., is a forlorn place. Mismatched night time stands. An armchair with seen stains. Soggy grass outdoors the window.
“Resting for the journey forward,” the do-not-disturb signal says. It exhibits a lone automotive on a two-lane street, sandy hills beneath fluffy white clouds within the distance.
Doreen Brodhead checked into simply such a room within the fall, No. 102, the final one on the fitting on the finish of a slim, dimly lit hallway. Together with her was Stephen P. Miller, a former physician from Arizona with a jail time period in his previous. That they had gotten to know one another on-line.
Ms. Brodhead, a 59-year-old Kingston native, had lived with extreme ache in her neck and again most of her grownup life. She attributed it to her transient profession as a dental hygienist. Nobody — not docs or surgeons or chiropractors or acupuncturists — may repair it.
Mr. Miller, 85, was acquainted with ache. As a toddler, he had been badly burned in a tub of scalding water, a relative mentioned. Now, together with different illnesses, he had a continual spinal situation.
The following morning, Ms. Brodhead’s physique was discovered on the mattress in Room 102 subsequent to a word. A gasoline canister was close by. Mr. Miller was gone.
The authorities mentioned her loss of life was a suicide: asphyxiation by nitrogen gasoline. An finish to 4 many years of agony, Ms. Brodhead’s mom would say later.
However the Ulster County district legal professional accused Mr. Miller of unlawfully serving to Ms. Brodhead finish her life, charging him with manslaughter within the second diploma.
Mr. Miller mentioned he was an angel of mercy. Prosecutors referred to as him an angel of loss of life.
‘Open to Happiness’
Doreen Brodhead was born on March 17, 1964. She grew up the youngest of three sisters in and round Kingston, a Hudson River metropolis about 100 miles north of Manhattan. Her father was an IBM engineer within the period when the corporate’s success helped Kingston thrive.
Ms. Brodhead’s childhood included typical pastimes: Brownies, Little League softball, hand bell ringing with a church group. She obtained her dental hygienist’s license at 22.
Patricia Costa obtained to know her about 30 years later as a neighbor at Wiltwyck Gardens, a public housing complicated for seniors and folks with disabilities close to Broadway, Kingston’s most important drag. A couple of 12 months after Ms. Costa moved in, she mentioned, Ms. Brodhead started to divulge heart’s contents to her. She was form and unassuming, fast to chortle and “discovered” in astrology.
However there was one other aspect to Ms. Brodhead, Ms. Costa mentioned: a “disturbed lady” who complained consistently about her upstairs neighbor, her household and, above all, her poor well being.
Ms. Brodhead by no means married and didn’t have a associate. She didn’t work when Ms. Costa knew her and apparently had not for a very long time. She spoke of associates who had fallen away and dangerous relationships with males who abused her.
She had been in a automotive crash a number of years earlier, rear-ending one other car at a stoplight. 4 folks within the different automotive have been damage, one significantly. Ms. Brodhead obtained a foul bump on her head and two black eyes.
When officers arrived that night time, she denied ingesting, however there have been bottles of peach schnapps and sangria within the automotive, an arrest report mentioned; checks discovered alcohol, marijuana and Xanax in her system. She pleaded responsible to vehicular assault, was sentenced to 6 months in jail and 5 years’ probation, and had her driver’s license revoked. She settled two lawsuits filed in opposition to her beneath confidential phrases.
Ms. Brodhead’s life had narrowed a lot in her final years that she hardly ever went outdoors, Ms. Costa mentioned. She moved fastidiously when she did, in order to not stumble upon something, fearful that even the slightest contact could possibly be painful or trigger bruising.
She discovered some peace meditating in a church backyard throughout the road from the housing complicated, and a few calm listening to the music of Enya and Loreena McKennitt.
“She was open to happiness,” Ms. Costa mentioned. “She simply didn’t have it.”
A Brother’s Demise
By the point Stephen P. Miller entered Room 102 with Ms. Brodhead, he was now not a licensed physician and was affiliated with a right-to-die group in Arizona.
Born in Massachusetts, he acquired his medical diploma in 1964 and began his profession as a pediatrician at hospitals in Chicago and Boston. For greater than 25 years, he labored in California and Texas, together with because the medical director at a ache administration clinic in Houston.
In 2006, court docket information present, federal prosecutors charged him with tax evasion. He had hidden greater than $1 million in revenue offshore with the assistance of a corrupt monetary planner, they mentioned.
He was convicted regardless of insisting that the planner had duped him. His spouse divorced him, and he spent three years in jail and three extra on probation. Regulators in Texas and California revoked his medical licenses, based on authorities paperwork; his licenses in Arizona and Massachusetts expired.
After leaving jail in 2009, Mr. Miller moved to Tucson, Ariz. His older brother, Alan Miller, spent a part of annually there, and so they lived collectively for a few 12 months till Stephen moved right into a trailer. His most important revenue was $2,000 a month in Social Safety advantages.
In late 2019, Alan was hospitalized with a severe an infection. Stephen contacted Alan’s son, Geoffrey Miller, who flew in from Massachusetts. He and Stephen weren’t shut, though Geoffrey mentioned he remembered that when he was a boy and his uncle was abroad within the U.S. Air Drive, Stephen would ship him crystallized ginger candies from Japan.
The docs mentioned Alan would die quickly. Geoffrey mentioned he wished his father to die within the hospital, however Stephen, with out his nephew’s permission, persuaded the docs to launch him. Reluctantly, Geoffrey moved Alan again residence with round the clock nursing care and morphine to handle his ache. He made a chart to trace when the drug was to be given. He and Stephen would take shifts.
Geoffrey mentioned he realized inside a few days that Stephen was not giving Alan the morphine and wouldn’t clarify why. Not lengthy after that, Geoffrey was out having pizza with relations one night time when Stephen referred to as.
We will purchase gasoline on-line and make this occur at residence, Stephen mentioned.
Geoffrey advised him he didn’t need to be concerned.
A day or two later, Stephen raised the topic once more: Would Geoffrey accompany him to a gasoline distributor? Once more, Geoffrey balked.
Quickly, Alan died on his personal. However Stephen’s habits disturbed Geoffrey sufficient that he lower him off.
When he wrote his father’s obituary, he left Stephen’s title out.
‘Get the Demise You Need’
The suitable-to-die ethos is predicated on a perception that mentally competent adults with terminal sicknesses, incurable bodily ache and degenerative circumstances have a primary proper to finish their lives on their phrases.
“Our folks don’t need to die,” mentioned Jim Schultz, the board president of Selection and Dignity, the right-to-die group Mr. Miller belongs to. “They don’t need to reside in struggling.”
Serving to others die is known as various things — assisted suicide, self-deliverance, loss of life with dignity, medical support in dying, a closing exit — relying on the circumstances, some authorized, some not.
Opponents, together with non secular and disability-rights teams, argue that some folks might select suicide due to an inaccurate prognosis or strain to take action, even after altering their minds.
Regardless of the opposition, medical support in dying, beneath which adults with not more than six months to reside can self-administer life-ending prescription medicine, is now authorized in 10 states and Washington, D.C. It’s a subject of legislative debate in practically 20 extra states. New York lawmakers declined to approve it in 2024 for the ninth straight 12 months.
In the US, solely Vermont and Oregon permit nonresidents to pursue medical support in dying. Even when medical support in dying have been authorized in New York, it might not have been an choice for Ms. Brodhead, whose ache was continual however didn’t seem like terminal.
Selection and Dignity helps folks like her, Mr. Schultz mentioned. A 77-year-old retired Walgreens govt with a household historical past of most cancers and a sister-in-law with superior dementia, Mr. Schultz joined the group shortly after shifting to Tucson a number of years in the past. Mr. Miller recruited him onto the board.
Selection and Dignity’s mission, Mr. Schultz mentioned, is to teach folks on “the right way to get the loss of life you need,” together with making ready advance medical directives, speaking closing needs to members of the family and understanding the out there choices.
The group has about 100 dues-paying members and a mailing listing of about 500 names. Two or thrice a month, Mr. Schultz mentioned, the group refers people who find themselves contemplating assisted suicide to on-line sources or, typically, to Remaining Exit Community, a nationwide right-to-die group. Referred to as FEN, the all-volunteer group pairs “exit guides” with individuals who don’t need to finish their lives alone. (It’s unclear whether or not Ms. Brodhead contacted FEN.)
Mr. Schultz mentioned he had met Mr. Miller in particular person just a few occasions and described him as a “good man” with “an enormous coronary heart” who wished to assist folks.
Mr. Miller understood bodily struggling because of the childhood scalding, an expertise Geoffrey Miller mentioned had been “actually traumatic” for his uncle and had required main pores and skin grafts.
When he was sentenced within the tax case, Stephen Miller advised the choose that as a health care provider he had devoted himself to aiding “others much less lucky.” He mentioned he typically handled indigent sufferers with out pay, together with Hispanic immigrants in California and drug addicts in Houston.
“I’ve spent my skilled life in service to humanity,” he mentioned.
Room 102
Mr. Miller picked Ms. Brodhead up at her residence on Nov. 8, 2023, and drove her to a gasoline distributor, the place they obtained a tank of nitrogen. A retailer worker advised The New York Instances that Ms. Brodhead, who had no kids, had mentioned she wished it for the shock absorbers on her son’s motocross bike.
They drove a few mile to the Tremendous 8, and Mr. Miller carried the tank to the room, which Ms. Brodhead had booked upfront. A short while later, he left, drove to a ironmongery shop, purchased a wrench and returned. He left once more after about an hour and headed for Albany and a flight again to Arizona.
Questioned by investigators later, Mr. Miller mentioned he traveled the nation advising individuals who had determined to kill themselves. With out giving particulars, his lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, advised The Instances in February that Mr. Miller had helped in a number of suicides lately.
Mr. Miller advised investigators he had spoken with Ms. Brodhead at size about her choice earlier than coming to Kingston. The 2 had exchanged emails, Mr. Lichtman advised the court docket. He added that Mr. Miller had tried to speak Ms. Brodhead out of killing herself earlier than finally agreeing to assist.
Mr. Miller advised investigators he had sat with Ms. Brodhead whereas she ready to asphyxiate herself. She hesitated briefly, he mentioned. She advised him she was going to overlook her household, particularly her mom. The 2 spoke additional, and Ms. Brodhead proceeded as deliberate. Mr. Miller mentioned he left after she took her final breath, and that she had paid his bills, nothing extra.
Three months later, the Ulster County authorities introduced the manslaughter cost in opposition to him for violating New York’s statute in opposition to helping in a suicide. He pleaded not responsible with out contesting the fundamental information.
“That is anyone who’s right here as a result of he believes in what he was charged with,” Mr. Lichtman mentioned on the February listening to.
Mr. Miller was additionally charged with two assault counts, one for deliberately inflicting Ms. Brodhead “severe bodily damage” and the opposite for doing so with a “harmful instrument, to wit: a plastic bag and nitrogen gasoline.” He pleaded not responsible to these costs as properly. The proof in opposition to him consists of his statements to investigators and security-camera footage of his actions that night time. He could possibly be sentenced to 25 years if convicted.
‘He’s Toast’
Mary Brodhead, Doreen’s mom, appears unconvinced that Mr. Miller ought to even be prosecuted.
“It was her alternative,” Ms. Brodhead, 91, mentioned in a quick interview carried out by means of the storm door at her tidy home on Kingston’s outskirts. “He didn’t pressure her to do it.”
A half-dozen surgical procedures had not eased the distress that prompted her daughter to take her life earlier than turning 60, she mentioned.
“Nothing actually to speak about,” she added, strolling away from the door. “She had 22 good years.”
Robert Rivas, a former basic counsel for the Remaining Exit Community, mentioned that, philosophically talking, Mr. Miller “most likely deserves a medal so far as I’m involved.” As a authorized matter, nevertheless, Mr. Rivas added: “He’s toast.”
FEN advises folks on varied end-of-life choices, and its exit guides additionally present companionship to these utilizing the nitrogen technique Ms. Brodhead selected.
Enjoying that position isn’t with out authorized dangers. The guides function beneath a strict protocol, usually working in pairs and assembly with potential purchasers in particular person upfront for dialogue. Guides don’t encourage or facilitate suicide, or deal with any gear concerned, FEN says. By limiting their position to speaking, exit guides are usually protected by the First Modification.
As charged, Mr. Miller, who has no obvious connection to FEN, went properly past that.
He has been in Arizona since being launched in February on a $1 million bond organized by his son. His subsequent court docket date is in September.
Mr. Lichtman, Mr. Miller’s lawyer, mentioned by e-mail in June that they have been “hoping to succeed in a plea settlement which might spare Stephen a custodial sentence.”
The Ulster County district legal professional, Emmanuel Nneji, declined to remark by means of a spokeswoman.
Mr. Schultz of Selection and Dignity mentioned he had solely discovered of Mr. Miller’s position in Ms. Brodhead’s loss of life from information accounts. He declined to touch upon the prison costs. He mentioned he was impressed by the “dedication to his trigger” Mr. Miller had proven by touring to New York to be with Ms. Brodhead.
On the Tremendous 8 motel in Might, an worker mentioned that the housekeeper who discovered Ms. Brodhead’s physique was nonetheless uneasy about going into Room 102.
Mr. Miller appears to have moved on.
Earlier than his launch in February, his lawyer advised the choose Mr. Miller would “not be concerned in any kind of habits that obtained us right here at the moment.”
There isn’t a indication that Mr. Miller has aided in any extra suicides since then, however his dedication to his trigger doesn’t seem to have wavered.
Mr. Schultz mentioned Mr. Miller had just lately participated in a Selection and Dignity class on “deliberate life completion,” together with alternate options when authorized strategies like medical support in dying should not out there.
The dialogue included a how-to on the choice Ms. Brodhead selected.
Susan C. Beachy contributed analysis.