Suicide pod activist's desperate two-word warning before he killed himself
A suicide pod activist who took his own life was left "broken" and "deeply traumatised" after being arrested by police over the death of a woman. Dr Florian Willet, 47, was arrested last September over the death of a 64-year-old woman who died in a Sarco pod in a forest near Merishausen, Switzerland.
At the time of the woman's death, police initially claimed there were strangulation marks on her neck, and as he was the only person present at the time of the woman's death, he was arrested by authorities.
Dr Willet was taken away by police and remained in custody for 70 days while investigators explored the circumstances surrounding her death. Prosecutors said there was a "strong suspicion'" that '"intentional homicide" was involved.
Swiss law allows assisted suicide so long as the person takes his or her life with no 'external assistance' and those who help the person die do not do so for 'any self-serving motive,' says a government website.
The Sarco was designed to allow a person sitting in its reclining seat to push a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber. The person is then supposed to fall unconscious and die by suffocation in a few minutes.
Sarco pod inventor Dr Philip Nitschke Willet said Dr Willet was admitted to psychiatric hospital twice before his death on May 5 after he was "deeply traumatised" by the arrest.
In a statement, he said: "When Florian was released suddenly and unexpectedly from pre-trial detention in early December 2024, he was a changed man.
"Gone was his warm smile and self-confidence. In its place was a man who seemed deeply traumatised by the experience of incarceration and the wrongful accusation of strangulation."
Dr Willet died last month "with the help of a specialised organisation", having 'fallen' from the third floor of his home in Zurich earlier this year, which caused "serious damage".
He believes the activist had developed "an acute polymorphic psychotic disorder" brought on "following the stress of pre-trial detention and the associated processes", adding: "No one was surprised.
"Florian's spirit was broken. He knew that he did nothing illegal or wrong, but his belief in the rule of law in Switzerland was in tatters.
"In the final months of his life, Dr Florian Willet shouldered more than any man should."
In a warning of what was to come, Dr Willett once said he had "considered suicide" at the age of five after his dad killed himself when he was just 14.
He said before his arrest: "I was extremely sad because I loved my father. But, I understood immediately my father wanted to do this because he was a rational person, which means that expecting him to remain alive just because I need a father would mean extending his suffering."
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