“My mother died in fear and hunted.” Mado Holthuis states this in a statement that the public prosecutor read in court in Den Bosch on Monday. Alex Schot from Eindhoven helped her 78-year-old mother with the suicide powder Drug X. Lonely and a day earlier than she had told Mado, she ended her life. Mado thinks that Schot should pay for the funeral costs. She therefore claims compensation of 4900 euros.
Her lawyer Sébas Diekstra submitted that claim on Monday during the criminal case against Alex Schot. The prosecutor read a statement from Mado in court. Her mother Jeane was depressed and did not want to live anymore. Mado thinks that the ‘suicide cowboys’ of Coöperatie Laatste Wil (CLW), of which Schot is a member, ‘haunted’ her death.
“My mother died with a big lamp and iPhone in her face.”
“That she wanted to die, I have no problem with that, but the way in which it is,” it sounded. Jeane was not allowed by the organization to say anything about her plans to anyone. As a result, she also increasingly excluded her daughter. She declined to share any details about her plans. And so she died a day earlier than she had told Mado. “CLW persuaded her to die a day early.”
On the day of her death, Jeane filmed herself with a phone attached to a lamp and a selfie stick. As requested by the cooperative. “That was collecting data to show that death was not painful. Apparently CLW wasn’t so sure. Result: my mother died with a large lamp and iPhone in her face.”
Mado’s mother ended up lying dead in her house for three days. “All curtains and windows had to be tightly closed,” the officer read. “The water ran from the windows. I wouldn’t wish such a gruesome image on anyone.”
“If there were good legislation, none of this would have been necessary.”
After Jeane’s death, CLW reported in a newsletter that Jeane had died painlessly. That’s what the doctors would have said. “But both doctors later denied that, because they had no way of knowing. This makes the entire CLW unreliable,” says Mado. Suspect Alex Schot did not want to go into it. According to him, many of the accusations are about other members of the cooperative.
Schot’s lawyer does not agree with the compensation that Mado is now claiming. According to him, the costs are due to the death itself, while Mado is disturbed by the way CLW has treated her.
Mado hopes that the euthanasia law will be scrutinized soon. “If there were good legislation in the Netherlands, none of this would have been necessary. My mother would have died in my arms. Then I and other relatives would have been spared a lot of suffering.”
Talking about suicidal thoughts helps and is possible with the 113 Suicide Prevention Foundation via 0900 0113 (available 24 hours a day) and 113.nl.
READ ALSO: 10 people died after taking suicide powder, seller in court