3 Shocking Cases of Consensual Homicide

Consensual homicide refers to the act of killing another person with their consent or per their request to help them commit suicide. Although Death By Dignity laws exist in a handful of U.S. states including Texas and Oregon, the first to legislate the laws, the act of taking the life of another person is considered murder and illegal in the U.S.

Dr. Jack Kevovorkian is the most well-known person to provide “assisted suicide” services in the U.S. resulting in a prison sentence of 10 to 25 years. He was released after agreeing to never help with assisted suicide again and died at age 83. Others have agreed to help people commit suicide over the years, though it usually hasn’t ended favorably for them. Read four stories below.

Susan Potempa

Robert Potempa and his son returned home from a weekend getaway in 1993 to find 50-year-old Susan Potempa, Robert’s wife and mother of the son, dead in the garage. The woman had been strangled and then beaten with an electric drill.

As police began to investigate the murder, they learned very unusual information.

A year before the murder, Potempa was diagnosed with breast cancer. Doctors saved her life by performing a mastectomy, but this left her in constant pain. She wanted to die and asked four men in the neighborhood to help her do it. She had life insurance in place but it did not pay out on deaths by suicide. She needed one of the four men to help but they all declined the offer.

Police did not have any leads in the case until a witness came forward with information. The individual told police that his friend, 18-year-old Reginald Williams, killed the woman. Police had the friend record a conversation about the murder with Williams. He admitted to the murder and was then taken into custody.

Williams told police Potempa hired him to help her commit suicide by murder. On Thanksgiving night, the woman picked him up and they drove back to her home where he strangled her until she lost consciousness. He then took the $2,100 in cash Potempa set aside for him and left.

Potempa wasn’t dead and wanted the job done right, according to Williams. She tracked him down and brought him back to her house. This time, Williams says Potempa told him to do whatever he needed to do to kill her, so long as she was unconscious first. Williams said he then choked her until she fell unconscious. He then used an electric drill to hit Potempa seven or eight times.

Williams was convicted of Potempa’s death and sentenced to 26-years in prison in 1996.

Tashina Rae Sutherland

Jessica Ashley Handley invited her best friend, Tashina Rae Sutherland, to her boyfriend’s home on the night of April 25, 2012, for a party. Sutherland agreed and drank alcohol and snorted cocaine with her friend and her boyfriend for most of the night well into the next day.

That afternoon, Sutherland asked Hanley to make a suicide pact with her but Hanley said she did not want to end her life. Hanley told police this infuriated Sutherland who thought she was a wimp. Sutherland told her best friend to kill her instead.

Hanley stabbed Sutherland 41 times with a boning knife and a bayonet. She suffered injuries to her chest, back, neck, head, and abdomen. After killing Sutherland, Hanley dragged her best friend to the bathtub. She sat in the bathroom with the body, wondering how to get rid of it.

Hanley texted her boyfriend telling him she had killed her best friend. He rushed home, finding the home in disarray and Sutherland in the bathtub. He called the police after telling Hanley to leave the house.

She did as instructed, visiting her father. She told him what she had done. Hanley’s father drove her to the police station. She confessed to the crime and was taken into custody.

Sutherland had written a suicide note before her death, asking her family to always look up at the sky to remember her on the day she died. Hanley said she had been planning her death well before this day. Hanley pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to seven years, nine months in prison.

Jeffrey Locker

Locker, a father of three, was found dead in his car in front of an East Harlem housing project. The motivational speaker had been shot seven times in the chest. His ATM card was missing. Minor used the ATM card five times at five separate locations, making it easy for police to track him down.

Keith Minor, a 36-year-old ex-con, admitted to killing Locker, but told police a shocking story. He said that Locker was in debt and wanted to die. He paid him to murder him so his family would get the proceeds from his life insurance policy, which did not pay out on suicide.

Minor told police he took the ATM card as payment for the task, which he and Locker had agreed upon earlier.

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