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Social Worker Arrested After Admitting to Helping Elderly Man Commit Suicide
Pills via Shutterstock
A social worker in Orange County was arrested today after she admitted to helping at 86-year-old man in Laguna Woods commit suicide this fall.Jack Koency's death this September didn't seem suspicious at first since he was elderly. But investigators with the Orange County sheriff's department found out that he had already arranged for his ashes to be scattered and that there was an address for a euthanasia association among his things. Then a toxicology report found that he died after ingesting a drug cocktail of Oxycodone, Fluoxytine and Alprazolam, according to City News Service.
A video taken shortly before Koency's death showed a social worker Elizabeth Barrett, 65, crushing up pills and putting them into a drink for him while he was in his apartment. Barrett, who said she knew Koency for four years, denied helping Koency until she was confronted with the video, CNS reported.
She was arrested today at her home in Laguna Woods this morning and was booked on suspicion of assisting a suicide.
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