Elderly Couple Refuse Food, Water to Die; Get Evicted from Facility

Aug. 18, 2011
By MIKAELA CONLEY
via Good Morning America

At 92 and 90, Armond and Dorothy Rudolph’s bodies were failing them. He suffered severe pain from spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal column. She was almost entirely immobile. Both suffered from early dementia, according to their son Neil Rudolph. They wanted to die.

The Rudolphs, married for 69 years, decided to refuse food and water to end their lives. Although they lived in the Village at Alameda, an assisted living facility in Albuquerque, N.M., they maintained they had a right to die on their own accord.

Three days into their fast, the couple told their plan to staff at the facility. Administrators immediately called 911, citing an attempted suicide.

The Village evicted the couple, and the next day, the Rudolphs moved into a private home, where they again stopped eating and drinking. Ten days after he began the fast, Armond Rudolph died. Dorothy Rudolph died the following day.

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