In this Dec. 3, 1990 file photo, Dr. Jack Kevorkian sits in his lawyer's office in Southfield, Mich., after Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson announced that he would be charged with murder in the death of a woman who committed suicide by using a device of the doctor's. Kevorkian's lawyer and friend, Mayer Morganroth, says the assisted suicide advocate died Friday, June 3, 2011 at a Detroit-area hospital at the age of 83. (AP Photo, File)

A recent obituary told of the death of Jack Kevorkian at the age of 83 in Michigan.

Kevorkian? His name may ring a faint bell, but you may not remember why it was very much in the news some years ago.

Dr. Kevorkian's name became familiar in a horrible context because he was involved in doctor-assisted suicides. He was a retired pathologist who said he had assisted 130 people who were gravely ill to speed their deaths. But it wasn't legal.

Doctors try to make lives comfortable and healthy as long as possible. Sometimes nothing can be done for recovery. But speeding death - "mercy killing" - is wrong.

Kevorkian, who had been hospitalized since May 18 as a result of pneumonia and kidney problems, died from a pulmonary blood clot last Friday in Royal Oak, Mich. - apparently naturally.