“Dr. Death” Jack Kevorkian, assisted suicide advocate, dead at 83

Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan pathologist and advocate of assisted suicide, died early Friday in a Detroit area hospital following a short illness at the age of 83.

Kevorkian, dubbed Dr. Death, died at 2:30 a.m. Friday after being hospitalized since last month with pneumonia and kidney problems, his attorney Mayer Morganroth said, CBS reports. The likely cause of death was pulmonary thrombosis, Morganroth said.

Kevorkian made international headlines as a supporter of "right-to-die" legislation and physician-assisted suicide.

He was charged with murder numerous times through the 1990s for helping terminally ill patients take their own lives. He was convicted on second-degree murder charges in 1999 stemming from the death of a patient who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease, CNN reports. He was paroled in 2007.

"I had seen him earlier and he was conscious," Morganroth reportedly said, adding that the two spoke about Kevorkian's pending release from the hospital and planned start of rehabilitation. "Then I left and he took a turn for the worst and I went back."

Nurses at the hospital played recordings of classical music by composer Johann Sebastian Bach for Kevorkian before he died, Morganroth said.