Co-President Of Suicide Pod Dies By Suicide After Being Held By Police

 The founding co-president of ‘The Last Resort‘, a company that produces suicide pods, has died by suicide after being held by police.

Dr Florian Willet founded the company which helped created the infamous ‘suicide pod’.

Assisted dying has been legal in Switzerland since 1942 but there are only a few other countries worldwide, including Canada, Spain, Austria and some parts of Australia.

And while assisted dying is legal – euthanasia is not. Assisted dying means a health physician provides the resources needed for a person to end their own life – while euthanasia means the doctor would be the one administering the life ending method.

In September 2024, the first person died by suicide pod, produced by Sarco. She was a 64-year-old woman with a severe compromised immune system.

On that same day, Switzerland’s Interior Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider labelled the pods ‘not legal’ which caused an investigation into the company and several arrests were made, including Dr Willet for ‘inducement and aiding and abetting suicide’.

Chief prosecutor Peter Sticher then raised this to ‘intentional homicide’ following allegations made that the woman who died had ‘strangulation marks’ on her neck. The autopsy released after the fact did not back up these claims and Sticher did not publicly confirm the presence of marks.

Willet spent 70 days in custody before being released in December 2024 once prosecutors decided against having a ‘strong suspicion’ about the intentional homicide.

However, they had a ‘strong suspicion of the crime of inciting and abetting suicide’.

Once his release, the allegations made allegedly had a severed impact on Willet’s mental health.

Dr Phillip Nitschke, the Exit International director and creator of the pod, sadly shared that Willet took his own life in May 2025.

He shared that Willet was a ‘changed man’ following his prison release; “Gone was his warm smile and self-confidence. In its place was a man who seemed deeply traumatised by the experience of incarceration and the wrongful accusation of strangulation.”

Another friend shared: “This friendly, positive man had changed into an anxious, suspicious person who no longer trusted even his best friends.

“He lived in his own world. He became increasingly distant from his friends.”