An 81-year-old woman has faced court, accused of helping run a black-market euthanasia network now under national investigation.
Elaine Arch-Rowe appeared in Southport Magistrates Court in Gold Coast, Queensland, on Tuesday charged with drug trafficking and aiding the suicide of 43-year-old David Llewellyn Bedford, a quadriplegic from Hope Island, in April.
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She was granted bail and is due back in court in October.
Queensland Police allege she worked with 53-year-old Brett Taylor and his 80-year-old father in a business known as End of Life Services, based on the Gold Coast.
Detectives alleged Taylor set up a registered charity called Cetacean Compassion Australia Ltd, claiming to help distressed whales.
The charity was allegedly how he accessed the restricted drug pentobarbital used to put animals down.
The trio is accused of supplying the drug through so-called “suicide kits,” helping people end their lives outside the legal voluntary assisted dying process.
Police believed the group deliberately targeted vulnerable people and said the operation may be linked to at least 20 deaths.
The court heard the trio are also accused of holding seminars at aged care centres across the Gold and Sunshine Coasts.
One seminar, held as recently as September 10 at the Maroochydore RSL, reportedly included four bottles of the lethal drug.
7NEWS revealed Arch-Rowe’s connection to assisted dying goes back more than a decade, including her involvement in 2012 with Exit International alongside its director, prominent advocate Philip Nitschke.
Bedford, who had spent 16 years bedridden and struggled with depression, posted in 2022 about his fresh start in a new home in Hope Island.
Detective Inspector Mark Mooney said the man had a disability but did not meet Queensland’s legal criteria for voluntary assisted dying.
“Queensland has very strict legal processes in place for people who are considering end-of-life options,” Mooney said.
“These safeguards exist to ensure proper oversight, consent and protection. Circumventing these processes undermines those protections and puts lives at risk.”
Michael Kaltenbaugh, president of Dying With Dignity Queensland, said voluntary assisted dying laws “are very rigid” but “also very powerful and enabling” and stressed that “the laws are here for a reason.”
Police alleged Taylor charged significantly more than he paid for the drug, calling it a business transaction rather than a compassionate act.
Police said this is just the beginning of the investigation and more charges are expected. Taylor remains in custody.
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