Mom Said She Was on Vacation, Got Assisted Suicide Instead

When Maureen Slough informed people in early July that she was going on vacation to Lithuania with a friend, daughter Megan Royal didn't think much of it—until soon after, when one of her mom's friends got in touch with her. Royal says he told her that Slough, a 58-year-old from Ireland, was actually alone in Switzerland, planning an assisted suicide, reports People. "You have a right to know. I was sworn to secrecy," Royal recalls the friend telling her, per the Irish Independent. She notes, "I was so scared in that moment."

Slough had told that friend via text that "I'm not myself" and "I feel like I've been living in hell for the last year," per Wales Online. Royal says she couldn't track down her mom, so she reached out to her father—and Slough apparently found out they were frantically looking for her and promised to come home. The next day, however, Royal received a text via WhatsApp from the Pegasos nonprofit for voluntary assisted dying, informing her of Slough's death. "They had advised me that her ashes would be posted to me in [six to eight] weeks," Royal recalled, per People. "I just sat there with [my] baby and cried ... I just felt like my world ended."

Royal later discovered that Slough had paid about $20,000 to Pegasos with her application to end her life in Switzerland, where assisted suicide has been legal since World War II. Pegasos told Royal and the Independent that Slough had been put through a comprehensive independent psych evaluation before her death that found her of sound mind, and that she'd wanted to end her life to stop her "unbearable chronic pain."

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Pegasos also says it received a letter from Royal indicating she knew of her mom's plans, and that it had even emailed Royal to confirm the letter was real; Royal thinks her mom both manufactured the letter and the email account so she could intercept Pegasos' communications. The grieving daughter also says that although Slough had a history of mental illness and was in a "dark time," her mom "wasn't terminally ill or, in my opinion, ill enough to go and do this and leave our family behind like that." Royal adds, "She had a lot more life to live and give."