Judy Markey, the beloved co-host of Chicago's popular radio programme 'Kathy and Judy Show', has died at the age of 82 after undergoing a voluntary assisted death in Switzerland, her family said.
Markey, who hosted the daily show with Kathy O'Malley on WGN-AM 720 from 1989 to 2009, died on September 11 with her family by her side. The programme returned as a weekly Saturday morning show from 2013 to 2017.
Choice made 'on her terms'
Markey suffered from a degenerative neurological disorder and chose to have an assisted death, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The name of the clinic was not revealed.
An online obituary set up by her husband, Tom Collinger, described her as a "genuine one-of-a-kind" and said she made the choice to "[go] out on her terms with a voluntary assisted death in Switzerland" after "some years with her body in decline".
"This choice was made having lived a full and rich lifetime in which she got 'more from it than she ever imagined'," the obituary said.
Final moments and career
In the moments before her death, she ate several bites of a Snickers bar and said she had a headache, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Collinger told the newspaper: "I said, 'Do you want some Advil?' And she said, 'I kind of want something a little stronger.'" He added that everyone in the room found her last joke funny.
Before becoming a radio personality, Markey was a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. She also wrote for The New York Times and magazines including Cosmopolitan, and authored several books, including The Daddy Clock and How to Survive Your High School Reunion and Other Mid-Life Crises.
UK vote on same day
Her death came on the same day MPs in the UK rejected a proposal to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people. The House of Commons rejected the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill by 286 votes to 270 on Friday.
The bill would have allowed mentally competent adults with fewer than six months to live to apply for assistance to end their lives, subject to approval from a panel of professionals.
Markey was named one of Chicago's "One Hundred Most Influential Women" by Crain's Chicago Business. She is survived by her husband, daughter Erin Markey, son Adam Markey, stepson Zach Collinger, stepdaughter Kate Collinger Buxton and son-in-law Pat Buxton, as well as two granddaughters.
