Port St. John, FL: Is Port St. John man at fault in wife's suicide?

Aiding self-murder a rarely used charge
12:22 AM, May. 22, 2011

Police say Kevin Ragan put four loaded guns in front of his wife after she threatened to kill herself and told her, "Fine, do what you want."(For FLORIDA


Assisting self-murder. Every person deliberately assisting another in the commission of self-murder shall be guilty of manslaughter, a felony of the second degree.
On the evening of June 6, 2009, sheriff's deputies rushed to a residence on Bridge Road in Port St. John after a reported suicide.

Kevin Ragan told dispatchers that his wife, Heather DeSautel, had shot herself in the mouth with a handgun. He was hysterical.

"Deputy McGowen checked the decedent for a pulse and pronounced her deceased at 2127 hours," reads the case report from the Brevard County Sheriff's
Office.

Three months after his wife's death, prosecutors charged Ragan, using an 1868 Florida statute, for allegedly assisting in the suicide of his wife. Investigators concluded Ragan placed four loaded handguns on the bed in the middle of a heated argument that evening after she threatened suicide.

"Fine, do what you want," he allegedly told his wife.

Both of them had been drinking. Their son, then 4, was home.

The assisting self-murder statute, on the books in Florida for 143 years, has rarely been used. But when it is, it gives rise to much legal debate about whether a defendant intended to cause a suicide.

In fact, so rare is its usage that local prosecutors have difficulty remembering the last time it was employed in Brevard. One assistant state attorney said the charge has been lodged twice in the past 30 years, but was not able to provide any details.

The Ragan case could go to trial as early as next month. So far, defense attorney Greg Eisenmenger has not agreed to any plea agreement, insisting his client is innocent. The defense lawyer said the self-murder statute has been used
in the past in a "Kevorkian-type situation," meaning that it has been used to charge people who assisted suicides of the terminally ill.

"We are not taking a plea deal in the case. It would brand him a convicted felon," Eisenmenger said. "Mr. Ragan feels very strongly that he could not live with himself or look his son in the eye if he admitted he was complicit in his wife's death."

If found guilty, Ragan, 37, could face up to 15 years in prison.

Too vague?

Last year, Eisenmenger filed documents arguing Florida's assisted self-
murder statute was unconstitutional because it's too vague.