Illness now doubted in suicide-aid case

LINCOLN, Neb. — A Nebraska man accused of helping his Florida girlfriend kill herself after she told him she had cancer appears to have taken her story at face value and didn’t push her to seek medical treatment or mental-health counseling, authorities said Tuesday.

Lt. Larry Burke of the Cass County sheriff’s office said Matthew Stubbendieck was “pretty convincing in his interviews” that he believed his girlfriend, Alicia Wilemon-Sullivan, 38, of Orange City, Fla., had stage-four cancer in her lymph nodes.

Nebraska authorities now suspect Wilemon-Sullivan didn’t have cancer, based on the autopsy of her decomposed body that found no tumors. Wilemon-Sullivan killed herself in some woods near Weeping Water, Neb., on Aug. 1, with help from Stubbendieck, 41, who faces a felony assisted-suicide charge.

Burke said authorities can’t prove whether Wilemon-Sullivan actually had the disease, but noted that Stubbendieck never accompanied her to medical appointments and didn’t contact authorities while they were planning or carrying out her death.

Burke said Wilemon-Sullivan claimed to have cancer when she and Stubbendieck were living in Florida. Stubbendieck moved to Florida about three years ago but returned to his native Nebraska after losing his job, he said.

Authorities said he couple arranged for Wilemon-Sullivan to fly to Nebraska from her home near Orlando to kill herself.

Investigators said Stubbendieck accompanied Wilemon-Sullivan to Weeping Water where they walked into the woods to an area called Acapulco Lake on Aug. 1, where he remained with her for several hours as she tried to end her life, according to the records. Authorities said Stubbendieck tried to suffocate her twice while she was sleeping, but stopped because she appeared to be suffering. She was still able to whisper when he left her around 9:30 p.m.

Stubbendieck returned the next afternoon and found Wilemon-Sullivan dead, but he didn’t call the sheriff’s office until three days later, according to court records.