Chicago Radio Legend Judy Markey Dead at 82 After Assisted Suicide in Switzerland

Judy Markey, the longtime co-host of WGN’s “Kathy and Judy Show,” died Friday at a medical-aid-in-dying clinic in Switzerland.

She was 82.

Markey’s family and co-host have said she chose assisted suicide after a degenerative neurological disorder diagnosed in 2024 began wrecking her body.

Kathy O’Malley, her co-host on the Kathy and Judy Show on WGN for two decades, said the pair had talked on air “several times about our support for medical aid in dying.”

“With her family at her side, she peacefully ended her life at a MAID facility in Switzerland,” O’Malley said. “It was a decision she made without hesitation not long after her body began failing from a neurological disorder diagnosed in 2024, and her resolve never wavered after she made the decision and chose a date.”

Her husband, Tom Collinger, a Northwestern professor emeritus, told the Chicago Sun-Times that she had no fear at the end.

After a few bites of a Snickers bar, she said she had a headache.

Collinger asked if she wanted Advil.

“I kind of want something a little stronger,” she answered.

He said the last joke landed with everyone in the room.

“She had a life that exceeded all her expectations. In the end, she was comforting others.”

The family obituary said after years of her body in decline, “she made the choice she always supported — going out on her terms with a voluntary assisted death in Switzerland.”

Markey was born February 18, 1944, and grew up in Cleveland before moving to Los Angeles as a teenager. She studied journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School, wrote a column for the Chicago Sun-Times for 16 years, published in the New York Times and Cosmopolitan, and wrote novels including “The Daddy Clock.”

In July 2021, the Psychiatric Times published an article in opposition to assisted suicide and noted that “preliminary reports suggest increased rates of suicide in the general population of states that have legalized PAS (physician-assisted suicide). Specifically, ‘legalizing PAS has been associated with an increased rate of total suicides relative to other [non-PAS] states, and no decrease in non-assisted suicides.’ Similarly, suicide rates in the Netherlands (where medical euthanasia is legal) have accelerated, compared to neighboring countries that have not legalized medical euthanasia.”

They report that physician and ethicist Leon Kass, MD, has pointedly cautioned: “We must care for the dying, not make them dead.”

The American College of Physicians has said, “Physician-assisted suicide is neither a therapy nor a solution to difficult questions raised at the end of life. On the basis of substantive ethics, clinical practice, policy, and other concerns, the ACP does not support the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. … However, through high-quality care, effective communication, compassionate support, and the right resources, physicians can help patients control many aspects of how they live out life’s last chapter.”