Wendy Duffy, 56, is first to speak publicly before flying to Pegasos clinic in Switzerland to end her life following the tragic loss of her only son Marcus four years ago
A British woman without a terminal illness is travelling to Switzerland to end her life at an assisted dying clinic following the death of her only son – becoming the first person to publicly discuss making the journey before it happens.
Wendy Duffy, 56, a former care worker from the West Midlands, has paid £10,000 to end her life at Pegasos, a Swiss assisted dying clinic, after losing her son Marcus, 23, four years ago. Despite years of therapy and antidepressants, she has been unable to recover from his death, reports the Express.
Speaking just days before her planned death, Wendy stated: “I won’t change my mind. I know it’s hard for you, sweetheart. It will be hard for everyone. But I want to die, and that’s what I’m going to do. And I’ll have a smile on my face when I do, so please be happy for me. My life; my choice.”
She added: “I can’t wait.”
During an interview with Daily Mail journalist Jenny Johnson, Wendy detailed how she lost Marcus in traumatic circumstances four years ago. He had fallen asleep on the sofa while eating a sandwich, hungover after a heavy night out. Wendy had been preparing herself lunch at the time – cheese and onion – when Marcus requested one too.
“Throw a couple of those cherry tomatoes on mine,” he said.
She did, halving them as she always did. When she returned to the living room, she encountered every parent’s worst nightmare.
“He was purple,” she said. “I thought, ‘It’s his heart.'”
Wendy, who has medical training, got Marcus onto the floor and started CPR, shouting for assistance. Paramedics arrived and rushed him to hospital, where the devastating news emerged: half a cherry tomato had been discovered stuck in his windpipe. It had required specialist equipment to dislodge it.
“They think he must have fallen asleep when he still had food in his mouth. That’s the only comfort, that there was no struggle,” she said.
Deprived of oxygen for too long, Marcus was brain dead. Wendy remained with him for five days before his life support was turned off. His organs were donated for transplant.
“Afterwards, I got a letter from the man who got his heart. He said that thanks to Marcus he was able to play with his kids again,” she said. Another recipient was a four year old child. “That was a comfort, but it also ripped at me.”
She visited the funeral home daily to sit with her son, playing through his Spotify list.
“In the funeral home, I went in every day, and just sat with him, playing through his Spotify list. I broke when I saw him in there. My boy, on a metal table. You can’t come back from that, you know.
“That’s when I died too, inside,” she said. “I’m not the same person now as I was. I used to feel things. I don’t care about anything any more. I exist. I don’t live.”
Marcus had been the focal point of Wendy’s life from the moment she found out she was expecting. Born into a large Irish family, Wendy, who never married, struggled for ten years to fall pregnant. After numerous fertility tests revealed damage to her fallopian tubes, she sought expert assistance.
“I told the consultant that I wasn’t greedy. If I could have one child, I would be the happiest woman in the world,” she expressed.
In 1998, her wish came true. “The day I discovered I was pregnant with Marcus was the happiest of my life.”
After parting ways with Marcus’s father when their son was about four, Wendy and Marcus became inseparable. Wendy worked diligently and saved for his future. Marcus developed a love for music – specifically hip-hop and grime – and was working towards a career in recording.
“I’d give anything to be shouting at him to turn the music down today,” she confessed.
Following Marcus’s passing, Wendy underwent extensive counselling through the NHS and privately, and was prescribed antidepressants. Nine months after losing him, she attempted suicide with an overdose, planning it meticulously – “like a wedding” – ensuring her affairs were in order.
A friend raised the alarm when she didn’t reply to messages. The police had to break into her home, where they found a note neatly taped to the bedroom door. She spent two weeks on a ventilator, temporarily lost the use of her right arm, and still has no sensation in her little finger. She was warned she might have locked-in syndrome – left perilously close, in her own words, to being “a cabbage in a persistent vegetative state.
“I remember coming round and thinking, ‘I’ve f***ed this up’, and I don’t want to go through that again. That’s why I’ve gone for Pegasos,” she said.
After being discharged from hospital, she voluntarily admitted herself to a psychiatric ward but left after one night, describing the conditions as prison-like – a bed, a wardrobe with no door, no toothbrush, a dirty beaker of tea.
“I did try to get better,” she said. “But you can take all the pills, you can go to all the counselling in the world – and I did. Ultimately, they can’t help you. They don’t have to live your life, and my life is agony. Even though I’ve got family, I’ve got friends, I’ve got my routines. I go to the park. I’m not lonely, but I still sit at night and I talk to Marcus, and I kiss the box I had made for his ashes and I say ‘goodnight, sunshine’ and I think ‘I don’t want to be in this world without you, Markie’. And I don’t. It’s as simple as that.”
Pegasos is a Swiss clinic that assists with euthanasia and accepts cases based solely on psychiatric conditions – where there is no physical illness – as long as they meet stringent criteria. The condition must be severe, persistent and resistant to treatment. Many Swiss clinics, including the more well-known Dignitas, completely reject such cases.
Wendy first heard of Pegasos in 2024 when it was featured in an ITV investigation into the death of Alastair Hamilton, whose mother publicly labelled the clinic a “cowboy clinic.” Despite the negative portrayal, Wendy’s response was immediate.
“Wow. This is what I need,” she thought. She sent an email requesting information and submitted a formal application at the beginning of 2025.
The process involved over a year of back-and-forth – interviews, forms and the submission of her complete medical records and therapy history – conducted almost entirely remotely via email and WhatsApp. A panel of experts, including psychiatrists, reviewed her case and approved it.
Under Swiss law, Wendy must administer the lethal medication herself.
“They put the line in but you’ve got to turn the doobra yourself to get it flowing. Then – ding, ding, ding – within a minute, you are in a coma, and a minute after that, you are gone,” she explained.
She chose to depart while listening to Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars singing Die With A Smile.
“You’ll never be able to hear that song now without thinking of me, will you?” she said.
Wendy was adamant about not ending her life in a manner that would traumatise others.
“I could step off a motorway bridge or a tower block but that would leave anyone finding me dealing with that for the rest of their lives,” she stated. “I don’t want to put anyone through that.”
She waited until her two dogs had passed away from old age before scheduling a date at Pegasos. When the journalist proposed buying her a dog and leaving it on her doorstep as a reason to live, she remained unmoved.
“You could give me a house full of dogs. I’m doing this,” she declared.
Her background in the care sector, she added, has provided her with a comfort with death that others may lack.
“Oh, I’ve seen death a million times. I’ve sat with so many people as they’ve gone. I’ve seen nice deaths, horrible deaths. I want a nice, gentle one.”
Pegasos founder Ruedi Habegger confirmed Wendy had passed her final psychiatric assessment, conducted earlier this week.
“Wendy is very decided. I saw her at her hotel today, I had a long talk with her and with the psychiatrist that is going to see her a second time before the VAD [voluntary assisted death]. He is very confident that we are doing the right thing letting her go, that we should not stand in her way. She is absolutely not in a depressive state. I’m very experienced in this field. There are no worries with Wendy, none at all,” he said.
He confirmed that four of her siblings had been informed and had given their blessing.
“Her family knew this was coming at one point or another. She is happy that she has their blessing. She feels content now, like a weight has been lifted,” Habegger said.
Wendy stated: “I have told them all and they support me. They are sad, but they know what this has done to me.”
Wendy has meticulously arranged every detail. She has penned letters to loved ones, picked out her outfit and chosen her music. She will don a t-shirt belonging to Marcus – “it still smells of him” – and has requested for the clinic’s large windows to be left open so her spirit can be free. Her possessions, including her suitcase, will be donated to an animal charity.
She is unable to donate her organs and will be cremated in Switzerland. Her ashes will be returned to her family in the UK and scattered alongside Marcus’s at a park bench dedicated to him.
“I hate funerals anyway and don’t want one. It’s all planned,” she said.
Wendy’s siblings – four sisters and two brothers – reportedly know she applied to Pegasos but were not informed about the exact timing of her procedure, to protect them legally. Under UK law, anyone who assisted her – even driving her to the airport – could face investigation or prosecution.
Pegasos contacted her family directly. Wendy plans to call them from Switzerland to say goodbye.
“They will get it. They know. Honestly, 100 per cent, they know that I’m not happy, that I don’t want to be here,” she said.
Journalist Jenny Johnson spent time with Wendy in the days before her departure, discovering a warm and humorous woman who discussed her approaching death with the calm of someone preparing for a holiday – luggage ready, house hoovered, already finding peace.
Wendy revealed she decided to go public to add to the assisted dying discussion, the next phase of which is expected to occur in the House of Lords shortly.
“I’m not breaking the law. I don’t feel I’m doing anything wrong. Yet for them, it’s a mess,” she said of her family’s situation.
She recognises her story will serve as “a grenade lobbed into the assisted dying debate” – but remains determined.
“My life; my choice,” she reiterated. “I wish this was available in the UK, then I wouldn’t have to go to Switzerland at all.”
Her voluntary assisted death procedure is due to take place on Friday.
If you are affected by issues discussed within this article, you may contact Samaritans on 116 123 or visit samaritans.org