FBI agents raid home of suicide kit seller

Salem, Oregon: A 91-year-old California woman who sells helium hood kits that people can use to kill themselves said her home was raided by federal agents on Wednesday, and her computers, sewing machine, and boxes of ready-made kits were seized as evidence.

Sharlotte Hydorn is the owner and founder of The GLADD Group. The company's kits — essentially a plastic bag and clear tubing — can be purchased through mail or telephone order for $60 (Dh220.38).

In December, a 29-year-old Eugene, Oregon, man killed himself using a kit he bought from Hydorn to asphyxiate himself with helium. Appalled Oregon lawmakers are working on a bill that would make it a felony to sell or transfer such a kit to Oregonians.

House left a mess

According to Hydorn, about a dozen federal agents knocked on her door in El Cajon, California, at 7.30am and spent the next 10 hours packing up "boxes and boxes and boxes" of stuff and leaving a mess at her home.

Hydorn said she is being accused of mail fraud and that she still had not read through the roughly 15-page search and seizure warrant signed by a judge from the US District Court for the Southern District of California.

Special Agent Darrell Foxworth, of the FBI's San Diego office, confirmed that agents were at the woman's home on Wednesday morning. Foxworth said he could not comment on the contents of the warrant.

"We were at that location," Foxworth said. "We served a federal search warrant authorised by a federal judge in connection with a criminal matter. It's an ongoing investigation."

In a phone interview 45 minutes after agents left her home, Hydorn said she was still shaken and eating ice cream to feel better.