Mom Tells Family She’s Going on Vacation. They Later Get a Text Informing Them of Her Assisted Suicide

A daughter is opening up about the chilling way she learned that her mother traveled to Switzerland to end her life without their family’s knowledge.

On July 8, Maureen Slough — a 58-year-old from Cavan, Ireland — told her family she was going on vacation to Lithuania with a friend. However, she confided in two friends that she was actually traveling alone to Switzerland.

The following day, her daughter Megan Royal was contacted by one of her mother’s friends with concerns about her real plans.

“A close friend of hers messaged me on the Wednesday night, possibly at like 10 p.m. I was in bed with the baby,” Royal, a mom of two, recalled to the Irish Independent. “He just replied like, ‘Your mom’s in Switzerland.’ He’s like, ‘You have a right to know. I was sworn to secrecy. She’s there and she wants assisted suicide.’ I was so scared in that moment.”

Royal said she immediately called her dad, who tried to contact her mother in Switzerland. She said Slough ultimately promised that she would return home. However, the following day around 1 p.m. she received a text message on WhatsApp informing her that her mother had died.

“What was worse was not only did I get the text on WhatsApp, they had advised me that her ashes would be posted to me in 6-8 weeks,” she said. “In that very moment, because I was alone, I just sat there with the baby and cried… I just felt like my world ended.”

Royal explained that the text message came from Pegasos, an assisted dying nonprofit organization in Liestal, Switzerland. She learned that Slough had quietly filed an application and paid £15,000 to end her life.

Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942, according to Dignity in Dying, a British organization. ​​It's different from euthanasia — which is illegal — because the patients themselves administer prescribed drugs to end their lives, rather than a doctor.

Following Slough’s death, her family is now looking for answers as to how the assisted suicide happened without their knowledge.

Royal described her mother as a “fiery, smart and dedicated woman.” However, she told the outlet that Slough had a long history of mental illness and even had a past suicide attempt while struggling to cope with the deaths of her two younger sisters.