SAN LUIS OBISPO — A park ranger flagged down the elderly driver as he left a lonely beach parking lot 45 minutes past closing time.
George Taylor, 86, had cuts around his neck and on his wrists. He was disoriented, and there was a body in the back seat with a plastic trash bag cinched around its neck.
"Is that a mannequin?" the ranger asked, scanning the car with his flashlight.
Taylor said that it was his wife, 81-year-old Gewynn Taylor, and that she had been dead since the sun went down that December day. He and Gewynn, his wife of 65 years, had a suicide pact, he said, and he had failed.
The incident shocked a legion of friends who knew the couple from their frequent appearances before the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, where for years they had protested a massive sewer project in their tiny town of Los Osos.
It also presented local authorities with a problem that has vexed prosecutors and profoundly troubled families across the United States: Where does justice lie for those who, with no apparent motives other than love, help family members fulfill their last wishes and end their lives?
At least twice in the last year, prosecutors in California decided not to bring charges in similar cases. In other instances, assisted suicide convictions can result in light sentences; on Friday, an Orange County social worker received three years' probation for providing an 86-year-old veteran who wanted to end his life with his final meal: Oxycontin crushed into yogurt.
Both George and Gewynn Taylor were active in community causes. By all accounts, they were constant companions. Until recently, they enjoyed doing chores around a small ranch they owned and visited from time to time. Both also were "shepherds" of the late Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the controversial doctor who practiced and preached euthanasia, according to a court document.
George Taylor, charged with the felony of assisting suicide, pleaded guilty last month.
On Wednesday, San Luis Obispo County Superior Court Judge Ginger E. Garrett sentenced him to three years' probation and two days in jail — time already served after his arrest Dec. 10, 2012, at Montana de Oro State Park. His attorney, Ilan Funke-Bilu, said his client would continue to receive mental health counseling and has "bonded" with his therapist.
At his brief hearing, the soft-spoken, slender Taylor, a retired Los Angeles firefighter, expressed gratitude but had no further comment.
In an interview, his attorney called the outcome of the case "a perfect storm of wisdom" — prosecutors brought lesser charges, and the judge was lenient.
The couple had disclosed their pact to their daughter and a few others close to them but did not reveal details, Funke-Bilu said.
"They were sharp, bright and warm," he said. "There was nothing wrong with their thinking. They were active people who always promised one another that if they couldn't lead their lives the way they felt they should, then that would be the end of it."
The attorney said medical problems were taking a toll on the couple but declined to elaborate. Neither had a terminal illness, he said, "but terminal diseases weren't the test for them."
It also wasn't the top consideration for Jack Koency, of Laguna Niguel. At 86, Koency was still mobile but had an acquaintance, Elizabeth Barrett, 66, help him end his life. Barrett bought him yogurt, a bottle of brandy and heartburn medication to help him keep the Oxycontin-and-yogurt mixture down.
Prosecutors in the 2011 case said they weighed several factors in recommending probation, including the wishes of Koency's family and "the nature of the crime."
In San Luis Obispo, Jerret Gran, a deputy district attorney, said investigators found no malice in George Taylor's action.
"It wasn't murder," Gran said. "There was an intent to help her kill herself, not an intent to kill her."
Cases filed under California's assisted suicide law rarely go to trial. Legal experts note that jurors might be torn about convicting elderly defendants they see as legitimately bereaved if not entirely blameless.
Prosecutors going easier on assisted suicide among elderly
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Prosecutors going easier on assisted suicide among elderly
