Pa. woman accused of helping terminally ill father commit suicide

(CBS) POTTSVILLE, Pa. - Barbara Mancini, a 57-year-old Pennsylvania woman accused of helping her terminally ill father commit suicide, is headed toward a preliminary hearing tomorrow, but advocates are calling for the attorney general to stop prosecution, CBS Philly reports.

According to the station, Mancini is accused of handing her father, 93-year-old Joe Yourshaw, a bottle of morphine that allegedly contributed to his death in February.

Fred Finelli, a lawyer for Mancini, says Yourshaw was in hospice care at the time of his death, meaning it had already been determined that he had less than six months to live.

"He didn't need to call anybody to get his medicine. He didn't need to ask anybody's permission. He was a grown man who was competent and capable of making a decision and knew when he needed pain relief," Finelli says.

A hospice nurse who found Yourshaw unresponsive called 911 and the 93-year-old died four days later, the station reports.

A probable cause affidavit says Mancini admitted that her father's death was part of a suicide plan. Mancini's legal team says that when Yourshaw died it was from pneumonia and that doctors had given him more morphine.