Police have uncovered an alleged “end of life” business believed to be linked to as many as 20 deaths, with investigations across three states after a man died from a veterinary euthanasia drug.
Queensland police have charged a Gold Coast man alleged to have operated the business, Brett Daniel Taylor, with two counts of aiding suicide and several drug offences including trafficking dangerous drugs.
“The alleged conduct involves deliberately targeting vulnerable people and exploiting them in their most desperate moments,” said Det Insp Mark Mooney.
Taylor, 53, was not a vet, instead allegedly securing access to the drugs through a “front” charity set up to euthanise whales, which police claim has never carried out any lawful business.
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Police said they were investigating deaths dating back to 2021 and expected the business had allegedly played a role in 20 or more deaths, including some outside Queensland’s south-east.
The business’s services allegedly included helping people die in their own homes, providing them “suicide kits,” arranging wills and finding people after their death, Mooney said.
Bottles of the euthanasia drug, called pentobarbitone, were allegedly found in Taylor’s mother’s house in Victoria while police were also investigating in New South Wales.
The business allegedly resold the drug for “significantly more” than its wholesale price, Mooney said.
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“We will allege he hasn’t acted compassionately at all. This is a business transaction for him … just for pure money.”
Police began investigating after the death of a 43-year-old man at his home on the Gold Coast in April, which a postmortem found had been caused by the veterinary drug.
“He had suffered from medical conditions for a long period of time but his medical conditions did not meet the voluntary assisted dying laws of Queensland,” Mooney said.
The man and his family are believed to have contacted the business to engage their services, Mooney said. Police charged Taylor with aiding the suicide of that man as well as one other person to whom he allegedly sold the drug.
Taylor’s 80-year-old father and another woman, aged 81, are alleged to have helped the business’s operations and both face charges related to drug trafficking. The woman, who also faces a charge of aiding suicide, was unrelated to Taylor or his father.
Police urged anyone who had dealt with a company called End of Life Services to come forward.
Voluntary assisted dying is legal in Queensland but is strictly regulated under state law, and requires an application to a regulatory body. The maximum penalty for aiding suicide is life in prison.
The Queensland coroner in 2024 labelled the state’s euthanasia laws “inadequate”, warning that “further calamity and heartbreak” will be caused if reforms were not made.