There turned out to be one more thing Cruzan couldn’t fix: himself. On Aug. 17, more than 13 years after the accident that changed the law and his life, Cruzan, 62, hanged himself in the carport of the family’s home, in Carterville, Mo. The protesters who fought Cruzan’s crusade say he couldn’t stand the guilt of removing his own daughter from life support. But Cruzan’s family and close friends insist he never regretted his decision. Colby says Cruzan’s suicide note did not refer to the legal fight. ““This idea that he had second thoughts about what he did with Nancy – there’s no foundation for that whatsoever,’’ says Dr. Ron Cranford, a close family friend.
Cruzan was clinically depressed for many years, probably since Nancy’s crash. ““Nancy’s accident, her coma, her lack of recovery – all that weighed on him,’’ Colby says. ““And then the highly public battle to “win’ the right to have his child die. In the end, the wound was just too much.’’ Ironically, the court battle – the mission to win on his daughter’s behalf – may actually have kept his depression at bay, friends say. He was an uneasy public figure, a blue-collar, small-town man who constantly worried about making his arguments clearly and compassionately. But he was determined, and he hit his mark. ““He was extraordinary because most of us would never fight the way Joe did. He was totally obsessed with what was right for Nancy,’’ Cranford says. At the funeral, Colby quoted former Missouri senator John Danforth, who at a 1992 awards ceremony said Cruzan ““has done more to prevent human misery than anyone else in our state.’’ Even Joyce Cruzan, no stranger to tragedy and misfortune, could only find positive things to say in the wake of her husband’s death. ““Nancy and Joe never took anything from us,’’ she says. ““They just gave to us and made us richer.''
