Sutter Says:
That he was dying in 1996 from stage 4
congestive heart failure and the most severe form of cancer:
"Dear Friends: I expect that tonite will be my last posting on this or any other board. I can no longer breathe on my own and can hardly move without my heart setting off the alarms. It has been great knowing you all, and I will do whatever God allows me to from Heaven, to forward the cause of equal access for all persons, able-bodied, disabled or otherwise. Please pray for my wife, son, family and friends to have the emotional strength to realize that this should not be a period of grief, it should be celebration - I will be in Heaven, with no more physical and emotional pain. It has been great knowing all of you, and I hope you can carry on for equal rights... Rev Jim Sutter"
(source)
The Truth:
Sutter actually fabricated these details about his health to
explain his subsequent absence to a People with Disabilities online news group due to an impending prison sentence
for credit card fraud. He
posted this exactly one week after he was sentenced and three days before he was
arrested after failing to show.
In preparation for his "death," two days earlier he made this statement:
"For those who were wondering, I am home temporarily. Seems before I could even leave for the transplant, I had another heart attack, and was taken by ambulance to the local hopistal...[not] last much longer than through the weekend. Rev Jim"
To make a long story short, my doctor agreed to let me come home to die. He says it's probably a matter of days at this point, that a body simply cannot function on 8%.
Once I'm gone, I will try to watch over my friends from Heaven...
If I can, I will try to check in over the weekend, but I will
He actually wound up lasting up until the middle of the following week, which is when the deputies arrested him
Later, Sutter would say that he suffered two heart attacks in prison and one just prior to his sentencing. There is no record of this having happened, however. Added to the six heart attacks that he claimed in October of 1995 to have survived prior to this, and we reach a grand total of nine by the age of 40!
After being released from prison in April, Sutter explained his absence this way:
"Imagine my disappointment, however, when, after returning home from 3 1/2 months in a hospital a looooooong ways from home, and finally signing a settlement agreement with Lakewood, I return to this list and about 40% of my email is maliscious and slanderous"
(source)
Sutter's e-mail at the time was negative because he had been exposed as a fraud in his absence and (as is his custom) he never apologized for deceiving others. Despite his massive array of purported "health problems," thirteen years later, Sutter is very much alive - although many would probably agree that he is "sick" in other ways for doing something like this.