Judy Markey, a familiar voice to generations of Chicago radio listeners, has chosen to die by assisted suicide.
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The radio host, beloved for her popular Kathy and Judy Show on Chicago’s WGN-720 AM alongside Kathy O’Malley, passed away on Sept. 11 in Switzerland, according to The Chicago Tribune. The Tribune added that Markey had several years of declining health from a degenerative neurological disorder, leading to her decision to travel to Switzerland for medically assisted suicide.
Judy Markey was 82
“For some time [Judy] had been dealing with some neurological disorders and decided a couple of years ago [to die] on her own terms, with the assistance of professionals, to end her glorious life,” Steve Bertrand, a now-retired newsman who appeared often on Kathy and Judy, told morning WGN listeners on Sept. 12.
“Over the years, Judy and I talked on the air several times about our support for medical aid in dying,” O’Malley wrote on WGN’s website. [It’s] a highly personal choice, but one we felt should be available for those who choose it — and she did. With her family at her side, she peacefully ended her life at a MAID (medical aid in dying) facility in Switzerland.”
“For those of us in a certain age group, Goodbyes have become a way of life. This one is a bitch,” O’Malley added.
Switzerland allows assisted suicide, also known as Voluntary Assisted Dying, as long as patients have “decision-making capacity” and “control’ or “ownership of the action” over their death, according to Pegasos Swiss Association, a VAD organization.
Radio Host Judy Markey Was a Chicago Fixture for Decades
Markey and O’Malley, affectionately dubbed “The Girlfriends,” hosted the Kathy and Judy Show on WGN from 1989 to 2009. The duo became weekend fixtures on the station, reviving the show from 2013 to 2017.
Markey began her career as a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, while O’Malley started out writing for The Chicago Tribune.
“Kathy O’Malley and Judy Markey had long been friends, but they became radio partners for the first time with a show running opposite the Super Bowl in 1989,” Bertrand wrote, per WGN. “That first show grew into a daily one-hour midday program. It became clear that WGN had trapped lightning in a bottle. That one-hour show later expanded to four. In the end, it was a 20-year run.”
“Kathy and Judy connected with their audience in a deep and trusted way, perhaps unparalleled in modern radio,” he added.
Markey also enjoyed a career as a novelist. Her first novel, The Daddy Clock, was published in 1998, and her second, Just Trust Me, debuted in 2005. She also published two collections of her columns for the Chicago Sun-Times: How to Survive Your High School Reunion and Other Mid-Life Crises and You Only Get Married for the First Time Once.
Per her online obituary, Markey was inducted into Northwestern Medill’s Hall of Achievement. She was also named one of Chicago’s “One Hundred Most Influential Women” by Crain’s Chicago Business and one of the “Top One Hundred Talk Show Hosts” in the country by the radio industry outlet Talkers magazine.
Markey is survived by her husband, Tom Collinger, professor emeritus of Northwestern University; her daughter, Erin Markey; son, Adam Markey; stepson Zach Collinger; stepdaughter Kate Collinger Buxton; son-in-law Pat Buxton; and two grandchildren.