Infamous Kevorkian van sold to ghost hunter

The infamous white van that once belonged to assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian has been sold to the host of a TV show on paranormal investigations.

Zak Bagans, star of “Ghost Adventures” on the Travel Channel, paid $32,500 this week for the rusty 1968 Volkswagen van, which has been parked in storage at the American Jewelry and Loan pawn shop on 8 Mile in Detroit, said Seth Gold, the shop’s vice president.

Kevorkian, who died in 2011, lived out of the van for periods of his life and used it to carry out some of his estimated 130 assisted suicides. Janet Adkins, his first public assisted suicide patient, died in the van in rural Oakland County in June 1990. She was 54 and had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Today the van no longer runs and its interior is heavily worn. Paperwork inside the van shows Kevorkian sold the vehicle to a Volkswagen parts yard for $150 in 1997. The van’s odometer reads 18,732 miles, but there are only five digits, and it’s not clear how many times the mileage flipped over.

Bagans, who could not be reached for comment Saturday, told TMZ.com on Friday that he plans to use the van for a future “paranormal project.”

American Jewelry and Loan acquired Kevorkian’s van in 2013 for $20,000 from a man who initially wanted $100,000. Seth Gold said the sales exchange was featured on an episode of the shop’s “Hardcore Pawn” reality show on truTV in which the seller and his dad, pawn shop owner Leslie (Les) Gold, flipped a coin to determine the sale price. (Tails was $20,000; heads $40,000.)

The van was recently relisted on American Jewelry and Loan’s website with a $49,995 asking price.

“It’s been sitting in our warehouse for two years, so I think we did all right with the deal,” said Seth Gold.

Bagans has yet to see his new vehicle in person. The van was still in storage at the pawn shop Saturday afternoon, parked among scores of lawnmowers and several antique cars.

“It came in on a flatbed, and I guess it will be leaving on a flatbed, too," Seth Gold said.

So far, the only indication of potential paranormal activity involving the van happened about a year ago when a Long Island-based medium and reality TV personality, Theresa Caputo, passed near the van during a visit.

“I was giving her a tour of the warehouse and she said, ‘I feel something back here,’ ” Seth Gold said.

The van has changed hands before. In 2010, an Indiana auction house announced that it was selling the van after eBay had pulled the listing because of the website’s rules against using items it considered connected to murderabilia.

The Detroit pawn shop fielded several earlier offers for the van before Bagans called to buy it. The offers ranged “across the board,” Seth Gold said.

“The bottom line is, it’s only worth as much as someone will pay,” he said. “If you break it down for what it is, it’s a 1968 Volkswagen that doesn’t run.”

Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JCReindl .