There is no way you can pin the death of anybody on VW diesel emissions. It's a statistics game that that's it. You might as well blame Tesla for the extra deaths caused by the increase coal plant emissions created by owners charging their cars. Or make up any other example of any activity that increases some polutant. The only difference is that VW violated an arbitrary number in a government regulation.
There are millions of vehicles on the road today with worse emissions than the violating VW diesels. They are all killing people (statistically) and the government and therefore you and I are complicit in this murder by allowing it to continue. I am sure everone on this thread will endorse punitive tax increases to punish us all for our negligence, and to buy out the owners of these polluting cars so that they can all buy clean-and-green new ones (conveniently ignoring the rather massive environmental impact and attendant premature deaths caused by junking and replacing perfectly serviceable vehicles).