I missed this when the news hit yesterday, but things aren’t looking great for the members of the Final Exit Network (FEN).
Here’s the gist of the news, from the second paragraph of the story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
An indictment returned Tuesday charges the Final Exit Network along with co-founder Thomas “Ted” Goodwin, 64, of Kennesaw and Punta Gorda, Fla.; Claire Blehr, 77, of Atlanta; and Dr. Lawrence Egbert, 82, and Nicholas Alec Sheridan, 61, of Baltimore with violating Georgia’s RICO Act, assisting a suicide and tampering with evidence. The four are to be arraigned in Forsyth Superior Court on April 1.
More here about the investigation leading to the charges:
Once an investigation was opened, a GBI agent, posing as a Dawson County man dying of pancreatic cancer, applied for the Final Exit Network’s help.
According to the charges, Goodwin walked the undercover agent through the steps that would have killed him. Goodwin allegedly demonstrated how he would hold down the agent’s hands to prohibit him from removing the “exit bag.” That is when other agents came in and arrested Goodwin, according to the GBI.
As I suggested in the beginning of this entry, 2010 isn’t looking to be a great year for the FEN. It’s even mentioned in the AJC article here:
In January, Wye Hale-Row pleaded guilty to assisting a Phoenix woman, who killed herself in 2007. Hale-Row was one of four Final Exit Network members indicted following the death of Jana Van Voorhis. The cases against the three other defendants are still pending.
Van Voorhis was found dead in her home on April 15, 2007 and an autopsy showed she died from helium asphyxiation. However, authorities say Van Voorhis was not terminally ill at the time and suffered from mental-health issues and depression.
This, of course, doesn’t tell the whole story. As reported earlier on this blog, Hale-Rowe – a prominent activist in the Hemlock Society and general assisted suicide advocacy for decades – agreed to testify against the other FEN members in Arizona as part of her plea agreement.
I’m sure the FEN is putting on a good show of bravado right now. But the plea agreement and promise to testify from Hale-Rowe alone should have them all pretty worried by now. And then there’s the issue of their “training manual,” which may be entered into evidence into one or both trials. I hear there’s some stuff in the manual that might not play real well with a jury. –Stephen Drake
Similar to Kevorkian, the group fails to follow their own precautions and procedures.
Tim,
there’s no real evidence that either Kevorkian or members of FEN believe in any “guidelines” other than their own sense of what’s right. So in the case of FEN, I think it’s very possible that one group of FEN members might have declined to “help” Van Voorhis, while others had no trouble at all. I suspect the general trending has been in the latter direction. Like the old saying goes – “when you’re only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”