Is Illinois next on the list for the multi-state investigation of Final Exit Network?

The recent articles on the multi-state investigation of Final Exit Network (FEN) list nine states in the ongoing investigation:

The GBI is now leading a wide-ranging investigation into the ring, which has led to raids in nine states. Authorities say they have searched 14 sites in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado and Montana.

It seems to me that there should be a tenth state on that list.

That tenth state would be Illinois.

Press reports identify Jerry Dincin as president of FEN. Below is information on Dincin from the FEN website (which I will not link to on this blog):

Jerry Dincin, PhD – President
Highland Park, IL
Joined Network Board 2006
First Responder, Senior Exit Guide and frequent Network speaker
Board member, Hemlock of Illinois (Network Affiliate)

Anyone reading the news stories associated with the FEN investigation should know by now that an “Exit Guide” is a FEN member who steers the person wanting to commit suicide through the process. Here’s what they say about “first responders”:

A First Responder* in your area will call you, talk you through our procedures, and make arrangements for an Exit Guide to contact you and arrange a personal interview in your home if that is appropriate.

So first responders play a central role in coordinating and directing activities.

In addition to Dincin, FEN advisory board member Rosalie Guttman is listed as a Founding Network Board Member, Exit Guide and President of Hemlock of Illinois (Network Affiliate).

In case you missed it, Hemlock of Illinois is an affiliate of FEN – the two organizations are significantly intertwined.

It’s kind of hard to believe that with the president of the organization, an advisory board member and a sister organization, that FEN wasn’t busy in Illinois as well.

I’m pretty sure they are – or they were a few years ago, anyway. That’s when I received a call from some young woman who identified herself as a journalism student who was doing a story kind of “embedding” herself with a local group of exit guides. She was covering their “assistance” with an eighty-year-old woman – not ill, just normal old-age physical complaints, and kind of socially isolated.

Of course, since she got involved with FEN, she wasn’t isolated any more. They were a warm, supportive group of “friends.” All being very nonjudgmental about whether she decided to live or die. The young woman on the phone got quite upset when I pointed out that being nonjudgmental about her committing suicide was – in fact – a judgment in and of itself.

She got even more upset when I pointed out that the FEN “friends” would only act as a support circle so long as she kept suicide as her goal. If she decided she wanted to live, they would disappear as would the young journalism student.

I had nothing I could go to the police with that would justify any kind of investigation, so I let the matter drop and filed it away for a day when the story would be appropriate.

Today is that day – and wondering when Illinois gets added to that list. –Stephen Drake