Thursday, February 26, 2009

Cracking down on Final Exit

Members of the assisted suicide group Final Exit have been charged in connection to the death of Georgia man named John Celmer.
The network is at the center of a wide-ranging investigation that led to raids in nine states this week.

It wasn't immediately clear how many other deaths are being investigated. Authorities in Arizona said they were looking into whether the group helped a Phoenix woman die in April 2007.

Authorities there and in Georgia said search warrants were executed at 14 sites in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, and Montana.

Group members Thomas E. Goodwin, identified as the organization's president, and Claire Blehr were arrested Wednesday at a home in northern Georgia in connection with Celmer's death in Cumming, about 35 miles north of Atlanta, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. The arrests came after a sting operation in which an undercover agent posed as a member of the group.

The residence of Michigan man named Bernie Klein, was one of raided homes.
Bankhead said someone interested in suicide applies for membership in the network and pays a $50 fee, then an exit guide visits the person to explain what's needed — two helium tanks and a hood — and returns to lead the individual through inhaling a fatal amount of helium.....

“Our support consists only of pointing them toward information and being with them when they choose to die,” he said Wednesday, contrasting his group with Michigan's famous euthanasia advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian.....

Dincin didn't deny that exit guides clean up after the suicides: “Frequently, the person who dies doesn't want it known they've committed suicide, that they've taken their own lives. As a courtesy to them, we take way the material. It's only on their request that we do it.”
So they show people what they need to kill themselves and show them how to kill themselves (for a fee), and then try to cover up the suicide but they’re not like Kevorkian?

Yeah, because Kevorkian didn’t try to cover up his killings.

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