Final Exit Network was strongly suspected of assisting the suicide of Jana Van Voorhis, a severely mentally ill woman in Phoenix. The MSM ignored the story, but it was pushed strongly by New Times, an alternative newspaper. Now, its journalism seems to have helped lead to indictments. From the story:
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced a few minutes ago that investigators from his office have busted four people on murder [actually, manslaughter and conspiracy to commit manslaughter] charges in the 2005 “assisted suicide” death of a seriously mentally ill Phoenix woman…
The four defendants — who include retired Scottsdale resident Frank Langsner, a retired college professor — have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Langsner and Wye Hale-Rowe, another so-called “exit guide” from the Final Exit Network (a national assisted suicide outfit based in Georgia), also are facing manslaughter charges.
Phoenix police records (and reporting by New Times) showed Langsner and Hale-Rowe, both in their 80s, were present when 58-year-old Jana Van Voorhis…killed herself by inhaling helium through a hose, with an oxygen-eliminating hood snugly over her head. Langsner and Hale-Rowe (a retired family therapist and great-grandmother from Aurora, Colorado) then staged the scene at Van Voorhis’ Phoenix condo to make it look as if the woman had just gone to sleep in her bed and died of unknown causes.
As much as this law enforcement attention is to be applauded, Final Exit Network isn’t doing anything different than what Kevorkian did, and indeed, is eerily similar to the approach to assisted suicide by Dignitas in Switzerland (except FEN makes house calls) and what happens under the Dutch euthanasia laws. In fact, as I have discussed, FEN’s death on demand views reflect the mainstream of the assisted suicide movement—demonstrated by its former leader being elected vice president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies.
More as the story develops.
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