Suicide Group Secretly Aids Death of a Mentally Ill Woman
The corpse of Jana van Voorhis, a 58-year-old Phoenix woman, was found in her home by her sister, Viky Thomas. Because of Jana’s mentally unstable condition, her sister expected to see signs of suicide, like pills and alcohol lying about, but she was surprised to find the place ‘neat and orderly’ in a scene that could have been ‘staged’.
Now, two ‘death assistants’ from the radical suicide group called Final Exit Network (FEN) are under investigation for murder. Evidence emerged that Jana had been in contact with FEN, an offshoot of the world’s most notorious euthanasia group, the Hemlock Society, founded by Derek Humphrey in 1980.
Potential ‘clients’ of FEN were to contact the society and pay $50 to become a member. The organisation had sent Jana two ‘suicide guides’; Wye Hale-Rowe, a retired therapist, and Frank Langsner, a retired college professor, both FEN volunteers.
According to a Phoenix Times report, during their ‘get-acquainted’ visit, Langsner told Jana to order a helium tank from a local party-supply store and get a special ‘suicide hood’. Helium poisoning is a preference for suicide groups, because it is difficult to trace afterward in the blood. Hale-Rowe noted in his records, “Jana seemed to need assurance a second and third time that the procedure would be painless and peaceful.”
According to FEN policy, each applicant "must be mentally competent" before exit guides can help them commit suicide. The organization also claims it will not assist in a suicide "when family, friends or caregivers know about the patient's plans and are strongly opposed." Nevertheless, no one contacted Jana's family, who say that they would have done everything they could to prevent the tragedy.
Langsner claimed that Jana “…had no relationship with her family. She has nothing to do with her sister, and she had a brother in Seattle. She was all alone. She didn’t even bother with her neighbours… This was a person who wanted to die.” He also apparently said, “…you help get them in a frame of mind that they want to do it.”
Viki Thomas emphatically says she would have stopped them had she known ahead of time. “My sister had problems… but her family loved her, and she knew it,” she said. “For anyone to say otherwise is just wrong… we think that if these people hadn’t come into her life, she wouldn’t have done what she did.”
Under present law, assisted suicide is explicitly illegal in Arizona. Recently, assisted suicide bills were introduced but overturned in several states, including Arizona, Vermont, California and Hawaii.
