Assisted-suicide group’s manual tells ‘exit guides’ to celebrate role

PHOENIX - A training manual for an assisted-suicide group tells “exit guides” that they are special people and should celebrate their role in guiding others to their deaths.

The lengthy document, referred to by Phoenix police as a training manual for the Final Exit Network, offers exit guides step-by-step instructions on how to show others how to kill themselves by breathing in helium. Guides also are told how to dispose of the equipment used in the death and position the bodies so they look like they died of natural causes.

The manual encourages the guides, telling them they are compassionately guiding suffering people to their deaths during “a special time.”

The Georgia-based group’s manual is included in a Phoenix police report obtained by The Associated Press. The police seized the manual at the home of an admitted exit guide during their investigation into the death of a Phoenix woman who committed suicide with the group’s help.

Final Exit Network members say they offer a painless and compassionate way for people in pain to end their lives by showing them how to suffocate themselves using helium tanks and a plastic hood. Critics call it murder.

Four of the network’s members were arrested by Georgia authorities in February after an eight-month investigation in which an undercover agent infiltrated the group. They face charges of assisted suicide, tampering with evidence and violating Georgia’s anti-racketeering act.