Views of ‘Dr. Death,’ Georgia group clash

Dr. Jack Kevorkian —- known infamously as “Dr. Death” —- “disagrees with the approach” of the Georgia-based assisted-suicide group whose members were arrested this week in a Georgia Bureau of Investigation sting, Kevorkian’s attorney said Friday.

“All [Kevorkian] knows about the group is what he’s read; he hasn’t talked to them,” said Mayer Morganroth, the Michigan attorney for the nationally known convicted suicide advocate. “But he believes it should be a medical procedure and only with a doctor present.”

Morganroth said his client would not talk specifically about the techniques allegedly used by the Final Exit Network. The GBI says the group espouses suicide by inhaling helium, which leads to suffocation and leaves no trace to indicate suicide.

“He can’t comment because of the conditions of his probation,” said Morganroth of Kevorkian, who served eight years in prison for second-degree murder after giving a lethal injection to a patient —- a procedure videotaped and aired on “60 Minutes.” He was released in 2007.

The two Georgia suspects arrested in the GBI sting Wednesday were released on bond Thursday night.

Two others, arrested the same day in Baltimore, were en route to Georgia on Friday to face assisted-suicide charges.

Thomas “Ted” Goodwin, 63, formerly of Kennesaw, and Claire Blehr, 76, of Atlanta, are free on $66,000 bond each, pending trial on charges they helped a Forsyth County man kill himself in June 2008.

Two other co-defendants, Dr. Lawrence Egbert, 81, and Nicholas Alec Sheridan, 60, both of Baltimore, have been ordered to appear at the Forsyth County courthouse by 5 p.m. Monday for booking.

All four were arrested Wednesday and charged with assisted suicide, tampering with evidence and violation of Georgia’s RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act. Each faces a potential 28 years in prison.

The charges stem from the helium suffocation death of John Celmer, 58, of Cumming.

Egbert and Sheridan appeared in a Baltimore courtroom Friday and agreed not to contest coming to Georgia, said Valerie J. Bivens, spokeswoman for the State’s Attorney’s Office there.

The two each were required to post $50,000 with the city of Baltimore.

In exchange, they were allowed to travel on their own to Forsyth County, where they will be expected to post additional bond of $66,000, Bivens said.

Atlanta attorney Cynthia Counts, who is representing Goodwin, said Friday her client “will be vindicated. He is innocent.”

Attempts to reach Goodwin and Blehr for comment were unsuccessful.

All four suspects are affiliated with Final Exit Network, one of the nation’s most prominent assisted-suicide groups.

They were arrested in a sting operation in which a GBI agent posed as a cancer patient seeking help to end his life.

GBI spokesman John Bankhead said Friday that investigators have not discovered any new cases.

Technicians and agents are still going through the computers and records seized during several searches around metro Atlanta and in six other states, he said.

Bankhead said no other arrests are expected at this time.

As for reports Egbert had a connection with one of the nation’s most prestigious medical institutions, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore released a statement Friday saying said Egbert had “observer status” for a year, which allowed him to observe in the clinic. The statement said Egbert never practiced medicine at Johns Hopkins.

—- Staff writer Rhonda Cook contributed to this article.

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