Langsner went into great detail about Final Exit Network's program, and the role of an exit guide.
That's when he allegedly uttered the memorable quote, "You help get them in a frame of mind that they want to do it."
Colby Katz
Landon Armstrong
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Langsner now said he had been assigned as an exit guide for Jana Van Voorhis.
"First of all, she had no relationship with her family," Langsner said. "She had nothing to do with her sister, and she had a brother in Seattle. She was all alone."
He said he'd taken a two-day training course to prepare him as a guide, and he said he'd previously been assigned to "assist" someone in Fountain Hills and two people in Tucson. All of them, however, ultimately chose not to kill themselves.
Langsner claimed he'd learned about Jana's death from Wye Hale-Rowe, and that Hale-Rowe had called Viki in an effort to learn whether anyone had found Jana's body at the townhouse.
He said Hale-Rowe had flown into town from Colorado on the morning of April 12. They had gone over to Jana's home early that afternoon for a walk-through in how to commit suicide with the helium.
Jana's hair kept getting in the way when she tried putting on the hood, which finally had arrived. Hale-Rowe had suggested that Jana put her hair up for the real deal, scheduled for later that evening.
Langsner said he and Hale-Rowe had returned around 9 p.m.
Jana soon told them that she was ready to die.
The pair looked on as the woman opened the valves on the helium tanks as instructed, put on her hood and sucked in the gas through a hose.
By Langsner's account, Jana Van Voorhis soon had slipped into unconsciousness and died about 15 minutes after the start of the grim process.
"This was a person that wanted to die," Langsner told the detectives.
He described how he and Hale-Rowe had taken the tanks and hood out to a car parked inside the garage, and then disposed of the evidence in different Dumpsters.
Langsner said he'd erred by leaving Jana's letter to the neighbor inside the house instead of dropping it in the next-door mailbox, as planned.
That surely would have led to an earlier discovery of the woman's body.
Weiss phoned Viki Thomas later that day to tell her about the remarkable interview with Frank Langsner.
What had started for the detectives as a perfunctory death investigation now had become a top priority. Armed with a search warrant this time, the police returned to Langsner's home on the morning of June 12.
A cooperative Langsner directed the cops to a briefcase in his master bedroom. It contained Jana Van Voorhis' file, including notes of Langsner's intake interview, Jana's obituary and, probably most important, a detailed "Final Exit log" signed by Wye Hale-Rowe.
In the log, Hale-Rowe describes what she calls a "get-acquainted" visit with Jana on April 12 — the eerie suicide rehearsal.
"Jana seemed to need assurance a second and third time that the procedure would be painless and peaceful," Hale-Rowe writes. "Frank had obviously established a warm, supportive relationship with her and, after an hour together, she seemed willing to transfer trust to Wye. The volunteers left her, promising to return that night to have the death event. Jana was cheerful and upbeat."
After the suicide, Hale-Rowe continues, "The volunteers arranged [the deceased] Jana in a sleeping position, bagged the tanks and bag, and left by 10:15 p.m . . . Without creating suspicion, there was no way the volunteers could follow up and know what happened after the sister discovered Jana's body."
The day after they searched Frank Langsner's home, detectives Weiss and Mellinger flew to Denver to serve a search warrant on Wye Hale-Rowe.
In contrast with the garrulous Langsner, Hale-Rowe said little to the cops.
"What is being investigated here?" she asked the detectives according to the police report, as she perused the warrant. "Intentionally aiding another to commit suicide? How do you allege we did that?"
With the police present, Hale-Rowe spoke by phone to Final Exit Network president Ted Goodwin. After that call, Detective Weiss read Hale-Rowe her Miranda warning against self-incrimination.
Hale-Rowe said she had nothing to say to them.
The search of her apartment revealed a pile of Final Exit Network materials, including the same "log" of the Van Voorhis case that police earlier had seized from Frank Langsner's home.
Though she'd said little to the Phoenix cops, Hale-Rowe recently spoke to New Times twice for this story. In those interviews, she came across as thoughtful and quick-witted, but also deeply conflicted about what happened in Phoenix on April 12 and concerned about her own future.
She says her interest in assisted suicide had started long ago, when was a girl growing up as a rancher's daughter. There, she says, sick animals were routinely euthanized to spare them needless physical suffering. But when Hale-Rowe's mother became terminally ill and begged for help, nothing legally could be done to "hasten" her death.
Hale-Rowe says she got involved with the Hemlock Society after it was founded by Derek Humphrey in 1980. She is considered one of the national right-to-die movement's most experienced advocates.
