Final Exit 4 charged with aiding suicide HASTINGS, Minn., July 3 (UPI) -- Four members of the Georgia-based group Final Exit have been charged with helping a Minnesota woman take her own life in 2007. Three of the four were released on their own recognizance after a court appearance Monday in Dakota County, the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press reported. Lawyers for the defendants said Jerry Dincin, 81, of Highland Park, Ill., was unable to appear because of his own terminal illness. Dr. Lawrence Egbert of Baltimore, Roberta Massey, 66, of Bear, Del., Thomas Goodwin, 65, of Punta Gorda, Fla., and Dincin were indicted in May on charges of assisting a suicide and interfering with a death scene. Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said Doreen Dunn's husband believed she had died of natural causes when he found her dead on the living room couch in their Apple Valley home in 2007. But investigators later determined she had died of helium asphyxiation with the assistance of Final Exit "exit guides." Backstrom said the guides help suicides practice and remain on the scene to comfort them, although they do not participate in the actual death. Dunn, 57, was not terminally ill but suffered tremendous pain from a 1996 medical procedure. Robert Rivas, a Florida lawyer representing Final Exit, said the defendants will argue their activities are protected by the First Amendment. The Georgia Supreme Court recently threw out a case against the group, while two volunteers were convicted of minor charges in Arizona, although Egbert was acquitted in that case.