Colorado is part of a multi-state investigation of a Georgia-based suicide-support group which has members here.

The Final Exit Network's president, its medical director and two other members were charged Wednesday in the death of John Celmer, a 58-year-old Georgia man who suffered for years from cancer of the throat and mouth. The suspects, who were charged in Georgia and Maryland, each face up to five years in prison if convicted on assisted-suicide charges.

The arrests came after an eight-month Georgia Bureau of Investigation. It included a Wednesday sting operation at a Georgia home where a undercover agent posed as member of the suicide network to obtain assistance with his feigned "suicide" plan, the agency said in a statement.

Aurora police spokesman Detective Bob Friel said it had a detective interview a resident at the request of Georgia authorities. He said he couldn't provide details on who was interviewed and when, because it is GBI's investigation.

Meanwhile, Phoenix authorities are investigating a former Aurora woman who allegedly was one of two "exit guides" in the controversial 2007 suicide of Jana Van Voorhis, a woman who was mentally ill — but not terminally ill — who suffocated herself at her Phoenix home.

Georgia authorities and other law enforcement agencies this week also executed search warrants or conducted interviews in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri and Montana. Initial reports that a Colorado property was searched were inaccurate.

The group's members bristle at the term assisted suicide, calling their mission "self-deliverance."

Members say they don't play an active role in a person's death, but rather support and guide those who decide to end their lives on their own.

Authorities say new members pay a $50 fee and are vetted through an application process on the network Web site — "finalexitnetwork.org".

Those seeking to end their lives are assigned a guide who instructs them to purchase two new helium tanks and a hood, known as an "exit bag." Authorities say it's consistent with the way Celmer died — suffocation due to inhalation.

"The investigation is phony. Everything we do it legal," said Faye Girsh, former head of the Hemlock Society, a Denver-based right-to-die group that changed its name in 2003.

Like many ex-Hemlock members, Girsh has joined the Final Exit Network for whom she serves as a senior advisor. Now living in San Diego, Girsh said she has been an exit guide in two suicides.

"We exist so that people don't have to die painful, terrible, lonely deaths," she said.

"We're there at the death bed. We give information and support to people so they know what to do," she said. "But we do not provide the means (of suicide) and we do not provide physical assistance."

In the Arizona case, the Phoenix New Times reported this week that it did a 2007 interview with Wye Hale-Rowe, "the Colorado 'exit guide' who flew to Phoenix for the express purpose of helping Ms. Van Voorhis kill herself." Girsh said Hale-Rowe, who lived in Aurora, has left Colorado.

The 58-year-old Van Voorhis "was not terminally ill but suffered from mental illness and depression," Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said at the Phoenix press conference Wednesday.

Thomas said he expects to decide in 60 days whether to charge Van Voorhis' two exit guides.