Members of Assisted Suicide Group Charged over Death

Georgia authorities have charged four members of an alleged assisted suicide ring with helping a 58-year-old man there end his life.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Claire Blehr, 76, and Thomas E. Goodwin, 63, were arrested Wednesday at a home in Dawson County in the northern part of the state.

GBI spokesman John Bankhead also said Dr. Lawrence D. Egbert, 81, of Baltimore was arrested. Nicholas Alec Sheridan, also of Baltimore, has been charged but is not in custody.

Bankhead said the four are members of the Final Exit Network.

They were charged with assisted suicide, tampering with evidence and a violation of Georgia's anti-racketeering act. Authorities in at least eight other states are executing search warrants related to the investigation.

(AP)

Five Blue Jean Bandits charged in Dawsonville

The Dawsonville County Sheriff’s office named four men and one woman Thursday in a botched burglary attempt. The suspects, who range in age from 17 to 42, were arrested after a seven-hour manhunt along Ga. Highway 400 Tuesday afternoon.

The charges range from burglary to conspiracy to commit theft, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and giving false names to police.

Sheriff's Sgt. Tony Wooten says the same store was hit three weeks earlier in a similar burglary in which an estimated $20,000 of designed jeans were stolen.

Service for slain hiker today in Athens

Meredith Emerson will be remembered in a memorial service this afternoon in Athens. An overflow crowd is expected to gather inside the Central Presbyterian Church at 2pm.

Emerson's body was found Monday night in Dawson County, following an exhaustive search since she went missing on New Year's Day in Vogel State Park. The man charged with her murder, Gary Hilton, has also been named a prime suspect in the death of another woman whose body was discovered in a Florida National Forest last month.

Dawson County May Get Reservior

In response to the State’s new Reservoir Development and Drought Relief Act, Dawson County may soon get one of its own. The Reservoir Development and Drought Relief Act makes it easier for local governments to build reservoirs.

One new reservoir is expected to add 11 million gallons of water a day solely to Dawson County. It will be built on Russell creek, one of three untapped watersheds in the area.

Etowah Water and Sewer Authority Manager, Brooke Anderson, said he chose Russell Creek so they would not have to start from scratch.

“We will actually have to remove the existing damn in order to construct a much larger damn turning it into a drinking water supply reservoir,” said Anderson.

The project is expected to cost 36 million dollars. Construction will begin in December pending a loan from the Army Corps of Engineers.

Hitting the indoor slopes in Georgia possible

Developers hope to bring a new ski resort complex to north Georgia—an INDOOR ski resort.

The proposed two-million square foot complex would be in Dawsonville, on a tract of land between Georgia 400 and Georgia highway 53.

It would include Mount Pegasus, a mega ski dome with two ice rinks. The cost is estimated at one-billion dollars. The resort would also include hotels, stores, and homes, bringing over two-thousand jobs to the area.

Linda Williams, president of the Dawson County Chamber of Commerce, says the potential impact of the project could be huge:

"The concept is very intriguing. It’s larger than anything we have encountered in our community, so the multiplier effect would be enormous--we have a lot of homework to do to explore all these areas of interest".

The project has been in the works for several years. Plans were presented this week to the Dawson County Development Authority.