Murder by man of 96

I saw this in todays paper, and thought it so very sad.

It is about an old chap of 96, who killed his wife of 68 years.
She was a dementia victim.

He admitted killing his wife, 88 yrs old, with a dressing gown cord, because they were led to believe they were being moved into separate care homes.

Apparently his wife told him - "Don't let me wake up in the morning if you love me like I love you."

The old couple's grandchildren had also heard the wife begging him to let her die.
Ernest told the police:

"For years we've solemnly promised each other that if anything happens we know what to do, and I've done it . . my promise has been fulfilled."

He was given a suspended sentence.

I thought that was so, so sad. These people can't have any heart to split people like that up.
I hope they have a severe bad conscience about the outcome.

Re: Murder by man of 96

I've read about this happening a few times over here, (but down south).
It's absolutely heartless. I know there are those that won't believe it, but after witnessing it, I do believe some have died of a broken heart when separated from a loved one.

Recently I have read of some places that have put a very-much married couple together at the 'end'. Probably because it makes for good PR.
I've wondered though where they were before.

I went looking for an article I'd read a few months ago, but found this one.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...oved-into-care

I'm hoping there's hope, at least over yonder!

Re: Murder by man of 96

It's positively Dickensian shades of the workhouse .

Re: Murder by man of 96

About 4 years ago I was in hospital with a lady who had quite bad dementia. She went in for a hip operation, but had been there for months.
Her husband never came to see her, because I heard he was suffering from Parkinson's Disease and had to be taken into specialist care..... nobody told her!
The last I heard was that she was taken to a specialist dementia care unit and they could never again live together, because they were unable to look after each other

Re: Murder by man of 96

Old age is terribly cruel, truly I hope I never see it.

I know we are all getting on a bit here but I mean old where you have to rely on other people to just get by,

I agree Muddy, shades of the workhouse.

Re: Murder by man of 96

This lady and her husband were living about a mile from me, so I offered to pop round and have a cuppa with them when they were back home ( I didn't know, at this point, they never would be).

She seemed to like chatting to me, so I would have still gone to see her at the dementia home, but sadly, the hospital were unable to tell me where she had moved to for security reasons.

Re: Murder by man of 96

That's terrible twinks, they deprived her of a visitor. Just so sad.

Re: Murder by man of 96

I was sad because she loved talking to me about the fashions and music of her younger years ( they remember lots from the past). I didn't get much sleep in the hospital because she wanted to chat all night.
However, if they had given me her address, I could have been somebody who tried to take her possessions or hurt her.... there are a lot of bad people in this world

Re: Murder by man of 96

You are a nice person twinks it was a lovely thing to do and you tried your best to continue it. It's a shame you were not able to but, yes you are right not all people are nice.

Re: Murder by man of 96

A double suicide happened last year in a village near to me. Both partners were sick and they felt that because one had dementia the other MS they would be put into different homes.
So they ate their yogurt laced with enough pain meds and sleeping pills to down an elephant laid on the bed and died hand in hand.

Their children said they had talked about this but the children never thought mum and dad would go through with it.
Luckilty many places are now being built with mixed needs in mind so that partners can stay together right up until the end.