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Original poster

To be disgusted by murder-suicide reporting?

159 replies

FuckOffWithYourEllipses · 17/12/2025 17:11

Same old story. Elderly man struggling to cope with caring for his ill wife. Violently murders her - battery and strangulation in this case - then kills himself. And the media report it as a mercy killing.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15392635/Retired-salesman-dead-ill-wife-800k-seaside-home-Huntingdons-mercy-killing-suicide.html#

Nothing in the article indicates that this poor woman wanted her husband to end her life.

There is no mention of her being in unbearable pain, of saying she’d had enough, or anything like that. It just says HE was struggling to cope and that her behaviour was difficult.

I totally get that the situation would have been hell on earth for them both. And I get that he would have felt overwhelmed and despairing. But surely that doesn’t mean it’s somehow an act of mercy for him to violently murder her??

All the comments are going on about how sad it is for them both, how sad that he felt forced to kill her, how terrible it must have been for him and so on.

I just find it upsetting how he’s automatically given empathy and the benefit of the doubt even though he murdered his wife in the most violent and terrifying way.

Salesman found dead alongside his 'ill' wife in 'mercy killing'

The bodies of Heather and Michael Newton were found at their £800,000 home near Poole Harbour, Dorset, on New Year's Eve last year.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15392635/Retired-salesman-dead-ill-wife-800k-seaside-home-Huntingdons-mercy-killing-suicide.html#

OP posts:
Maddyisqueen · 17/12/2025 17:44

I wonder if he lost his temper and killed her without pre meditation and then decided he had to kill himself

like you say you would hope to choose a nice cocktail - but knot sure they exist anymore

Boomer55 · 17/12/2025 17:43

No one knows the full situation or circumstances.

stressedstressed · 17/12/2025 17:43

I’m not sure.

It seems as though he had loved her through thick and thin for many decades.

You say you get that the situation was hell on earth, but, do you really?

I can see how this was a reasonable course of action from his perspective. He didn’t do it to free himself - he also killed himself. And brutally so as well, via hanging. He could have just killed himself, but he chose to kill her first so that she didn’t continue to live in a terrible state

this does overall really point towards a mercy killing. Perhaps it would have been less brutal via carbon monoxide, but it seems to me that he did everything in his power for her and got desperate.

I think we need to get assisted dying sorted. We wouldn’t allow a dog to suffer like this.

333FionaG · 17/12/2025 17:41

The poor woman, what an awful way to die. A mercy killing would be for her to die in her sleep after a concoction of sleeping tablets washed down with alcohol, surely? Not dying as a result of blunt force trauma.

HoneyParsnipSoup · 17/12/2025 17:39

YANBU, it’s like ‘crime of passion’ when a man kills his ex

Lougle · 17/12/2025 17:38

"He concluded Mrs Newton died as a consequence of unlawful killing and Mr Newton by suicide stating: 'after inflicting fatal injuries on his wife he took his own life by means of ligature suspension'."

The coroner saw it. Unlawful killing. The press will say whatever gets headlines, and the 'mercy killing' is in inverted commas, which means that it's not established as the 'truth' of the matter.

Original poster
FuckOffWithYourEllipses · 17/12/2025 17:32

I’m glad it’s not just me. And I don’t get how most people don’t seem to see it.

OP posts:
Gloriia · 17/12/2025 17:15

Totally agree. It's only a mercy killing if there was some indication she consented, otherwise it's a violent man murdering his poor defenceless wife. Blunt force injury doesn't sound very merciful to me.

mumofoneAloneandwell · 17/12/2025 17:13

Yanbu at all.