To be disgusted by murder-suicide reporting?

[FuckOffWithYourEllipses]

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.

My view is that the wife's health condition should be taken out of the equation.

What would we all be saying if she hadn't had Huntington's and been bludgeoned to death by her husband?

If she had asked him to help end her life, of course that would be very different.

Many diseases are horrific. It is not ok to snap and bludgeon people whether one is fatigued or not.

It is not hard to get carers, we've no idea why he didn't ask for help but to beat someone to death is abhorrent. No empathy from me whatsoever.

By taking the wife’s health condition out of the equation you are asking a totally different question so not relevant.
Same as me going into the street and whacking a guy over the head with a baseball bat. Not good. Same guy breaks into my house in the middle of the night you can bet I’ll beat the shit out of him with said bat.

If I’m ever in that situation I’ll be telling DH to whack me with a hammer as well

And that is your choice, but that doesn't seem to be what happened here.

Oh, he should have just asked someone for help…
Of course why didn’t he think of that. Let me get the yellow pages…

How do you know? Were you there?

We don’t know that she didn’t.

OK maybe there was nothing written down, but honestly, how many of us have had this type of conversation with our long term partners? I know I have as has DH - also with DC that we don’t want resuscitated/kept alive.

You are comparing apples with oranges. The wife committed no crime against him.

I have a family member who may end up doing this.
There is nothing to help him.
Carers are a naive fantasy.
She has assaulted him many many times, with knives and biting, with boiling water. She will attack him if he falls to sleep. She herself doesn't sleep at all at least one in two nights. She has more contact with the police than with social care.
He is 89, with Parkinson's. No one cares. She wishes she were dead. She occasionally says so, but mainly hisses screams and spits and whacks.
I cannot overemphasize how useless medical and care services have been. One or other of them will be murdered soon enough. I think she will kill him before he breaks, but I could be wrong.

No but it’s an example of something that is a crime by the letter of the law but which I would have no hesitation to do if it was the right thing to do at the time.
As I said originally no one has the full details and no one knows the wife’s views, but given their situation I am not surprised he did what he did and have nothing but sympathy for them both.

It says they decided not to have children because of the risk of Huntingdons, which suggests to me that they probably discussed possible scenarios at some length before the disease had progressed or even started.
I'm not saying she definitely told him to kill her with a hammer or whatever it was, but he must have had an idea of what she would have wanted.

YANBU. I suspect far more elderly women in abusive relationships are killed and it's passed off as accidental too.

We all have access to adult social care. They do an assessment they arrange carers yes you may need to pay or newsflash you access carers privately yourself. You don't bludgeon defenceless women.

Do you mean that it is harder to source medication online for suicide? I agree that is not necessarily a positive thing and it will lead to more violent methods of death.

Yes because apparently carers are a 'naive fantasy'. Ive never heard so much enabling and excusing. Someone said sarcastically oh yes why didn't he look in thr yellow pages, well quite why didn't he ring adult social care and ask for help or, I don't know organise a care home?!

Its easy to stand in your pulpit and judge others when you have no idea what they have been through

I agree with this. I was in a psych ward with a woman with Huntington’s in the 1990s and she was very mentally disturbed as a result of the illness. Nowadays I highly doubt that inpatient beds would be available for those with similar needs so their families would be left to cope with them at home.

Huntington’s is an awful and cruel disease. It’s terrible for all involved- people in the early years of the disease often end up estranged from family as the behaviour changes are terrible, before the physical symptoms start. This does not mean in any way that she should have died such a violent death. The fact that is was so violent makes me think that it’s murder (I know it can’t be classed as that as he died). They could have considered nursing care if he was unable to manage. I really hope she didn’t suffer for long.

This is terrible. Truly horrific. I could totally understand if he gives her an OD of something.

Poor poor people, both of them 😥

I work in this area and there are still neuro units for the people with highest needs, those not needing a specialist bed would be in a nursing home that specialises in mental health.

As a full time carer for my husband who has a rare degenerative neurological condition, I can safely say I am not standing in a pulpit and judging.

@NoArmaniNoPunani I suspect you are right.

Unless you have experienced a family member with Huntington’s you have no idea of the suffering and the strain it puts on the person caring for them if they are a married couple.

I’m commenting on the motivation at all but I agree about poisoning. That can be painful, drawn out, and not actually kill you if you don’t get it right. I would not want someone attempt to kill me “gently” with what they hope is a sufficient amount of a drug. If I get dementia, it’s straight on the plane to Switzerland before I’m too far gone, or failing that, a sharp whack to head once I’ve gone past a certain point please.

The article says that because she had the huntingdon’s gene, they decided not to have children. Obviously we’ve no idea but I wouldn’t find it surprising if, in the course of those years and conversations, discussions about the end of her life came up.

Its impossible to access carers if the person who needs care refuses and is in denial.
One person can’t just magic up support. Social Services will side with the care refuser because it saves them money. From the article it sounds like her brother describing how much she had declined and that she was having a go at her husband.
I have personal experience of Huntingtons, it’s more complex and challenging than dementia, I avoid talking about it on here because it is so misunderstood. I can easily see how caring for a loved one can 24/7 cause you to flip out, it’s like living with an abusive stranger. Heartbreaking situation, even the most resourceful people would struggle to find help.

It sounds dreadfully sad for the pair of them. My wonderful GM got dementia and it completely changed her, to the point where she was trying to push my GF down the stairs and also attempted to stab him. They had been happily married for 50 years and he adored her, but there was a moment where he almost snapped and hurt her. She ended up being sectioned and was treated so terribly that she died 3 months later. What she went through was far worse than being hit over the head.