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.

No! I thought it was about 2k

Yes I’m with you

that women who was a nurse went to dignatas didn’t she at 70
as she’s had a good life and knew if she slipped and broke her hip she wouldn’t be able to do it

she had worked in care of elderly and seen too much!

she wanted to do it before her choice was taken away

Fraid not. As Smithy would say “I can’t afford that, not if I’m going to have an ‘oliday next year” 😂

The OP is about the reporting, not the specific act and on that I strongly agree. Reporting is always focused on the male point of view and disturbingly sympathetic to it. There’s always an excuse found - because one is actively sought. The woman is always the object not the subject.

For an utterly unambiguous example look at the reporting of the murder of the Head of Epsom College in 2023.

Poole man kills wife and himself after disease symptoms worsen - BBC News

how sad for the family

sorry but this example is why i wouldnt even open the daily mail link

yanbu op

I cant open the link but it says the women had Huntington's in the title.

Have you ever had experience with Huntington's? It is an absolutely heartbreaking and horrific condition that i wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Seeing it in someone you love must be unbearable.

I used to work with people with Huntington's and I don't think any of them wanted to live. It changes people and makes them prisoners inside their own bodies. Their bodies are uncontrollable and exhaust them. They also lose the ability to swallow and often choke to death which may have made feeding her an overdose, as other posters have said, impossible.

It can cause severe aggression and mood changes and violence at certain stages, which is also very hard for carers. To see someone you love like that must be unbearable.

People who said he could have left her in care - he could have, of course. Which makes me think that maybe he really did love her and couldn't bear for her to continue suffering (although i dont agree with how he went about it). I don't think we can judge this man, but we can still feel devastated for his wife.

You are viewing this only male violence against women, in this case it’s a very blinkered view. The BBC article shows her own brother describing the situation, her deterioration and complete denial. If you are in the lucky position of never experiencing Huntingdons then you will not understand how isolating the condition is for carers and sufferers. If she was in denial about her deteriorating health she was unlikely to be engaging with support any time soon if ever. It took 10 years to get my dad into a proper care home and the help he needed , including 3 evictions from destroyed flats and 2 sections, even then he resisted any personal care until he physically couldn’t. All the while wearing the same clothes for years, having mountains of rubbish pile up in his home until I could sneak in and clear, for which I was harangued. Social workers had the door slammed in their face, countless doctors and hospital appointments deliberately missed, even when hospital transport was arranged, all met with swearing and aggression. This is what denial looks like and it can last for decades. And authorities will always collude with the person in denial because it’s cheaper. It’s extremely isolating. And if they were aware of the family history they likely knew it would get worse.

Yes and that's all well and good we've probably all experienced a situation where someone needs social care and is absolutely against it.

I think the point is the horrific method of unlawfully killing her. Merciful would be to lace her drinks with sleeping meds then a pillow over her face.

To bludgeon a defenceless ill woman then strangle them is so horrifically violent and no amount of mitigating factors makes it understandable or ok.

We don't know if he did ask for help. The issue is with social care help there isn't enough help available to go round.
Social Work will put as much on to families as they can.
The families who shout loudest get the most help and support.
The ones who plod along suffering in silence get nothing.

Yes it’s an awful method. Maybe he just snapped in the midst of an argument. In a normal situation it’s awful. This isn’t a normal situation for either of them. It’s an unimaginable situation for most people. I’ve seen HD and Alzheimer’s up close and if I would rather a short violent end than deteriorate for decades and die paralysed and choking after wreaking my family’s lives.

I wish people should stop making excuses for this murderer!! Victim blaming on this thread is horrific! Yes it’s bloody awful sometimes being a carer, you walk out the door and abandon them if needs be, you don’t bludgeon and strangle someone to death.

And yes the reporting is disgraceful.

It's shockign isn't it. 'Ah well social care is a bit patchy, caring can be very challenging'. We know! No excuses for horrific violence there is always another way.

'I’ve seen HD and Alzheimer’s up close and if I would rather a short violent end than deteriorate for decades and die paralysed and choking after wreaking my family’s lives.'

You'd struggle to find anyone nowadays who hasn't some experience of alzeimers at least.

Of course it's horrible, challenging, deteriorating for decades. But we don't get to choose and we certainly shouldn't be ending anyone's life. Wrecking your families lives? Honestly. People need to toughen up and accept witnessing and helping those suffering is very very hard. Maybe go nc rather than fantasising about short violent deaths.

To bludgeon a defenceless ill woman then strangle them is so horrifically violent and no amount of mitigating factors makes it understandable or ok

Exactly.

I wonder if he had been violent towards her before. Sadly, some carers do abuse the people they care for.

Christ, nobody is ‘making excuses.’ It’s not about justification. It’s about understanding. Or trying to understand. Going by the scant information available, it sounds like the couple had a close and loving relationship. Obviously nobody, not even the family, can know this for sure, but assuming there really was no history of abuse or violence, this SEEMS to be a case of someone snapping under pressure. It doesn’t justify what he did, but it might offer an explanation that goes beyond ‘What a bastard.’

You don't know that. You have absolutely no idea what conversations they had had.

If they had conversations about him ending her life, I feel almost certain the method discussed would not have been bludgeoning followed by strangling.

Again - you don't know and speculation is never a good thing. I'm not defending him or what he did. I spent 10 years caring full time for an increasingly demented mother whose personality changed completely and rapidly over that time and was very very hostile to me personally for the majority of those years so I do fully appreciate their situation, but even then I wouldn't claim to know what their private life was like or what conversations they may have had. No one knows, that's my point.

No we dont know what their private life was like but you know exactly what it is like caring for a very demanding and challenging relative. I would guess you too wanted the situation to end but managed to not bludgeon then strangle your dm.

Violent men do not get a pass because the situation was hard.

I am a full time carer for my DH. We have had those sort of conversations and I know what his wishes are. None of them involve me bludgeoning him to death.

I need to toughen up?

DM had a husband, brothers, copious friends.

…and yet I am the only one who sits with her in her nursing home while she screams, wails, shakes and hallucinates for hours on end.

i’m tough enough, thanks

Exactly, or him. It's crazy that people tried to spin that one into a beautiful love story. For all we know it was a murder suicide.

If anything that attitude of “toughen up, don’t complain, don’t inconvenience me with your feelings for a moment” is exactly why carers struggle with such guilt and accessing help. What a thing to say.

I feel uncomfortable with it.

But don't see it as massively different to women who have killed their own DC and then committed suicide or tried to.

Often it was disabled DC or the Mother was mentally unwell and thought she was 'saving' them from something.

But the DC obviously couldn't consent to being murdered.