SENIOR SENTENCED FOR WIFE'S DEATH, LAWYER CALLS IT 'MERCY KILLING'
An 88-year-old Winnipeg man has been given three years probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter for stabbing to death his ailing wife in a hospital bed.
Ref. https://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/20...rski060420.html
What a tragic story. I remember reading it and I remember reading a report that suggested that the husband was mental but now it seems to be that he wasn't at the time of the murder. He was obviously desesperate but there is no way this crime could be justified.
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I understand that family members can sometimes feel that killing their suffering relatives is an easy way out. However, you would have thought poisoning her or giving her an overdose would have been more humane than sticking a knife in her? That simple act of stabbing his wife to death is probably what swayed the jury to consider this an act of murder more than an act of mercy.
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I agree that it is probably how he has ended his wife's life that has affected the jury, not why he did it.
I don't believe in judging somebody for a mercy killing, I would personally hate to have to be on a panel of jurors who would have to decide whether somebody should be punished for it, or whether it really was a desperate act to end the suffering of their loved one.
In this case though, he hasn't helped his wife finish her life peacefully though has he?
This case in itself is tragic, but more so, that the man felt he had to end his wife's life so violently.
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