An 87-year-old man shot and killed his 85-year-old wife, a cancer patient, in at hospital room at the General Hospital of Rethymno in Crete. He then turned the gun on himself and shot again. He died a couple of hours later.
The woman was recovering in a hospital ward after a surgery for cancer that had advanced.
The husband visited her together with the couple’s son on Saturday morning. He somehow convinced his son to go out in the balcony and locked him outside. He then pulled out the gun and shot his wife with two bullets and turned the weapon at himself right afterwards.
The woman was the only patient in the ward.
Nurses and doctors rushed to the room to see that the patient had died on the spot and the man was seriously injured. They rushed him intubated to ICU, however, he succumbed to his injuries a couple of hours later..
Her husband was constantly by her side, however, local media reported that he could no longer bear to see her suffer, as her health had deteriorated recently.
Commander of the Rethymno hospital, Nikos Malliaros, said in his statement: “We had a tragic incident this morning in Rethymno, at 9 am one of our patients who had undergone surgery – had spent a day in the ICU and was hospitalized with a serious health problem was shot twice by her husband who then shot himself. He attempted suicide and died shortly afterwards”
He added, they were a very loving couple: “As far as I am able to know, they were a loving couple and the husband supported his wife’s serious problem fervently.”
The husband has allegedly left a handwritten note saying that he could not longer see her suffering.
The incident has shocked both the medical and nursing staff and the local society which speaks of an “incredible family tragedy.”
“Murdering chronic ill for mercy” must be the lawyers’ new legal trick
It is highly interesting thought, that women who spend years of their lives taking care of husbands or parents do not “kill them because of mercy.”