‘That bastard has killed me’ Widower’s torment after family claim his dying wife made deathbed allegation
ASPECIAL Forces veteran, publicly branded a poisoner, has broken his silence to deny he killed his my wife with weed killer.
And Lieutenant Commander Robert McIntyre, who served the Royal Navy with distinction from 1963 to 1971, says the allegation could be the death of him.
“This is going to see me off,” said the 72-year-old at his cluttered bungalow in Bloxwich, near Walsall, the oxygen machine wife Valerie used still in the living room.
“That’s it for me, that’s me finished.”
Mr McIntyre, raised on the Isle of Skye, spoke out after an inquest heard 88-year-old Valerie told other family from her hospital deathbed: “That bastard has killed me.”
She claimed that Mr McIntyre, who became a long-distance lorry driver after his military stint, had poisoned her with weed killer, the hearing was told.
That is impossible to prove, a forensic pathologist told the Oldbury coroner’s court. Eighty-five per cent of the lethal chemical would be rinsed, without trace, from the bloodstream within two days.
An “open conclusion” was delivered at the inquest.
But the pensioner insists that, far from murdering his wife of over 42 years, he saved her from the brink of death many times.
Through the “power of healing”, Mr McIntyre, now a Presbyterian Church of Scotland pastor, claims he resuscitated 88-year-old Valerie, a former typist.
“I have seen people rise from the dead through the power of healing,” he said. “I brought her back several times. That is a power that comes through God and Jesus.”
Mr McIntyre, who still rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, was interviewed by police on suspicion of murder after voluntarily attending Bloxwich station.
A statement was given, but no further action was taken and he was cleared of any wrongdoing.
The investigation stalled arrangements.
Valerie, a devout Jehovah’s Witness, died at Walsall Manor Hospital in September 2017. Her service funeral at Bushbury Crematorium did not take place until September 11 this year.
Her five children from a previous marriage were not present. “They didn’t know about it,” admitted Mr McIntyre, who says the rift between them has widened in recent months.
“I miss my wife so much, I really do,” he insisted. “More than 42 years together must mean something.
“I never once lifted a finger against her. We had arguments, but what couple doesn’t have an argument? We had our ups and downs, but we stood by each other.
“When I wanted to go fishing, she would come, and I would run her around in the car.
“I never poisoned my wife,” Mr McIntyre reiterated. “If I was going to poison my wife, don’t you think I would’ve done it a lot sooner? It’s bulls**t, that’s what it is. My wife would be disgusted by what’s gone on.”
From her hospital bed, Valerie implored her husband not to remarry, he said. He will adhere to her dying wishes. “I made a promise,” he pledged. There is no doubt that the final five years of Valerie’s life were blighted by severe ill health. She suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and battled lung, heart and kidney failure. She spent time on a ventilator.
She was in and out of before succumbing after week stay at the Manor.
“She had 127 blood tests and they turned up nothing,” Mr McIntyre points out. He denies, too, that Valerie ever accused him, during her last days, of administering poison – and says he has witnesses.
He believes that a difference of opinion over her faith may have sparked the rumour mill.
“I told her, ‘I don’t want to lose you, but one day that may mean having a blood transfusion’,” he said. “She said, ‘That would be poisoning my system’.”
Police investigating the death did find weed killer at the couple’s home, but Mr McIntyre pointed out that it had been stored there for at least three years.
Valerie, fearing her husband was hospital a two- slowly poisoning her meals, hid food down the side of her favourite chair, the inquest was informed.
“She stored Mars bars and chocolate bars down there, she’d put them down there,” said Mr McIntyre. “That is very different.”
He remains bitter about the length of time it took police to abandon their investigation.
“I went to Bloxwich Police Station two or three weeks after the death and it took until two or three weeks before the inquest,” he said. “An officer told me that, because of my special forces training, I was capable of knowing how to administer poison without leaving a trace.”
At the inquest, senior coroner Zafar Siddique ruled it was impossible to discover if Valerie ingested weed killer.
He said: “In terms of any meaningful analysis after several weeks when the blood samples were taken, it is unlikely, if at all, there would be any evidence of weed killer in the system.”
A report from a forensic pathologist, who carried out an autopsy and ordered a toxicology report, con- cluded there was insufficient evidence to rule Valerie had died by way of poison.
Speaking at the hearing, Valerie’s family described her as a “happy little old lady”.
Daughter Alexandra Harpin, 58, said: “She liked to talk to people, and she was a very active Jehovah’s Witness until the last five to six years prior to her death.
“She was just a normal mother, but at times she was a frightened person. She feared certain things but never disclosed what it was.
“There was nothing wrong with her mental state at all. Every time I saw her she was fine.”
Mr McIntyre was not present at the inquest. Since then, he has been the subject of Chinese whispers on the estate that has been home for 22 years.
He added: “I have been put through a lot of hell. What has been done to me is horrendous, but I’ve already forgiven them.”
A spokesperson for West Midlands Police confirmed Mr McIntyre had been arrested on suspicion of murder, but no further action taken.