Why some caregivers kill

Needs of ailing spouse too much to bear

Caregivers who kill their ill spouses often don’t do so out of love, experts say. They may be reluctant to seek help for themselves, although they’re utterly drained by the demands of tending to their significant others.

Despair drives them to kill, the experts say.

The killings aren’t “a malicious, intentional act of hurting another human being,” said Donna Cohen, a professor at the University of South Florida who has studied family caregiving, dementia, mercy killings and murder-suicide pacts. “It’s done out of depression and desperation.”

Caregiver killings are uncommon, ex- perts say. South Florida saw its most recent case on March 27 when, according to police, a Lake Worth man killed his wife who was stricken with dementia.

Stephen Kruspe signed Pamela, his wife of 42 years, out of her assisted-living facility in Boynton Beach to take her to dinner on a Monday afternoon, police said. Less than three hours later, he shot her in the chest and called 911, police said.

He told a dispatcher she “was beyond help,” according to police records.

While no agency keeps statistics, at

least a dozen such caregiver-killing cases have happened statewide in the past seven years, according to Cohen, who recently completed a study on family caregiver homicides.

Kruspe, 62, a father of three who served in the U.S. Marine Corps and a former schoolteacher in Broward, remains in jail without bond on a first-degree murder charge.

Before the shooting, he was being treated for symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, according to his attorney, Jonathan Kaplan.

“He’s got what I perceive on a professional level [to be] a lot of mental-health issues,” he said. “Certainly from the [shooting], but also from his combat.”

Kruspe is currently receiving treatment in a mental health unit, he said.

He also has received dozens of supportive emails from past ROTC students he taught during his seven years as a teacher in Deerfield Beach and from former Marines who served with him, Kaplan said.

But Kruspe can’t talk to or see his three children, after a judge ordered he have no contact with any descendants of Pamela Kruspe.

“He’s very old school in the sense that morality is black-andwhite to him, but now he’s entered this gray area that’s foreign to him,” Kaplan said. “That adds to his anxiety. It’s a difficult situation all around.”

Some defendants in caregiver-killings once had regimented lifestyles from their backgrounds in the military or law enforcement service, Cohen said.

“They’re used to order and control,” she said. “They sometimes feel a sense of responsibility over the patient and a desire to control the situation that has overwhelmed them.”

Women in their 60s are about twice as likely as men to develop dementia-related diseases, so men often end up in the role of caregiving, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, an organization specializing in Alzheimer’s care, support and research. And because this extra responsibility is new to the caregivers, they’re overwhelmed by it, Cohen said.

Men also tend to isolate themselves and assume sole responsibility over a problem, unlike women, who are more likely to reach out for help from friends or family, she said.

The Kruspes’ next-door neighbor, Jaclyn Tittsworth, said the couple were inseparable. “They were crazy about each other,” she said. “They’d run together, rode their bikes together. If one was at the mailbox, the other was at the end of the driveway, waiting.”

Cohen’s study examined 116 cases of family-caregiver homicides across the U.S. between 2010 and 2015. One finding: About twothirds of caregivers who kill their spouses subsequently kill themselves.

In 2013, Roy Boldt, 81, walked into a Tequesta assisted-living facility and shot and killed his wife, Virginia, before turning the gun on himself. Both were ill and Virginia had reportedly begun a descent into dementia.

Among the other cases in Florida:

In Ormond Beach in 2014, John Poucher, 89, called 911 to alert police that he had killed his wife, 86-year-old Barbara Poucher, and that she had Alzheimer’s. When deputies arrived at their home, both had died of gunshot wounds.

In Orange City in 2013, Gary Bowers, 75, checked his 83-year-old wife, Mary Bowers, into an assisted-living facility. She had Alzheimer’s, and he was ill and worried about being able to care for her. He reportedly called multiple times a day to check on her, and later that month he shot her in the head and then killed himself.

In Port Orange in 2003, James Wilson, 66, killed his wife, Luzie Wilson, 67, and then turned the gun on himself in their home. Both suffered health problems, said their son, and a stroke had taken much of Luzie Wilson’s memory.

Michael Brannon has worked on caregiver homicide-suicide cases in his 20 years as a forensic psychologist. He also serves on the Broward County Guardianship Association, where he helps caregivers and dementia patients sort out legal matters between families.

He has seen stressed caregivers at their wits’ end, and he has seen families torn apart by the pressure, he said.

“They feel trapped,” he said. “They feel killing their spouse is the most compassionate thing they can do for them, and killing themselves is the only way out because they’re a burden to the family.”

It’s rarely done out of anger or an unwillingness to care for them, he said, but rather out of a rationalization that their loved one will no longer be in pain. Those who don’t kill themselves are willing to give up everything and face whatever consequences arise from their decision, he said.

Caregivers who live to face a trial typically are convicted of second-degree murder and may be sentenced to life in prison, Cohen said.

That’s what happened in the case of Roswell Gilbert, who in 1985 shot and killed his wife of 51 years, Emily Gilbert, in their Lauderdale-by-the-Sea home. Emily had Alzheimer’s and osteoporosis, and Gilbert said he did what he needed to do to relieve her of her pain.

He was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 25 years on a first-degree murder charge, which the 75-year-old may not have outlived. He spent 5 1⁄2 years in a Lake Butler prison before he was granted clemency in 1990 by then-Gov. Bob Martinez; his sentence was commuted the same year.

Kelly Hancock, the former prosecutor on the case, met with Gilbert in prison, and saw his failing health. He then argued Gilbert’s clemency.

“It was a very harsh sentence,” Hancock said.

Throughout Gilbert’s trial and after his release, he remained steadfast that shooting his wife was the most merciful way to deal with her anguish, and the only option open to him then.

“I think about it a lot, and I ask myself, what else could I have done?” he said in a December 1993 interview at the same Sea Ranch Lakes condominium that he once shared with his wife. “It kept getting worse,” Gilbert recalled at the time. “Finally, at the end, she just fell apart. So I committed the indiscretion of killing her.”

In a 1990 interview, he said he did have some regret. “I shouldn’t have killed my wife, now I know that,” Gilbert said at the time. “I loved her dearly. I truly did.”

Glibert died four years after he was pardoned, at age 85.

Caregiver-killing cases must be looked at on a case-by-case basis, because they’re so nuanced, Hancock said.

Hancock, who was in his 30s during Gilbert’s trial, said he now knows how difficult it is to see a loved one in the grip of dementia. In the years since the trial, Hancock said he has had family members who developed dementia.

“As life goes on, you realize how sad and tragic some of these diseases can be, not only for the victim, but more importantly for the family that goes through it.”

But killing is the wrong choice, he said. “It doesn’t justify a person to take another’s life,” he said.

There are other options for desperate caregivers, said Mary Barnes, president of the Alzheimer’s Community Care Agency in West Palm Beach.

Family caregivers must have a plan in place before the disease progresses, she said. Because the disease can last between 10 and 20 years, reaching out to doctors or legal professionals early can solidify financial and medical plans before the caregiver becomes overwhelmed, she said.

Asking for help, whether it’s asking a doctor or a family member or friend, can mean an earlier diagnosis.

Going to support groups also is tremendously helpful, she said.

Even neighbors or a couple’s children can help by asking caregivers if they’ve ever thought about their spouse’s death, or about killing them. Most of the time, they have but don’t feel they can share that information, she said.

“You can’t dismiss it as the musings of a sad caregiver,” she said. “A conversation can make the difference between life and death.”

Kruspe