Pensioner shot wife dead in her care home
87-year-old ‘wanted to end her suffering from dementia’
A ONE-ARMED pensioner gunned down his elderly wife in the lounge of her care home to ‘end her suffering’ from dementia, a court heard yesterday.
Ronald King, 87, blasted Rita, 81, with an antique revolver in front of two other residents, a jury was told.
Staff are alleged to have seen him point the weapon at his head seconds later while muttering ‘I can’t pull the trigger.’
White-haired King, who listened to proceedings with a hearing aid, sat in a wheelchair, admits killing his wife of 50 years – but denies murder. The ‘devoted couple’ had been separated when Mrs King was diagnosed with dementia and moved into De La Mer House in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, the jury heard. Her husband, who was 86 at the time, tried living there with her but left after two days, complaining it ‘wasn’t for him’.
During a police interview, King claims he shot his wife after he asked ‘You had enough?’ and she responded: ‘Oh yes.’
Prosecutor Andrew Jackson told the jury many of them would have known people who have suffered from dementia and be aware of the ‘great distress and sadness that the illness can cause’.
But he added: ‘People express this by loving and caring and expressing these emotions. Tragically, say the prosecution, Ronald King took a different and wholly unlawful approach to take his wife’s life.’
Mrs King’s dementia was diagnosed shortly afterwards and she moved into the care home in March 2015. After the aborted attempt to move in with her, the court heard, King asked to spend a week with her last Christmas.
‘Virtually point blank range’
On Boxing Day he took a taxi to the bungalow they used to share in Walton-on-the-Naze and picked up a 1934 Enfield Revolver he had found while clearing out his father-in-law’s house. Two days later he fired it at ‘virtually point blank range’ into his wife’s eye. The court heard he walked through the building with the firearm, saying: ‘I have just shot my wife. She has suffered a lot.’
He then held it to his right temple but complained he couldn’t go through with killing himself.
Julie Curtis, the manager of the 57-bed home, bravely approached and disarmed him. She told Chelmsford Crown Court: ‘There was Ron, with a gun. For a split second I thought he was joking. But that quickly changed. He was shaking from head to foot.’
Mr Jackson said the Kings had been a ‘devoted couple’ and called the case ‘sad and tragic’.
But he said Mrs King’s dementia meant she was in no condition to ‘enter into what is commonly known as a suicide pact’.
The case continues.