Man confesses to killing hospitalized wife because he couldn't afford to care for her, police say

return2ozma@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 427 points –
Man confesses to killing hospitalized wife because he couldn't afford to care for her, police say
abcnews.go.com
77

Capitalism kills.

And the patriarchy.

I mean your right, but that doesn't have much to do with this post.

Men are 7 times more likely to abandon their wife after a cancer diagnosis that women. even if they had the money to pay for treatment, chances are he would left her fighting alone.

Per your linked article there was a 79% chance that they would stay married. Divorce is more likely when the wife gets sick then the husband but I wouldn't have define her chances of being alone the way you did.

Imagine conflating staying married with staying around. They have the will to leave but not stomach for divorce.

Aw, man. I didn’t wanna feel this way first thing in the morning.

Some years ago, I was in this weird social circle, owing to my partner at the time.
She was longtime friends with a guy who has his own interesting story, but the relevant part here is that he’s heavily involved in college-aged veteran’s lives. (Mentoring, life guidance, helping people transition back.)
During a get-together put on by him, my partner and I met this young couple. They were basically the model of a young, “trad”, Christian couple. Ben had Boy Scout/youth pastor vibes about him, and Sarah was super funny, kind and never seemed to forget personal details. Both were great to talk to, with broad knowledge and experience. He was a bit more Christian oriented, and a bit more conservative, but was earnest and it wasn’t really a thing that came up unless others pressed.
They seemed incredibly happy together, and about a year later, he proposed. A few months later they married. Less than a month after that they were out celebrating Sarah’s pregnancy, a giant SUV ran a stop sign while speeding, and Sarah was so injured she wound up in a coma, but still pregnant, until after their child was born.
She stayed in a coma for a few months after the birth, coming out of it permanently different. They didn’t really go out to events anymore. She was mostly in a wheelchair and didn’t talk. I kept up via social media until I stopped seeing posts from him. He mostly had posted about the challenges of raising their kid alone while also taking care of her, with an occasional news story about the accident/fallout from it.
About 6 months after I’d last seen something, I sought out his socials for an update, to find he’d scrubbed it of Sarah. He’d made new posts the algorithm didn’t show me - his and Sarah’s kid, with a new woman. Sarah’s socials had one update, posted by her mother. She now lived with her mom, and was okay. They were just taking things day by day. That was 7ish years ago?

I guess I don’t condemn someone in their early 20’s for bailing, I suppose, but that situation makes me sad because of how terrible it is for all parties.

Conversely, a matriarchy doesn't automatically imply a more moral and meritocratic society.

Women are just people and subject to the same human flaws as men are, especially in matters of resources, power, and influence.

Well sure, but I don't think anyone is seriously proposing matriarchy as the reasonable alternative to patriarchy

Gender equality, however, does imply a fairer society

Fuck that narrative. This guy is just a psychopath who was inconvenienced, not overwhelmed because of caring for his wife.

"Inconvenienced"?

Oh I'm sorry. Taking care of someone for the rest of their lives, not being able to, not having the means to and all the while suffering for it is something you think is a walk in the fucking park?

I think the key word here is "suffer". Americans worship suffering. It gives them a hard on. So when someone wants to end the suffering, that's an insult. Typical ugly American mentality, devoid of any understanding for human nature and full of piss and vinegar. Also, it's unrealistic and kind of naive, because I bet this happens more often than you think - but it's hard to actually figure out. Why? Let me count the ways.

You have a judicial system committing mass judicial murder on a weekly basis "because you can't afford the fight the case", a for profit health sector that would pull plugs in concert if an insurance company told them to, doctors and surgeons dodging malpractice suits on a cross-state basis like it's a sport and you're probably happy knowing he'll be sent to a for profit prison system that makes profits in the billions, where he'll become a slave for the state to "pay back his debt to society".

But sure, means and needs were not the issue. He should have pulled himself up by his bootstraps and gotten that 4th job.

So when someone wants to end the suffering

You're not referring to her, right? Cause she didn't want to die. She told him that when he first tried to kill her.

No, I wasn't referring to her. FFS. Like I understand why you would say that, because him considering his own suffering is just too selfish to be taken into consideration when asking why he did it, and us considering it as a part of his decision making process or that laws and systemic issues line this shit up like bowling pins? Noo! That's not allowed when considering motive... he's just EVIL which is a scientific term and influenced by SATAN because he DIDNT VOTE REPUBLICAN and probably LIVED AMONGST IMMIGRANTS /s

Like seriously, Americans are fucking stupid sometimes.

Nah, usually the "wants to end the suffering" is referring to a suffering person dying or being killed, especially when an extremely sick person died in the event being described. Sometimes it's used to reference just drugging yourself up beyond safe limits to remove chronic pain, generally also a very sick person. It's pretty much never used to refer to killing someone else to free yourself from debilitating financial obligations. This isn't an American thing, this is a poor word choice thing.

He is evil. He may have been suffering as well due to the evil system we live in and wouldn't be in a humane system, but he could have just walked away or declared bankruptcy or divorced her or killed himself. All of those things are still harmful to her, but they're better than being murdered. Whatever his hurts were, she didn't deserve that. A bad circumstance doesn't mean you can murder an innocent person you vowed to love and support and not be a bad person.

The 1% are using every possible method to dumb down our population. Be grateful it’s not happening in your country yet.

Having lived in America for all my life, what I can say is that most Americans are way more reasonable, kind, logical, and empathetic than you. But that's really faint praise. You probably hate Americans so much because you see yourself in them so much.

This isn't limited to Americans or the US. The reason you are describing this in such tone is American exceptionalism, though, because I can just feel the indignation at this happening in the country you subconsciously expect to be exceptional.

Most of those issues are worse in the US than other western democracies, however.

As certain kind of people say when talking about weapons, "that's why we don't have free healthcare, bitch".

In other words, those western democracies have huge taxes and small militaries.

(I personally think that with some reduction of MIC-related corruption USA could have both good social nets and defense, but that's the reality.)

We'll ignore the fact that America pays as much per capita towards Medicare and MedicAid as Canada pays for its admittedly flawed universal healthcare and instead focus on the question. You think it's better to spend more than the next 5(I think) countries on the military but also disagree with raising taxes even an iota to improve Healthcare coverage?

Go fight somebody else. I'm just saying what the difference is.

Fuck that.

Most of us aren't trying to kill our spouses because it gets too hard.

Evil people may face systemic issues like the rest of us, but that doesn't mean we excuse their behavior.

"Evil" is a social construct for people in the dark ages, because it holds as much merit as believing in fairies.

Again, you are really in denial of human nature, and as such don't know that the conditions I mentioned set the stage for this kind of thing to happen.

Do you know that you can be corrupted, that you can commit murder, if the conditions are right?

In what situation do you personally murder your wife?

In a situation where she is incurable ill and suffering and asks me to kill her.

This man’s wife specifically asked him not to, because he also tried to kill her last year. I was expecting to have more sympathy for the man, but then I read the story. His kid brought him in to confess, which is an unbelievable position to put your kid in.

I do understand putting someone out of their misery, and I’m not unempathetic towards the grinding horror that is capitalism, but this is an awful thing for other reasons as well.

Do you not live in a state that respects the right to euthanasia?

That's not really a thing in most of the US. Best you can generally get is a "Do Not Resuscitate" order which is used in the event you die on your own and tells them not to do CPR or use an AED or anything else to revive you.

My wife and I have discussed a few. For her, anything that's terminal or results in such a significant decrease in quality of life that continued living is some degree of torture more than 50% of the time.

My criteria are mostly the same, with added conditions for dementia, which seems to run in the family.

Bro... I just listed the reasons... like if you don't want to understand human nature, human psychology, sociology or why systemic issues are apart of creating the conditions that would allow this to happen, then that's your dumbass problem.

Like seriously. Read a fucking book - and not the Abrahamic ones. Those rot your brain.

Lol I'm an atheist, I just dom't feel the need to murder my wife.

Two things can be true at the same time.

Capitalism isn't exploitative, it's just an inconvenience? Oh, well that solves everything!

Wait, no, that's actually incomprehensibly moronic. F*** your defense of such an evil and exploitative system.

Sure, let's blame everybody but the guy who murdered his wife for his wife being dead...

Ummm, if you want??? I mean, no else said anything remotely close to that, but you do you.

I'm seriously ill. Nowhere near as ill as his wife was, but ill enough to not be working and to have gone to the Mayo Clinic. I'm fully aware of what a huge, overwhelming burden I've been to my family in terms of both finances and emotional toll.

Do I condone what this person did? Absolutely not. But dealing with a seriously ill person is a hell of a lot more than an inconvenience. I do everything I can to make my wife and daughter's lives as easy as possible despite my issues, but I can only do so much. There have been a lot of very difficult moments for all of us.

This guy is just a psychopath who was inconvenienced, not overwhelmed because of caring for his wife.

Where is the line exactly? What constitutes an inconvenience and what is worthy of being overwhelming.

Especially weighed against the capabilities of the person being inconvenienced or overwhelmed. If they have a hard enough time taking care of themselves, adding another person could be a death sentence for both.

Don't get married if youu believe murdering your spouse is your best option.

Fuck this dystopian bullshit and everything that led up to it. Our healthcare system is fucking barbaric.

Ya but at least the rich people get to float around on their yachts right????

😭

Someone recently memed a twitter post that said, "The Have-Nots and the Have-Yachts."

These right-wing assholes bitch and bemoan injustice and the working man and elite, but ignore how fucked it is we have rising childhood homelessness let alone poverty... But hey at least wealthy shitheads own multiple mansions, yachts, and private planes amirite. The King of Jordan owns at least 2 beach front Malibu mansions; Saudi Arabia, Russia, Japan, China own vast swaths of American land... And there's not a peep over that; just blame the poor mother and child fleeing crime and poverty in South/Central America for geopolitical disasters WE largely caused or ignored in the first place.

If it makes you feel any better

Canada is trying to adopt your system because public health care is so much worse. Only ~35% oppose private healthcare

How is this not first degree murder? He admitted to trying to kill her before and depression is not a defence for murder.

I guess they don't think it would stick. In Missouri, murder in the first degree is "if he or she knowingly causes the death of another person after deliberation upon the matter". The defense would probably argue that in this instance, he did not deliberate, but took advantage of a brief opportunity.

I don't know how true that is, but it seems like a likely argument.

Except he admitted to having deliberated on it and tried it before, he had also planned it on a third occasion. This could not have been more premeditated.

Yeah, this doesn't feel like it could be more premeditated. He tried it multiple times.

This Silent Hill 2 reboot sounds horrible.

Perhaps the Silent Hill were the friends we made along the way.

This seems fine. Everything is great. /s

I'm just imagining the "this is fine" dog on a yacht in a sea of corpses

"Doesn't look like anything to me" -corporate america