Carehome killer in Campello claims it was a 'suicide pact'

AN 86-year-old Briton who attempted suicide after allegedly murdering his wife will be remanded without bail on leaving hospital.

No longer in San Juan hospital’s intensive care unit and now on a ward, he has been visited by the judge and charged with murder aggravated by ties of kinship.

He allegedly killed his wife, aged 79, in their room at a residence for the elderly in Muchavista (Campello) and then tried to take his own life with the same weapon.  Guardia Civil investigators found both a knife and a cutter in their room and believe that the latter was used to inflict their wounds.

According to the Spanish news agencies the man, identified only as Ronald S S, assured the judge that his wife Margaret killed herself by cutting her own throat. 

Neither was in good health, he said, and the couple had often discussed ending it all once they could no longer fend for themselves.  This was common in the UK, he claimed.

This was the first declaration from the accused man who earlier had refused to make a statement to the Guardia Civil.   At the request of his lawyer, once he enters prison he will have a psychiatric appraisal to assess his mental state.