92-Year-Old Woman Fatally Shoots Son Because He Was Sending Her to Nursing Home: Cops
A 92-year-old mother fatally shot her 72-year-old son because he planned to move her to an assisted living facility, authorities in Arizona said.
Anna Mae Blessing was charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Her cash-only bail was set at $500,000.
Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies received a 911 call Monday from a Fountain Hills woman reporting a shooting death in her condo.
Blessing had been living with her son, Thomas, and his 57-year-old girlfriend for the past six months.
But the elderly woman had become increasingly agitated after overhearing her son talking about placing her in a nursing home because she was "too difficult" to care for, authorities said.
"According to statements provided by suspect Blessing and received by the detectives, she had been contemplating for several days her son’s intentions to place her in an assisted living facility," the sheriff's department said in a statement. "Blessing retrieved two pistols and concealed them in the pockets of her robe then confronted her son in his bedroom."
Blessing shot him twice, in the jaw and neck, and then pointed her weapon at the girlfriend, the statement said. The two struggled, and the younger woman was able to knock both weapons away.
"As the suspect was being escorted from the residence, she made a spontaneous statement to the effect of, 'You took my life, so I'm taking yours,'" a court document said.
Blessing believed her life was being taken from her by her son's intentions, she told investigators, according to the filing.
She intended to kill herself, she told detectives, but couldn't get to the guns that had been knocked out of her hands by her son's partner.
When asked what she thinks should happen to her, Blessing said she should be "put to sleep," the document said.
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