Nevada Man Arrested for Mercy Killing

USA Today

A man who fatally shot his wife last week in a Carson City hospital said Wednesday that he loved his spouse so much he had no other choice but to kill her.

"She was paralyzed from the neck down and very uncomfortable without much of a future, so I just helped her along," said William Dresser, 85, who has been charged with open murder and was released Friday on $225,000 bail.

He and Frances Dresser, 86, had been married 63 years.

When asked why he shot her, William Dresser said: "The fact that she had no future and was miserable and begging to die."

Ohio Man, John Wise, Gets 6 Years in Wife's Mercy Killing

CBS News

An Ohio man convicted of fatally shooting his ailing wife in her hospital bed was sentenced Friday to six years in prison. 

John Wise, 68, has said he shot his debilitated wife in the head out of love in August 2012 after she suffered aneurysms and appeared to be in pain at an Akron hospital. Mercy is not a defense to a murder charge in Ohio. 

Wise's attorney, Paul Adamson, said ahead of the sentencing that Wise will pursue clemency from the governor no matter the punishment. 

County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh had called Wise's actions illegal and dangerous but said the case warranted leniency. She had recommended that Wise be sentenced on a lesser offense, manslaughter.

Police say Wise calmly walked into his wife's hospital room on Aug. 4, 2012, and shot her at her bedside. She died the next day. 

Wise told police he intended to kill himself after shooting his wife, but the weapon jammed. 

"My recollection is that I walked in there, and within two minutes, I kissed her on the cheek and shot her," Wise told jurors. 

Barbara Wise, 65, was in the intensive care unit at Akron General Medical Center after suffering triple cerebral aneurysms that had left her unable to speak, a family friend has said. 

A doctor testified that Barbara Wise wasn't terminally ill and seemed to be responding to treatment. 

Wise testified that he couldn't stand to see his wife of 45 years in pain in the hospital and decided on his course of action after seeing a tear roll down her cheek.