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woman was sentenced to two years’ probation, prosecutors say.
Ruth Steppe Davis 69, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of manslaughter in the death of Samuel Roscoe Davis, who had advanced cancer and only weeks to live, doctors had said.
In addition to the two years’ probation, Mrs. Davis also was ordered to receive counseling and treatment at a mental health clinic.
During Thursday’s trial she testified that she stabbed her 72-year-old husband five times in the chest to “get daddy out of that old cancer misery.”
She said that on Jan. 27, after weeks of becoming increasingly disoriented, getting lost in their home and asking for brothers who had been dead for years, her husband fell out of bed moaning $ith pain.
She placed a pillow under his head and tried to comfort him, she recounted. Then she got an ice pick from an adjoining room, stabbed him, and called for an ambulance, saying, “I killed daddy.”
“I know it sounds crazy. I asked God to give me the strength to do it, because I didn’t have it,” she recalled, sobbing. “They said I did it five times. I can’t picture that. My head just goes blank.”
Her son, Clay, 48, said his mother believed she was “helping rather than hurting” her husband.
Prosecutors said jailing Mrs. Davis would not have served society and that their plea bargain was not based on her claim that she stabbed Davis to end his suffering. The plea agreement was based on Mrs. Davis’ age, physical condition and lack of a criminal record, said Commonwealth’s Attorney William G. Petty.
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