Elderly woman charged with murdering her husband
Print Edition
AN elderly woman who strangled her bedridden husband to death and then unsuccessfully tried to take her own life has been charged for murder by Beijing prosecutors.
Prosecutors said the woman, surnamed Cui, who was in her 60s, was known as a “model wife” in Yangsong Village in Beijing’s Huairou District.
But in 1990, her husband, surnamed Zhou, was diagnosed with cerebral infarction. Zhou soon became paralyzed and was totally incapacitated by the illness, The Beijing News quoted prosecutors as saying.
Cui had to take care of him the whole day. Every hour-and-a-half, she had to turn him over in the bed because of sores in his body. The exertion got to her as she herself struggled with cerebral infarction, high blood pressure and slipped disc, prosecutors said.
Cui was afraid that her struggles and her husband’s illness would pose a financial burden and stress on their children and decided to end her suffering.
At 9am on March 6, Cui strangulated her husband with a rope. She then tried to commit suicide by cutting her left wrist and neck, but panicked and called her daughter. She was saved after emergency treatment.
Some prosecutors argued that she should not be charged, blaming the ineffective pension system. Eventually, they decided to charge her for murder, the paper said.
Cui’s relatives and villagers have petitioned for a lighter sentence, the paper reported.
“She has fulfilled her duty as a wife and took care of her husband for a long time,” said a deputy director of the villagers’ committee.
“My brother was lying in the bed for more than 10 years,” Zhou’s younger brother said. “It was my sister-in-law who looked after him. The entire family is empathizing with her. Though she killed my brother, I don’t blame her because it was really hard for her,” he said.
Prosecutors will ask the court for a jail term of less than three years with reprieves, the paper reported.
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