Oct 11, 2008 10:07 am US/Eastern
Cops: Man Who Shot Wife In N.J. Hospital Dies
TOMS RIVER, N.J. (CBS) ―
An elderly man who shot and killed his ailing wife in her bed in a Toms River hospital on Friday has died.
Toms River police said Charles Mason died at 1:25 a.m. Saturday. The 88-year-old Berkeley Township resident allegedly shot his
87-year-old wife in her hospital room at Community Medical Center at a
little after noon on Friday, before turning the gun on himself.
"They came in and the closed the doors and I said, 'what's the problem?'" witness Bob Graziano said. "She said, 'we're having an emergency.'"
The hospital was temporarily locked down while police looked into who the couple was, and why this happened. "She has been pronounced and he has been airlifted to Jersey Shore Hospital," Toms River Police Chief Michael Mastronardy said.
Hospital visitor Eugenio Diaz had spoken with the son over the past few days and heard about the kind of pain she was in. "He told me she was dying," Diaz said. "She had cancer in the stomach."
That a dying woman was shot by her husband of 60 years would point to a mercy killing as a motive, but police did not claim it was so.
Authorities said the hospital's lack of metal detectors is insignificant. "As far as walking into any facility, this could have happened at their house, anyway," Mastronardy said. "[It's] just unfortunate this happened here."
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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