An
old couple in their 80's were found dead in their own apartment in
Barcelona, in advanced state of decomposition. The preliminary forensic
investigation indicated that the woman died of suffocation, probably by
a pillow held over her face, in the hands of her husband. He lay close
to her with his left arm holding her, & his right must have fired
the fatal shot at his own temple. There was no suicide note. The
initial finding also fixed the time of the tragedy to have happened 4-6
weeks before.
It's
doubly tragic that their son, who lived only 22 kilometres away, nor
their daughter who lived a mere 19 blocks down the road, had not
thought to call or visit the parents during all those weeks! Nor any of
the neighbours. Some admitted having wondered about the long absence of
sight & sound of the couple but, obviously, no one was curious
enough to knock at their door, to see if they were ill or needing any
assistance. They told the police that the old lady suffered Alzheimer.
The alarm was only given because of the foul smell mentioned between a
few neighbours & one eventually alerted the police with his "
complaint " the police said.
The
theory was that the old man was finding it more & more difficult
to look after his sick wife, on top of having to care for the day to
day running of the house. He himself being a very old man, he had
probably worried that should he die first, the wife would be in a very
much more abject & hopeless situation.
I
quietly wept for them, for myself, for the callousness of humanity in
so many who hold fast the " Everyone for himself " doctrine, for the
modern world which shelves old fashioned values to make room for
trivialities.
To me at least, the death embrace showed him as an eternal lover, not a murderer. One could say he died for her.
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