{"id":216043,"date":"2019-12-31T08:29:13","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T14:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=216043"},"modified":"2019-12-30T17:34:51","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T23:34:51","slug":"murder-suicide-love-story-culture-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/murder-suicide-love-story-culture-death\/","title":{"rendered":"How does a murder-suicide get turned into a love story? By embracing a culture of death."},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the most difficult things someone can endure is watching a loved one suffer from Alzheimer’s. While many degenerative illnesses slowly kill, Alzheimer’s slowly strips the person of his or her memory, personality, and things that make the person who they are. Yet the person is still a human being with dignity and worth and value, no matter how incapacitated he or she may become. Unfortunately, it’s becoming all too common for people to see it the opposite way.<\/p>\n

New York Times contributor Corina Knoll recently profiled the story<\/a> of a husband and wife, married for 60 years. Richard and Alma Shaver went to a high school dance together in 1956, and eloped two years later. They raised a family together, and were known to all that knew them as soul mates. Richard Shaver always said he never wanted to be sent to a nursing home, so it’s not surprising that when Alma got Alzheimer’s, he refused help. He didn’t want to send her to a nursing home or hire a home health aide. He also didn’t want one of his daughters buying a home nearby to help or paying for a cleaning service, even as the house grew dusty and cluttered.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Richard shot Alma in the neck, and then lay down next to her before killing himself.<\/p>\n

Usually, these kinds of stories are deemed tragedies, awful crimes to be prevented at any cost. But under Knoll’s penmanship, it was a love story — which she tweeted out herself. “A man shot his wife with Alzheimer’s, then killed himself,” she wrote<\/a>. “I wanted to understand their story. Turns out, it was one of love.”<\/p>\n

But as many people pointed out in reply to Knoll’s story, it really wasn’t.<\/p>\n

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A man shot his wife with Alzheimer's, then killed himself. <\/p>\n

I wanted to understand their story. Turns out, it was one of love.https:\/\/t.co\/CXNUfcnylD<\/a><\/p>\n

— Corina Knoll (@corinaknoll) December 29, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n