Elderly “mercy killings” spur argument among experts

An act of benevolence or murder?
By MARCUS K. GARNER
Monday, August 10, 2009

Mixed feelings filled Alan Doby as he recalls the recent loss of three family members.

There was a sense compassion and relief for his aging father, George A. Doby, 87, who killed himself after fatally shooting his 85-year-old wife, Edna, who suffered from Parkinson’s Disease.

But Alan Doby smoldered with a quiet anger because his autistic son Jacob also was killed that day, July 26, by George Doby’s hand.

“He meant no malice,” Alan Doby said of his father’s actions in his parent’s violent death. “He didn’t want to see her in pain.

“But I don’t understand why he had to take Jacob.”

In a two-week period last month, murder-suicides claimed the lives of two Metro Atlanta couples in their ‘80s. the rest