He claimed he killed his wife with Alzheimer's out of compassion. The court said it was murder.
An 80-year-old man claimed he killed his wife with Alzheimer’s in compassion, but now he will spend the next 10 years behind bars.
Prosecutors noted Joseph Bailly Wright was cruel in killing his wife as he hit in the head with a meat tenderizer and then stabbed her twice.
This week, a judge sentenced Wright to a decade in prison after his conviction of second-degree murder for killing Klara Wright. Joseph Wright asked for probation, but the Minnesota judge rejected that effort.
The killing happened in July 2020, in Winona, Minnesota, according to county prosecutors.
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Joseph Wright claimed he murdered his wife because she had Alzheimer’s disease and he was putting her out of her misery, according to the Winona County Attorney’s Office. Investigators determined his wife did have the neurological disease.
Joseph Wright described the killing as an act of compassion.
However, the judge said Joseph Wright had options to ask for help instead of killing his wife, according to prosecutors.
State officials said the murder was gruesome, with Joseph Wright hitting his wife in the head and then stabbing her, puncturing her lung and heart.
“Justice has been served for Klara Wright,” County Attorney Karin Sonnerman said in announcing the sentence.
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