Prosecutors say a Gresham man who
claims he killed his terminally ill wife to end her misery was not the
loving, devoted husband he pretended to be. Court documents filed
Monday after John Lyle Roberts was indicted on a charge of murder paint
a dramatically different portrait of the man who claimed to be a
compassionate mercy killer.
For starters, Virginia Roberts wasn’t dying of an illness when she was
shot in the head as she slept Feb. 2. And she wasn’t the only woman in
John Roberts’ life. Although Roberts, 51, told police and family that
his 51-year-old wife was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,
a doctor who examined her in January told authorities she did not have
the terminal disease. Dr. John Ellison determined she was in overall
good health but she may have had carpal tunnel syndrome. That could
have explained weakness in her hands that is also a symptom of ALS,
also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Wesley Smith wonders “why it has
become so fashionable to help kill unwanted spouses and claim it was an
act of “mercy.”” and he has also chronicled similar cases. I
think it is simply because the Michael Schiavo’s and John Robert’s of
the world have found the society acceptable loophole and that right to
die activists are quite wiling to help them out. Though we
can hope that in the case of John Roberts that he will not be able to
pull this off.
