Ore. jury convicts man of murder in wife’s death
Friday, July 17, 2009 12:46 PM PDT
PORTLAND (AP) — A man who claimed he fatally shot his wife out of compassion because she suffered from an incurable disease has been convicted of murder.
A Multnomah County Circuit Court jury took less than two hours to reach their verdict Thursday in the trial of John Roberts, who was accused of fatally shooting his wife Virginia as she slept on Feb. 2, 2008.
Roberts told Gresham police that he shot the 51-year-old woman because she suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and had asked to die. He had testified that he loved his wife but killed her because she didn’t want to live anymore. Prosecutors said that Roberts, 53, was a cold-blooded killer who had gambled away the couple’s life savings. They contended that the woman was never diagnosed with ALS, but that the shooting was a way for Roberts to get rid of her.
Deputy District Attorney Don Rees had discounted the theory that Virginia Roberts’ killing was an assisted suicide. Under Oregon law, assisted suicide is a crime when it doesn’t involve a doctor, albeit a lesser crime, such as manslaughter.
There was no evidence that Virginia Roberts wanted her husband to kill her, Rees said.
‘‘It’s uncontested that John Lyle Roberts planned and plotted and premeditated the killing of his wife — even bought special bullets for his gun,’’ the prosecutor declared in his opening statement.
Medical records showed that Virginia Roberts had been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome years earlier, and had a withering right hand, Rees said.
