Montreal man charged with ailing wife's death recounts how he smothered her
"I didn't want her to suffer anymore. I was suffering for her," says Michel Cadotte, 57, testifying in his own defence at his trial for the second-degree murder of Jocelyne Lizotte.
'I didn't want her to suffer anymore. I was suffering for her,' Michel Cadotte, 57, tells jury
A Montreal man on trial for the death of his wife has told jurors he suffocated her with a pillow to end her suffering.
Michel Cadotte says he arrived to visit his wife on Feb. 20, 2017, which was a Monday, after friction with his family led him to spend the weekend drinking.
He says he had barely slept and was not feeling himself when he got to the long-term care institution where Jocelyne Lizotte, 60, was living.
Cadotte says it saddened him to see Lizotte with her neck bent, sitting in a geriatric chair without a specialized head rest. He says he struggled to feed her lunch that day and gave her several pieces of chocolate, crying as he did it.
As she fell asleep, Cadotte put Lizotte in her bed. He says he struggled to place a pillow under his wife's head. He says he can't explain what happened, but after a couple of attempts, he placed the pillow over her face and smothered her.
"She was suffering too much,'' Cadotte testified. "I didn't want her to suffer anymore. I was suffering for her.''
Cadotte, 57, is charged in the death of Lizotte, who was in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease. She was unable to care for herself and detached from reality.
Cadotte's defence lawyers are drawing attention to his state of mind at the time of her death, which they say doesn't support the second-degree murder charge brought against their client.
The jury has heard that one year before Lizotte's death, Cadotte had sought a medically assisted death for Lizotte but was told she didn't qualify. The trial has heard he admitted to the head nurse and several relatives that he had taken
Lizotte's life.