Free Republic

There was no doubt 86-year-old George Sanders killed his ailing wife. Yet everyone in the small Arizona courtroom — the prosecutor, the judge and even the couple's family members — agreed it was a time for compassion, not punishment. "My grandfather lived to love my grandmother, to serve and to make her feel as happy as he could every moment of their life," Sanders' grandson, Grant, told the judge, describing the couple's life together as "a beautiful love story." "I truly believe that the pain had become too much for my grandmother to bear," he said, while Sanders looked on...

An employee at a retirement home in Spain has confessed to the "mercy killings'' of 11 residents by poisoning them with bleach, an overdose of insulin or a cocktail of drugs, local reports said. Following his arrest on October 18, Joan Vila, 45, who worked at La Caritat home in the north-eastern town of Olot, admitted to killing three of the elderly residents "to end their suffering''. He told a judge today that he had killed eight more since last year, according to his lawyer, Carles Monguilod. Two of the victims were given an overdose of insulin and six others...