Sunday, July 25, 2010

Hillsboro, OR: Police: Husband told 9-1-1 caller of plans to shoot wife, himself to death

Police: Husband told 9-1-1 caller of plans to shoot wife, himself to death

Submitted by KATU.com Staff on Sunday, July 25th, 1:36 pm
HILLSBORO, Ore. - A husband and his wife were found shot to death Friday in their Hillsboro home.

Police are calling it a murder-suicide.

A Hillsboro officer found the bodies of 66-year-old Wayne Coghill and his 65-year-old wife Nyla in their apartment on Northeast Autumn Rose Way early Friday evening.

Police said they were alerted to the case when a woman called 9-1-1 to say Wayne Coghill was going to take his wife's life and then commit suicide.

"The call came in from a third party," the Hillsboro Police Department reported. The "caller advised that she received a call from Mr. Coghill, who advised that he was going to take his wife's life and then commit suicide. Mr. Coghill advised the caller that his actions were based on Mrs. Coghill's current medical condition."

Police said they do not know the woman's medical condition. Police also said they believe the 9-1-1 call came from out of state.

The shooting comes nearly one month after the license of a Portland psychiatrist who planned to open a home for terminally ill patients seeking to kill themselves was suspended by medical regulators. This psychiatrist's project, the "Dignity House," would have been the first of its kind in the United States.

Assisted suicide is illegal in all but three states. Oregon in 1997 became the first state to make it legal for a doctor to prescribe a life-ending drug to a terminally ill patient who requests it.

More than 400 patients have used the option.

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