Incident is the second involving an elderly couple in three weeks.
Posted: October 2, 2010 - 12:00am
By Matt Galnor
An elderly St. Augustine couple, married for more than 60 years, died in a murder-suicide late Thursday evening.
Richard Plumb McCarthy and his wife, Lillian Martha McCarthy, both 85, were found dead in the Southwood at Belle Haven subdivision, according to the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office.
Richard McCarthy called authorities at 11:35 p.m. and said he'd shot his wife inside the home and was going outside to kill himself.
A neighbor said the McCarthys were a loving, devoted couple and that Richard McCarthy, who went by Dick, did not seem like anyone who would intentionally harm his wife.
Lillian McCarthy had been having heart problems and was in ill health, said Virginia Johnson, who has lived across the street from the McCarthys for five years.
When the McCarthys would return from an outing, Dick would park the car and walk over to Lillian's side, Johnson said. She'd hold his arm and he'd walk her into their home.
"My thought is they wanted to enter eternity together," Johnson said.
The couple had been married since 1946, according to a 2006 St. Augustine Record story.
Dick McCarthy was a Navy veteran, a torpedoman in World War II, according to the Record.
Johnson said she saw Dick this week at the mailbox. The two talked football, as they usually would, and Johnson said nothing appeared to be wrong.
The murder-suicide is the second of an elderly couple in St. Johns County in the past three weeks.
Deputies responded to a similar scene Sept. 14 in Elkton, discovering 68-year-old Dorothea K. Jewett shot to death inside her home, and her 71-year-old husband Stephen Perham Jewett dead outside.
Investigators said a man called the Sheriff's Office from the Coquina Crossing home just before 8 p.m., saying he had shot his wife inside and that he could be found in the backyard.
matt.galnor@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4550
No comments:
Post a Comment