Do you think they should sentence a 98yr. old woman to life for killing her roomate?

It won’t matter, she won’t live past the appeal process. That’s assuming she is found guilty.

Could you post a link to the report? Was it murder or assisted suicide?

I don’t think it matters at this point in her life, but I do think it matters that she is punished, either by imprisonment or the death penalty, because murder is murder is murder.

she’ll never live to see the death penalty – takes years 10 at the very least

Maybe she had a good reason for putting a plastic bag over her room mate’s head.

I’m not an advocate of the death penalty, so imprisonment sounds find to me. Though for a 98-year-old to murder a 100-year-old is pretty nutty, if you ask me.

Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time!

If she’s been indicted for killing someone, she gets the same trial for it as everyone else! Unless, of course, she’s mentally incompetent, as seems to be the case. Then she gets the same competency hearing as everybody else.

I just read that article. And I don’t think she should seeing as her medical conditions won’t even let her go to court for it.

You do the crime you do the time! I don’t care what your age is.

Maybe it was just some kind of kinky play gone horribly wrong.

@Blondesjon
dude…eww.

I’m sure the old lady already thought this through and decided it’d be worth it. Yes, they should treat her the same as they would treat anyone else in this situation.

What would that “Life sentence” be? 5 years? Just put her under house arrest (sounds like she lives in a retirement home anyway) for the remainder of her life. That is, if her old age has not made her legally insane.
Not as if she could go anywhere anyway.
“Oh noes, the 98 year old murderer granny has escaped 5 hours ago!” – “Quick, we must find her!”

They found her 30m away on a park bench, exhausted and with aching limbs

I’ll be interested to see how this one comes out because this was my plan. When I go to the nursing home, I do not want a roommate. So I thought if I threatened her or was dangerous, I’d get my own room.
I think she probably had just cause.

SHIT now Fox will have a new TV show ”When Grandma attacks”

why waste the tax dollars on it, just take her out back and hang her cheaper and simpler

you can’t hang grandma

why not ? just cause she is older doesn’t mean anything that’s like saying a school kid is incapable of bringing a gun to school and doesn’t deserve punishment for it if they do

No one should live to be 100 and be murdered. It’s a horrible story. She wanted the bed by the window. Well, they should give her one – with the picture of the woman she murdered hanging on it!

Such a sad story.

Clearly she isn’t of sound mind.

Two to five years is pretty light for murder.

Also; there’s no death penalty in Massachusetts.

Thats funny

@pouncey Seriously, it’s sad, not funny.

sad, yes.
pathetic, maybe
funny…not so much

Well; at her age… I think sending her to a hospital of some kind would suit the purose more than prison….

I agree with HighShaman… they should put her in a hospital, where she will be closely watched and monitored until her death, but still taken care of, rather than throwing her in prison. She is wrong for killing her roommate, but by that age her brain has to be diminishing… maybe she automatically qualifies for temporary insanity?

Maybe she killed her roommate because she realized that, at 98, there was nothing anybody could really do to her. And so she could kill her roommate, and probably not face any harsh punishment.

I’m sure the thought gave her intense pleasure.

That’s exactly what will happen, you know. Nothing. They’ll quarrel and debate, and there will be appeals and hearings, until she just passes away naturally. The law won’t be able to touch her. Justice will never be served.

cue the nursing home vigilante

How did she kill her anyway?

I don’t see how people can can be opposed to murder and then support the death penalty. It’s essentially the same thing.

Isn’t it?

@anon… to me, murder is the taking of a life without good reason. The death penalty is the proper punishment for taking away someone else’s life. That’s the way I see it, at least.

@anon No. It isn’t the same thing. By your reasoning, it would be the essentially the same to murder a child walking home from school as it would be to kill a man who broke into my house wielding a shotgun.

@Poser Essentially? Yes. (I didn’t say it was the same thing). Both lives have been taken at the hand of another. That’s the essence of it. I don’t believe that any person has the right to do that. You throw several other factors into the mix though to try and control the discussion. Such as the emotional blackmail of the child image, and the image of fear that an armed robber provokes. If you have to protect yourself or your family then of course you’re going to do everything possible, and they may mean taking another life, but that is entirely different circumstances. Defending yourself and family is different. It’s not a group of rational people administering death to another being.

Most people will probably disagree entirely with me, but my opinion is that all life is sacred even if the person living the life doesn’t deserve one. Nobody has the right to take it away.

Apologies for this going right off-topic. I might post it as a question after I’ve slept. Although there’s been several in the past

I think they should send her to bed without dessert for a week.
I know this isn’t funny, but yet in a way it is. Not that someone was killed but we’re talking really old people here. My sister works in a nursing home and has the most hilarious stories to tell. Old people are just funny.

Yes.

And fucking John Ivan the Terrible Demjanjuck and all the other nazis and murderers. Or next time it will be 80 year olds and then 70 year olds could get away with murder or genocide.

Like that fucking terrorist who was given a hero’s welcome in Libya after masterminding the Lockerbie bombing of the pan-am plane – all of a sudden he feels great!

Some people live to 120 – usually its the fucking assholes of society. You murder people? Rot in jail. I don’t like reverse fucking politically correct ageism.

Sorry. Lost my temper there.

Where’s #1 with my Earl Grey when I need him. Fuck.

Life at hard labor.

this is really sad and really funny at the same time

@master_mind413 no, because she will never get up those stares to the platform to be hanged, got to give her “the chair” or the gas chamber

“The investigation revealed that Ms. Lundquist harbored hostility towards Ms. Barrow because she believed Ms. Barrow was taking over the room they shared at the nursing home,” Bristol County District Attorney Samuel Sutter said. “Ms. Lundquist made statements prior to Ms. Barrow’s death that she would get Ms. Barrow’s bed by the window because she was going to out live her.”

Sutter said that Barrow had complained that her roommate was making her life a “living hell.”
Ref: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/21934259/detail.html

killed her with a Walmart plastic bag lol

Lundquist moved to a secure hospital facility after making a threatening comment, Sutter said.

(in a new room with a new roommate) “Ms. Lundquist observed a white plastic bag similar to the one found covering Ms. Barrow’s head and stated that ‘she had a bag like Betty and I hope I don’t have to use it,’” Sutter said.

They need to put her away (sane or not) before grandma goes on a killing spree lol

@Zen_Again
Too bad that the “Lockerbie bomber” probably is innocent anyway. But why let reality get in the way of your rage?

@Zen_Again – you’re right, age shouldn’t matter. It’ just hard for me to picture an old lady in a nursing home as a terrorist like the Lockerbie bomber. I shouldn’t joke about it, I guess.

@tyrantxseries – thank you for more information!

@anon Well there is where we differ in opinion. You don’t believe anyone has the right to take another person’s life. I believe that I have the right to defend myself and my family, including the right to take the life of someone who is threatening mine.

Capital punishment is society’s right to take the life of people who are threatening society. I see it as the same concept, only on a larger scale.

And I used the extreme emotional examples merely to accent my point. I don’t particularly see a difference in principle, between a pervert murdering an innocent child and a 98 year old grandmother murdering an innocent 100 year old grandmother. The real difference the legal system should be asking is whether it needs to put grandma to death to protect society. I’d say no.

@tyrantxseries She won’t get up the stairs past the stares of the people who despise her.

@Zen_Again don’t remember this answer?
shoot me I wrote it at like 6am before work, be happy I spelled any of it right.

@Poser: There’s no death penalty in Massachusetts. Your (excellent) argument is purely academic.

I believe she should be imprisoned for life. She should not be exempt from punishment just because of her age.

@cprevite Of course it’s academic. I have no effect on the outcome.