AN ELDERLY woman who shot dead her terminally ill husband in a botched suicide bid has said she has no regrets.
Florida pensioner Ellen Gilland, 79, killed her husband, Jerry Gilland, 77, in his hospital bed in 2023 before attempting to turn the gun on herself.
Speaking on the failed suicide pact and her late husband’s death, she told Fox News: “I’m accepting the consequences.
“I don’t want people feeling sorry for me, I did what I did.”
Terminally sick Jerry made the plan with his wife three weeks before his death when he was hospitalized at the Advent Health Hospital, Daytona.
He told Ellen to “end it” should his situation not improve, as he was too weak to hold the gun himself.
Jerry had told Ellen that when his dementia and other medical issues deteriorated, he wanted to die, KBTX reported.
She told court during her trial: “I held the gun behind his ear… I pulled it away and asked him if he was sure.”
Ellen added: “He raised his hand and placed it on my arm and pushed the gun to his head. There was a loud bang and he was gone.”
But after his death, Ellen told police she became frantic and “couldn’t go through” with the plan to take her own life.
She quickly barricaded herself in the room when staff rushed towards them after hearing a loud bang.
Ellen even pointed her gun at the hospital employees – sparking a lockdown on the floor and a standoff with local cops shortly after.
Police threw a flashbang into Jerry’s room as they were trying to enter, before Ellen fired the gun at the ceiling.
They then managed to arrest her and charge the pensioner with first-degree premeditated murder.
She later had this murder charge dropped, instead facing counts of assisting self-murder/manslaughter, aggravated assault with a firearm and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer with a firearm.
After pleading no contest to the charges in December 2024, she was sentenced to 366 days behind bars with 12 years of probation.
She was released early after serving most of her sentence.
The pensioner said she became increasingly overwhelmed about how to care for Jerry, especially when his vision problems and depression worsened.
“We’d known each other since middle school,” she said.
“I knew how difficult it would be without him.”
Ellen called her late husband “supportive” and “generous”.
She also explained that she had never been in trouble before the fatal shooting.
She said: “I never planned to hurt anyone ever.”
