Elderly Florida woman sentenced for what she says was a mercy killing

Content warning: This article mentions suicide. Please take care while reading.

Stories don’t come much sadder than this: A 78-year-old Florida woman was recently sentenced to about a year in prison followed by 12 years probation for the 2023 shooting death of her husband at a Daytona Beach area hospital. She says she and her husband had a suicide pact, which she couldn’t follow through on after he died.

Two years ago, Ellen Gilland‘s husband, then 77-year-old Jerry Gilland, was in the hospital, suffering from an undisclosed terminal illness from which he had learned he would not recover. According to Ellen, he told her he wanted to die. The couple who had been married over 50 years agreed she would shoot and kill him in his hospital room and then take her own life, but according to The Daytona News-Journal, after she killed Jerry, she said she couldn’t do it. Reports also say Jerry intended to take his own life, but was physically unable to pull the trigger.

Ellen reportedly told law enforcement, “I held the gun behind his ear. I pulled it away and asked him if he was sure. 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.”

Gilland barricaded herself in the room for several hours

Rather than die by suicide, Ellen instead barricaded herself in her husband’s hospital room for hours. No one else was injured, but Ellen reportedly pointed a gun at a nurse and a hospital security officer and fired the gun in the direction of the police.

After the standoff, Ellen was taken into custody, and at first charged with first-degree murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. But in a deal, Ellen agreed to plead no contest to charges that she killed her husband, and in exchange, she would spend no more than 10 years in prison.

After spending about a year in prison, Gilland has now been ordered to perform community service for as long as she was physically able to, and write apology letters to the officers who responded, hospital staff, and civilians, and patients who were on the hospital’s 11th floor that day.

Testifying in court, registered nurse Hector Aponte, who was on duty when the incident happened, said, “I didn’t feel safe anymore … I left my job … I have nightmares at night.” During the conflict, the floor where the armed standoff happened was full of other seriously ill patients who could not all be moved to safety.

Judge Kathryn Weston said she accepted Ellen shot and killed her husband because he asked her to and wanted to die, but she sentenced Ellen to some prison time and community service because of the effect the shooting had on other people. She said she wanted Ellen to perform community service for as long as she could to remind her that her life still has meaning.

According to the Miami-Herald, Weston added, “As everybody knows, this is not just a case about you and your terminally ill or very ill husband because we’ve heard from the testimony today that there are many other victims in this case.”

Testifying on her own behalf, Ellen told the judge, “My husband was a remarkable man. He was kind, generous, funny and loving. We supported each other through wonderful and sometimes not so wonderful times.”

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