He killed his ailing wife. A Cyprus court ruled it was manslaughter, not murder

By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS
Associated Press

PAPHOS, Cyprus (AP) — A Cyprus court has found a British man who killed his ailing wife in their home guilty of manslaughter, saying that the prosecution didn’t prove beyond reasonable doubt that the 76-year-old man committed premeditated murder. In a unanimous decision, the three-judge bench said Friday that David Hunter’s decision to suffocate his 74-year-old wife Janice was a spur-of-the-moment decision because he snapped as he could no longer stand her weeping in pain. The court accepted witness testimony that Janice feared her blood ailment would develop into full-blown leukemia and had repeatedly pleaded with her husband to take her life because she didn’t want to share the fate of her sister, who died of the disease.