Unable to pay medical bills, Kansas City man strangles wife in hospital bed

That healthcare in the US isn’t within everyone’s reach is news to none. In Kansas City, US, this crisis took an ugly form. A man killed his wife because he could not pay for her treatment anymore. The woman lost her life not to her ailment, but to high healthcare costs.

The Kansas City man strangulated his wife in the hospital bed where she was admitted, reported the Associated Press.

The 75-year-old man confessed to police that he had killed his wife because he couldn’t take care of her or afford her medical bills, according to court records.

Just before midnight, the police received a phone call and were asked to come to the ICU to investigate the death of a woman.

The woman had come to the hospital to get a new port for dialysis. Police reports reveal the woman was resting in her hospital bed, when her husband, Ronnie Wiggs, killed her. When the police reached the crime scene, the woman was not dead yet.

Investigators later learnt the woman had no brain function and that medical staff would discontinue life-saving measures, according to the probable cause statement, according to a Kansas Star report.

But the hospital staff had already found the murderer, and they informed the police that they heard Wiggs say, “I did it, I killed her, I choked her.”

After being arrested, Wiggs told the detective how he did not let his wife scream or shout and murdered her. He added how he was depressed from all the medical bills, according to the Associated Press report.

He had attempted to take her life before, as well, at a rehabilitation facility, but she had woken up and asked him not to repeat it. However, he had decided he would kill her when she was hospitalised.

Now, Wiggs has been charged with second-degree murder and is being held on a $250,000 bond.