MASSILLON, Ohio —A woman whose husband of 45 years is accused of shooting her in the head in her hospital bed in a possible mercy killing had been in the intensive care unit in an extremely disabled state, a prosecutor said on Monday.
Barbara Wise was incapacitated before John Wise stood at her bedside and shot her on Saturday with a handgun, Akron assistant city prosecutor Craig Morgan said.
John Wise entered his wife’s room at Akron General Medical Center and fired at least one round from the handgun, police said. One shot was fired, hospital officials said.
Barbara Wise, 65, was declared dead on Sunday morning. She had been at the hospital in a “previously extremely disabled state,” said Morgan, who wouldn’t specify her ailments.
“The evidence would suggest that all those things were in place before Mr. Wise allegedly went in there and shot her,” he said.
Wise entered the hospital through the main entrance and went up to his wife’s room without drawing any attention, apparently keeping the handgun concealed, hospital spokesman Jim Gosky said.
Hospital security officers ran from the ground floor’s emergency department to the ICU’s third floor following a code silver, which alerts the hospital that someone has a weapon, Gosky said. A distinctive pop sound drew a physician’s attention to respond, too. Akron police soon followed.
Gosky said it appeared no one else was in the room at the time of the shooting, and no one else was harmed in what he called “an isolated incident.”
John Wise, 66, has an initial court appearance on Tuesday in Akron Municipal Court.
