US woman, 92, kills son to avoid being sent to assisted care facility, police say

PHOENIX, ARIZONA - A 92-year-old woman accused of fatally shooting her 72-year-old son over his plans to put her in an assisted living facility has been arrested on suspicion of murder, police said on Tuesday (July 3)

Anna Mae Blessing was taken into custody on Monday at the suburban Phoenix home she shared with her son and was being held in lieu of US$500,000 (S$681,080) bail, court officials said.

She did not enter a plea during a brief initial court appearance and it was not immediately clear if she had retained an attorney.

Blessing told detectives following her arrest that she hid two handguns in the pockets of her robe and confronted her son in his bedroom, striking him with multiple rounds, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said in a written statement.

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The suspect told investigators she tried to point the guns at her son's 57-year-old girlfriend but the woman was able to wrestle the weapons away, according to the sheriff's office.

Blessing was sitting in a reclining chair in her bedroom when she was taken into custody, after she refused to leave the house, according to court records.

She told detectives she had confronted her son over his intentions to put her in the care facility because, he had said, she was difficult to live with.

Blessing also told detectives that she should be "put to sleep," for her actions and had intended to kill herself following the incident.

Blessing said she purchased one of the weapons and the other one had been given to her deceased husband but that neither weapon had been fired since the 1970s.

Police said they had visited the residence before, following a verbal altercation between Blessing and her son.