A man has been spared a jail term for attempting to murder his elderly mother in a nursing home, after the judge ruled that his motivation was entirely compassionate.
Gerald Vollrath (47) had his eyes closed throughout the sentencing, but winked at family members on hearing the outcome.
Outside the courtroom, he embraced family members as well as members of the gardai.
His mother, Veronica ‘Vera’ Vollrath (83), was pronounced dead on January 9, 2012 at Killure Bridge Nursing Home, Killure, Co Waterford.
She was known to be close to death – but her son admitted holding a pillow over her face while keeping vigil by her death bed, and the Austrian resident was charged with her murder.
Vollrath, of Tramore Heights, Tramore, pleaded not guilty to her murder, but the murder charge against him was dropped in December, and he pleaded guilty to attempted murder instead.
The Central Criminal Court was told last week that pathological exams had found no sign of suffocation, and that it could not be said with absolute certainty that she was not already dead.
Mrs Vollrath had suffered a severe stroke, had Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart and kidney problems and was receiving end-of-life care.
The aviation worker was keeping vigil by her side on the night of January 8 when he put a pillow over her face and held it there for up to two minutes in an attempted mercy killing.
Staff did not suspect anything other than a natural death at the time.
But Vollrath revealed what he had done later that morning. He told gardai that his mother previously indicated that she would not like to be helpless.
The court heard the gardai’s view that Mr Vollrath’s only concern was his mother’s suffering.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said last week that this was the first time he had encountered anything of this nature in 50 years, and adjourned sentencing.
And before passing sentence yesterday, he described the case as distressing.
He said that mercy killing was a concept totally unknown to our law. He then quoted from an English case, where a mother had taken the life of her severely disabled son with the intention of ending his suffering.
REMORSE
“The law of murder does not distinguish between murder committed for malevolent reasons and murder motivated by familial love … Mercy killing is murder,” he said, quoting a judicial decision in that case. Click here for full story