Dementia sufferer poisoned by his wife after she 'became depressed with caring for him'

The woman claims she could no longer cope with the pressure of looking after her ill partner

The wife said she could no longer bear looking after her dementia-suffering partner (Getty Images)

A wife from Austria laced her husband’s morning coffee with rat poison, apparently to spare them both from the burden of his dementia.

The 67-year-old woman from the state of Styria poured the toxic substance into her partner’s drink and later claimed she had become depressed with caring for him.

In the past two months her 77-year-old husband was taken to hospital on four occasions, complaining of stomach pains and bleeding, according to a report by The Local.

After a series of blood tests doctors confirmed he had been poisoned several times.

Investigators searched the married couple’s house and found a half-empty packet of rat poison in the kitchen pantry.

The unnamed wife was taken into custody and admitted to adding the substance to her partner’s coffee as she felt she could no longer cope with the strain of his condition.

Initially she was not even considered to be a suspect by police given that she had brought her husband to hospital each time herself.

The couple had been married for 47 years before he was affected by the brain condition.

The wife is to be examined by a psychiatrist before she is put on trial later this year.

In 2008 a British housewife was spared jail after lacing a fruit cake she baked for her cheating husband with poison, with the court taking into account a history of domestic abuse.

A German man was not so fortunate in 2012 when received a twelve year jail term for pouring rat poison into his wife’s wine because she was too old to have more children.