Stephen Kruspe, the man who shot his wife with dementia and called it assisted suicide, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
In 2017, Kruspe murdered his wife, Pam, which was framed in the media as a “mercy killing.” Kruspe claimed she begged him to kill her, and he did, though she had already been placed in an assisted living facility. Though he originally admitted to shooting his wife, his defense team later changed the story, saying Pam helped pull the trigger. That further fractured the divide between the Kruspes’ three children, two of whom were witnesses for the prosecution and want nothing to do with their father. The third child pled for a lenient sentence for Kruspe, and has stood by his father’s side through it all.
Andrew Kruspe, one of the children, said Stephen spoke of killing Pam a year before he went through with it. “I wish I could just put a round in her chest and put her out of her misery,” he testified that his father had said. “We thought he was just saying this out of frustration with her condition. Until he wasn’t.”
Stephanie Wilhelm, another of the Kruspes’ children, said murder is not a demonstration of love.
“He could’ve put her in that home and walked away if things got too difficult. We would’ve made sure she was taken care of. He chose to take matters into his own hands to make it go away,” she said in a previous court hearing. “He is not capable of doing what’s recommended when faced with adversity. To have and to hold, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health is not demonstrated by a .45 to the chest.”
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In April, Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott accepted a reduced manslaughter charge, to which Kruspe agreed to plead guilty. It was an open plea, meaning a judge would decide Kruspe’s sentencing.
The fact that he changed his story was a sign, Andrew Kruspe said, that his father was not being honest, and also urged the court not to factor in his father’s service in the Marine Corps, which the defense tried to use to show that Kruspe was a man of upstanding character. “My father has shown that he can’t be trusted,” Andrew said during sentencing. “He changed his story from he killed my mother to saying that my mother shot herself.”
Andrew asked for the maximum possible sentence of 30 years in prison, and told Kruspe directly that he should take responsibility for his actions.
Christopher Wilhelm, Stephanie’s husband, pointed out that a woman with dementia cannot, by definition, consent to Kruspe’s so-called assisted suicide, even if she did hold the gun during the shooting. “You’re blaming a woman who didn’t even know how to use the phone,” he pointed out. Stephanie, meanwhile, said the world has been robbed of a wonderful woman, even with dementia.
“My kids were 5, 11 and 18 years old when you murdered their Nana. They leave notes to her, missing their Nana. They’re angry at their grandfather,” she said, adding, “You are a controlling, selfish liar. You were more concerned about your needs than you were for hers or ours. It’s scary to think you can get rid of someone you love just because it’s hard.”
When Kruspe had the opportunity to speak for himself, he put the blame on others, seemingly directed at his children. “There are those who felt I was guilty until I was proven innocent. No one knew that woman better than I did. No one knew me better than her. I haven’t even been able to grieve,” he said. “I want to know where everybody’s help was when me and my wife needed it the most.”
Judge Caroline Shepherd, however, was not swayed, and said that Pam was in a nursing home; Kruspe could have walked away if he had wanted to. Shepherd further argued that Pam was “not able to make decisions for herself,” and that to put a gun in front of her and then call the murder Pam’s decision, was wrong. “She was vulnerable. She needed your help and support,” she said. “She could not have been a willing participant in this event.”
With the sentencing of 20 years, Kruspe won’t be eligible to leave prison until he’s 83.
