Thread: how can one inactively kill somebody?

i want to write a story about domestic violence, where the abusive husband dies by the actions/inactions of the abused wife. what i mean is that i want the death to have been caused by her action/inaction, but not in a way that she actively plotted to kill him.

any ideas? i was thinking of maybe some fit of illness in which her urgent attention could have saved his life, but she passively chose to let him die of it by denying some provision of timely medicine or assistance.

any other ideas are also welcome.

thanks!

The illness idea could work well. He may have been on some kind of medication for, let's say, blood pressure and one day he had a headache and she gave him a pill that reacted negatively with his blood pressure pills causing his heart to seize.

Another idea could be that she had begun cooking on their gas stove, they got into one of their fights and she left to seek treatment for the broken bones he had given her, forgetting to turn the gas off. As a result he suffocated from gas inhalation.

Whilst making their bed one morning she noticed that the wires on the electric blanket were slightly frayed. Deciding that she had far too many other chores to attend to that day, she left it. Her man came home after work in a rage, beat her and went up to bed. She chose to have a bath to try and soothe her wounds. He had taken some sleeping tablets to try and calm his mood and allow for a good night's sleep. He tossed and turned in bed, trying to find comfort and as a result of the movement against the wires, a spark shot out onto the sheets and the bed caught alight. Due to the sleeping tablets, he did not wake up in time and died in the fire.

Hope these help

Or denied him the real medication - gave him sugar pills instead of the real thing. Think death of John Paul I. In all of the excitement of being elected pope, he forgot to pack his heart medication when he moved to Rome and died a month later.

The illness angle could work. But then you said that this is a "passive choice" and to "inactively kill" someone requires no premeditation, and the denial of the real medication definitely has premeditation in it. Any jury would see that this case is first degree.

Yes, these look premicated = murder.

Also, in the UK, if the man just has an illness and the wife lets him die, I'm sure that legally she has something called a 'Duty of Care', which means she could still be done for it. Though unlikely.

btw I'm not 100% sure on that 'Duty of Care' thing, but I'm close.

On the same subject: say for instance, you leave your garden shears on some uneven ground. A kid kicks his ball over into your garden, and in jumping over the fence to get it, he injures himself. I'm sure you could be done for it. You have a Duty of Care. Same thing if a burglar injures himself climbing through a window he's just broken to get in, not with the glass, but because on the windowsill you've left a sharp object.

To sum up, I don't think you can inactively kill someone and be innocent in the eyes of the law. Hope that doesn't spoil your story.

thanks so much you guys!

im not getting into legalities in this story. i doubt the law would really suspect her, her having been the quintessential "obedient" wife. this wont be murder mystery-esque in any case, so i can easily steer clear of the topic of law.

the story will most likely be set in rural or small town india. so electric/electronic gadgets would be less convincing. im liking the medication angle more and more, esp with aaron's placebo pill idea. or maybe a mistaken switcheroo with her own pain killer pills or sleeping pills (that she has to take each time there is an "episode" with him).

would love to hear more about common/uncommon illnesses that could get fatal when even a single dose of the correct medicine is not given in time. or a combination of pills that are fatal, like jinxi suggested.

Originally Posted by city_struck

would love to hear more about common/uncommon illnesses that could get fatal when even a single dose of the correct medicine is not given in time.

Diabetes. Insulin should be taken according to the dose prescribed. This one's pretty strict, and a missed dose by a couple of hours could lead to sever hypoglycemia, slowly killing a person. No insulin taken within four to six hours after he should've had one would lead to near-fatal complications.

Originally Posted by city_struck

or a combination of pills that are fatal, like jinxi suggested.

Those with heart problems, esp. the elderly, may tend to forget which meds they took for the day and which they haven't. This may lead to overdosing. A few of the medicines for maintenance of a patient with a heart problem include digoxin, adenosine, Neo-Bloc, Aldomet, Catapress and the statins. A mixture of digoxin and Neo-Bloc or Catapress would be enough to bring your heart rate on a very low level and blood pressure. This could cause near-fatal complications as well.

I second the insulin. As a diabetic's blood sugar drops, they get confused and appear drunk. They can't reason at all. She may notice that he is needing sugar and decide just to go shopping for a few hours or to visit her mother all day. It would be hard to prove that she noticed his condition before she left, especially in a small town where the J.P. is a local redneck/good old boy who declares him dead and isn't that sharp as are the local cops. A natural death by low blood sugar wouldn't arouse suspicion.

Wilful neglect might always be explained away in a law court as absent-mindedness. For example, the wife notices that the airbag in the passenger seat has been turned off, because she carries her child in that seat. One day her husband joins her in the passenger seat. She 'forgets' that the air bag has been disabled. The wife drives into a tree. The airbag saves her life. The husband is killed. Who could say it was murder?

^ In the US, with a hardcore DA, that could still count as involuntary manslaughter.

If the abuser is a drinker, he could get drunk and puke.
She is disgusted and leaves, he chokes to death on the emesis.
(Or asperates it and dies from pneumonia)

She could see the disgusting mess and leaves him laying there still breathing, but later he is found dead.

Can't really think of any other means for a person to die without criminal intent.

correction: Missed injection for the diabetic makes sugar go high, missing a meal after taking injection would drop the sugar to low. High is slower to kill accidently.(mass sugar intake would be intentional, not doing injections for several doses would take time.) To drunk or drugged to get the insulin dose right could kill him quickly, to much insulin.

Head injury could be ignored until he went confused, she thinks hes been drinking again leaves before he starts beating on her again. When in reality he has a subarachnoid hemotoma.

The OP put me in mind of a Firefly episode where one character says to another, "No, I don't suppose there's many you killed. Just put them in a position to die easy."

Maybe thinking on that will generate ideas.

I think that SeverinR may be onto something with the drunk choking on vomit thing. It was the first thing that crossed my mind.

Or it could be as simple as a drunken car crash where she could have offered assistance that kept him alive but instead she watched him die and then called for help.

The possibilities are endless with this concept.

Also this husband doesn't seem like a terrific guy. Maybe the wife lets slip some information to the wrong people. Someone else taking the blame, and accidental information slip that didn't seem important anyway. Depends a lot on the unsavory nature of the husband though.

If you're writing a story, you need the death to be in some way attributed to the violence. That means accidents like a frayed electrical wire are out. Medications are also out as there's either premeditation or neglect involved. Any action of which the wife watches the husband die is out as it's a willful choice.

How about husband hits; she defends herself; she runs away; locks herself in a room; he thumps the door; she stays hidden; and when she emerges he's dead.