ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — An Orange County grand jury has indicted an 80-year-old man on a charge of first-degree premeditated murder in the death of his wife.
William Simmons has pleaded not guilty but does not dispute that he shot and killed his wife. Simmons says his wife had dementia.
Mark O’Mara, Simmons’ defense attorney, says William Simmons never fired his gun during his 25 years as an Orlando police officer.
But O’Mara argues Simmons just snapped and lost his sense of reality when he shot and killed his wife of 43 years in February.
“This was not first-degree murder. I don’t think this was second-degree murder. This was some type of event that happened with him. Sad as it was, that he felt, I think, in his heart that it was better this way than to have her degrade further,” O’Mara said.
Simmons told Orange County deputies he shot his 83-year-old wife, Nancy, during an argument about going on a cruise. Simmons says Nancy was cursing at him when he got his gun.
In the report, “Simmons stated he had dealt with her dementia for too long and stated that he loved the old Nancy, and that he would rather live in prison than to deal with her.”
When I asked whether the defense may argue temporary insanity, O’Mara didn’t rule it out.
“You have to know if he just sort of lost his mind, right, just lost his touch with reality, thinking this was an appropriate response, this was an appropriate act,” O’Mara said.
“How do you prove that, that in moment, he may have just lost the sense of what’s right and wrong?,” Channel 9’s Ashlyn Webb asked.
“Well, you know, one way to present it is, nothing else makes sense,” O’Mara said.
“There are plenty of people that take care of their spouse that might suffer from memory loss, but they don’t kill them,” Webb stated.
“Absolutely,” O’Mara said. “I agree. We’re not sitting back saying this is the only resolution. But if we now look and try and reverse engineer it, let’s look for an answer. Let’s say that they had a bunch of domestic violence events. They did not. Let’s look and say that there was real anger shown in the days leading up. There is not. The only thing that makes sense is that he sort of lost it momentarily because not out of hatred for his wife, but out of love.”
When we asked how the defense could convince a jury of that, O’Mara said he doesn’t believe this case will go to trial, adding that his client is already 80 years old.
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