2024-01-10 13:29:00
The story is as tragic as it is touching. This Tuesday, an elderly couple were found in Nieuwpoort. It was the son who discovered his father and his mother-in-law. They were 91 years old and 81 years old respectively.
While the precise circumstances of these deaths have yet to be determined, the 71-year-old man gave a little more detail regarding the relationship between the two parents. “Every day I came by to chat or make soup. Just the day before, I was helping dad who had broken down with his car,” he explains in the Nieuwsblad. Initially, the prosecution suspected domestic violence followed by suicide.
A motive far from reality according to the son. “I found my parents, together, in bed,” he said. “I also found several farewell letters addressed to me, the family and the police. They made it clear that they had made this decision together. That they had chosen together to withdraw from life, because one might not do without the other.”
The son describes his father as a pious and independent man, despite his advancing age step by step. “He didn’t accept a lot of help,” he continues for our colleagues. Together for 40 years, what might have pushed them to take action? “Three weeks ago he was diagnosed with bladder cancer,” he confesses. “The treatment was no longer useful. Dad didn’t want to get treatment either. He then said: ‘I prefer to leave the hospital between four boards’.”
For her part, the mother-in-law also had increasingly fragile health, breaking her vertebrae several times while falling. “We were already worried that it would be difficult for her to get through the year…”
Obviously, the news of one’s illness combined with the other’s fragility was much too hard to bear. “Even if it is hard, we must respect their decision. They no longer saw a way out and thought that such an end together was the most beautiful.”
If the investigation is still ongoing, the letters confirm the version that the two people wanted to leave at the same time. The West Flanders public prosecutor’s office, however, appointed another forensic doctor on Tuesday who visited the scene during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.
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