Elderly woman, 92, ‘murdered 72-year-old son for trying to put her in a care home’

A 92-year-old woman has been charged with murder after she allegedly shot her 72-year-old son when he tried to put her in a care home.

Anna Mae Blessing is said to have killed Thomas Blessing at her home in Fountain Hills, Arizona, on Monday after he told her his plans.

Officers who arrived at Blessing’s home found Mr Blessing with a gunshot wound to his neck and jaw and his mother sitting in a recliner in her bedroom.

When she was arrested she muttered, ‘You took my life, so I’m taking yours’, according to the Maricopa Sheriff’s Office. Blessing allegedly told an officer she killed her son for trying to place her in an assisted living facility.

According to police, the pensioner had argued with her son and his 57-year-old girlfriend about how she was being treated shortly before the killing.

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Blessing, who came to live with her son and his girlfriend four months ago, is said to have also tried to kill her son’s partner but she was able to take two guns off her.

Blessing told police she purchased the handguns in the 1970’s.

Police say Blessing checked her son’s pulse to make sure he was dead but was unable to follow through with a plan to kill herself because they had been wrestled away by her son’s girlfriend.

Blessing he told officers that she should be ‘put to sleep’ after she was taken into custody.

Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone said in a statement: It is always concerning when domestic issues escalate to violence or tragic outcomes.

‘They are often isolated and neither predictable nor preventable.’

Blessing has been charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping.