FL Woman, Slain Husband Had Murder-Suicide Pact For Weeks: Police

DAYTONA BEACH, FL — A Florida woman and her terminally ill husband agreed to end their lives weeks before authorities said she fired the shot that killed her husband inside his Daytona Beach hospital room, according to police.

Police have accused Ellen Gilland, 76, of fatally shooting her 77-year-old husband, Jerry. The couple agreed she would then kill herself, but after shooting him in the head, she couldn't carry through with the rest, authorities said.

Ellen Gilland was charged Monday with premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of aggressive assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. She remains jailed without bond.

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Her court-appointed public defender didn't respond to a request by The Associated Press for comment.

Authorities were initially called to AdventHealth Daytona Beach, 301 Medical Memorial Parkway, on Saturday for a report that a person had been shot. When police arrived, they said Ellen Gilland had confined herself to her husband's 11th-floor room following the shooting.

The couple hatched the plan three weeks ago, Daytona Beach Police Chief Jakari Young said at a news conference over the weekend. During a conversation, they decided that if Jerry Gilland's unnamed illness took a turn for the worse, "he wanted her to end this," Young said.

"Initially, I think the plan was a murder-suicide, so she killed him, and then she was going to turn the gun on herself, but decided she couldn't go through with it," Young told reporters.

After hearing a gunshot from room 1106, two hospital workers entered and saw Ellen Gilland sitting beside the bed with her husband unresponsive in a pool of blood, according to a police report. She pointed the weapon at the pair and told them to leave the room, which smelled of burnt gunpowder, police said. Another staffer also entered and was told to leave at gunpoint.

Employees then began evacuating people from nearby rooms, according to the report. The police chief called it "a logistical nightmare" since most of the patients on the 11th floor were on ventilators.

After officers arrived, they lined up in the hallway with guns drawn toward the open door of room 1106, the report said. Police repeatedly yelled, "Drop the gun!" according to an officer's body camera video about 10 minutes after the shooting.

After about four hours, police said SWAT team members used a nonlethal explosive device to distract Ellen Gilland and entered the room. Authorities said they tried to use a stun gun, but it failed to subdue her and she fired a shot into the ceiling. Then she dropped the weapon and was taken into custody, the police report said.

"It's a tragic circumstance," Young said, "because it just shows that none of us are immune from the trials and tribulations of life."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.