Woman Suffocated Terminally Ill Boyfriend: Pasco Sheriff’s Office

NEW PORT RICHEY, FL — A New Port Richey woman was charged with premeditated first-degree murder for suffocating her terminally ill boyfriend, who was in hospice care, to death last month, according to an arrest affidavit from the Pasco Sheriff’s Office.

Margaret Kearney, 69, his live-in girlfriend of more than 15 years, was arrested Tuesday morning and pleaded not guilty to the charge on Wednesday, court records show.

The victim, who had terminal cancer, was found dead in his home the morning of Dec. 20 by a home health care nurse who was there to treat him.

The sheriff’s office responded to his death but “saw no concerning injuries” and hospice ended its death investigation that morning, the affidavit said. Kearney was at the home during the investigation.

Kearney’s friend called the sheriff’s office the next morning to tell them about several phone calls she had with the suspect.

The witness told deputies that in the days before his death, Kearney “expressed disgust with having to care for the victim … (who) was defecating himself due to his illness and she did not wish to clean him.” She planned to wait until a nurse came to the home to clean him.

Kearney called her friend about 10:30 p.m. the night her boyfriend died and said that she smothered him with a pillow until he was “gone,” the witness told investigators. She said that Kearney planned to cover his body with a blanket, sleep on the couch and let hospice workers who came to the home the next morning assume he died in his sleep.

Working with deputies, who monitored the call, the witness spoke with Kearney again the morning of Dec. 21. During that call, she confirmed to her friend that she smothered the victim.

Investigators went to Kearney's home around 1 p.m. that day and during an interview, she admitted to killing her boyfriend by holding a pillow over his face for about five minutes until he was no longer breathing, the affidavit said.

She told deputies that after he died, she slept on the living room couch and let the nurse who came to the home the next morning believe her boyfriend died of natural causes in his sleep. Kearney said she killed him “to prevent him from being in further pain,” the affidavit said.

She also told them she had been overmedicating her boyfriend with liquid morphine to help him with the pain.