Wife Suffocated, Killed Ex-N.J. Cop In Hospital Bed: Police

The wife of a retired New Jersey police officer was charged this week with suffocating and killing him in a hospital room, police said.

Jan Sochalski, 61, is charged with second-degree murder in the May killing of Henry Sochalski, 64, in a Daytona Beach, Florida, hospital room, police there said.

Henry "Butch" Sochalski, a Trenton police patrolman for 25 years before retiring in 2003, was recovering from routine back surgery when he was killed, police said.

"Butch" was a lifelong New Jersey and Mercer County resident before moving to the Daytona area 13 years ago, according to his obituary.

He graduated from Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, class of 1969, and attended both the Mercer County Sheriff's Department Academy and the Trenton Police Academy.

In a report on the department's website, Daytona Beach police said Jan Sochalski, a former nurse with a 40-year career, asked nurses for more narcotics, was "hovering" over her husband and acted combative with nurses before her husband died.

Nurses said Jan Sochalski was found pressing the button for a self-administered pain medication system and was told to stop, according to police. It was pressed 264 times in an eight-hour period, according to the police report; it should have been pushed only six times an hour, according to police.

She was then found pinching her husband's nose with her hand over his mouth and was also blocking his way of breathing through a tracheotomy, police said. His cause of death was later ruled as a suffocation of his nose, mouth and tracheotomy.

Jan Sochalski denied any involvement in her husband's death, police said.

Henry Sochalski had elective back surgery at the hospital on April 7 and was expected to make a full recovery, police said. But a few days later, he went into cardiac and respiratory arrest and never regained consciousness, police said.

Jan Sochalski is being held without bail at the Volusia County Jail.

Photo: Volusia County Corrections