On a warm, early July night, the Walnut Creek Police Department was suddenly flooded with calls from frantic hospital employees at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in downtown Walnut Creek. Gunshots had been heard on the third floor of the hospital.
“It was hectic in the first few minutes,” said Lt. Steve Skinner, a detective with the Walnut Creek Police. Officers arrived at the scene within minutes, around 8:40 p.m. At the hospital, they found an older woman patient, shot in the head, still in bed, and an older man slumped in the guest chair next to her. He, too, had been shot in the head.
It did not take police long to determine it was a murder-suicide. Witnesses had watched Donald George, 81, walk into the hospital room of his wife Betty, 77. They said, recalled Skinner, that he talked to her for a little while and then they heard the shots. He used a .38-caliber revolver.
At 3 a.m., after police obtained a search warrant, they went to Donald George’s apartment at Sunrise Assisted Living in Danville, to make sure that no one else was injured or involved. There, they found ammunition that matched the gun at the scene. Police also found a note from Donald George.
“It didn’t outline what he was going to do, but it was indicative of what he was going to do. He said all of his affairs were in order, and he apologized,” said Skinner. There was no mystery for the police to figure out, according to Skinner.
“We had a pretty good idea of what had happened. She was suffering from a lot of medical problems and was moved to Kaiser. Based on what we found with the note, he didn’t want to see her hang on and suffer,” said Skinner. “It was his way of ending that for her and for him as well.”
Though they do not happen weekly, Skinner said murder-suicides among older couples are not uncommon. The George case this July, however, was the first time he had seen one occur in a public place like a hospital.
A call in the night
Autumn Lockhart was getting ready to go to bed when the phone rang at 11 p.m. She had the thought that someone was calling a bit too late and went to sleep. The phone rang again at 1 a.m. and this time she knew something was wrong.
Something was indeed wrong. A doctor from Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, the hospital where her mother Betty was staying, was calling to tell her that her stepfather Donald had killed Betty and then killed himself. Lockhart could hear the distress in the doctor’s voice.
“It was awful,” she remembered. “The poor doctor was so upset. He had such a hard time telling me.”
Lockhart, who lives in Indiana, immediately tried to get in touch with her sister Katherine Courtney, a resident of Southern California. Courtney, a biology professor, recently had been with their mother at the hospital but was away on a backpacking trip at Mount Whitney. It was difficult, at first, to get hold of her.
“I contacted the local county sheriff. They contacted the forest ranger. The forest ranger tracked them down and found them. He had a satellite phone,” said Lockhart. The two sisters immediately headed back to Danville.
Loretta Talbert was watching the nightly news on July 6 when she heard: “Police action at a local hospital.” At the time, the news report showed police at Kaiser, but didn’t disclose any names. The next morning a neighbor from two doors down knocked on Talbert’s door.
“She said, ‘I know that you knew the Georges and that you were friends.’ She said that the police had told her that he had shot her and then himself.'” Talbert, who had been a neighbor of the Georges for years at their Sycamore Hill Court condominium, called another neighbor and friend, Judy Shephard.
“Loretta called me and she was in tears. She said, ‘I got really bad news,'” said Shephard. “I was horrified. It was horrible that he would do that. That he would even conceive of doing that. He was a very gentle man. But he had a lot of pride and stubbornness.”
Lockhart was not surprised by her stepfather’s actions. She felt that Donald had a controlling and inflexible personality, and knew he was frustrated and angry about the prospect of being separated from Betty.
The two had recently moved to the assisted living facility to help manage Betty’s Alzheimer’s disease and Donald’s physical frailty. When it was discovered at Kaiser that Betty was dehydrated because of an inability to swallow – a result of the Alzheimer’s – Donald knew she would either have to be moved to a 24-hour nursing unit at Sunrise or a separate nursing home.
“The drawback was that they would take her away from Don. That’s when he started getting agitated and upset. He didn’t get upset in front of you. But he was very angry and he didn’t know what to do. He felt overwhelmed by it,” said Lockhart.
It was partly Donald’s controlling and inflexible personality that made Lockhart insist her mother live at Sunrise, she said. She had always felt her stepfather was not capable emotionally or physically to care completely for her mother. It had crossed her mind that, if alone, Donald was capable of harming himself and her mother.
“That was one of the reasons they lived in assisted living. There would be that watchfulness. I thought they were safe,” said Lockhart.
A happy, full life
Betty George grew up in Yuba City, 40 miles north of Sacramento. Intelligent and assertive, she earned her teacher accreditation and taught U.S. history and social sciences at Ygnacio Valley High School in Concord for 35 years. She moved to Danville in 1969 with her first husband and raised her two daughters on El Cerro Boulevard. Both Autumn and Katherine graduated from Monte Vista High School.
Donald George grew up in Birmingham, England. As a young man he had served in the British military. He moved to the states in the 1950s and earned a living as a mechanical draftsman. He had two sons with his first wife.
“He was very hardworking, but didn’t have a lot of education,” said Lockhart about her stepfather.
Donald and Betty met at an older singles mixer at the Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church. Both were divorced and were looking for companionship. They hit it off right away and started dating. They married in 1980 and lived together at Sycamore Hill Court for 20 years.
For much of their 25-year marriage, the Georges lived a full and rewarding life. Don and Betty both loved to travel. After Betty retired from teaching, she worked for an African Safari travel company in Moraga. They traveled to Africa twice. They also went on cruises and traveled to Donald’s native England.
They both also had their own personal passions. Betty was an avid ballroom dancer. Her specialties were the foxtrot and the waltz.
“I used to see her all dressed up at 4 p.m. in the afternoon in feathers and rhinestones,” said Talbert.
Donald’s passion was painting. He particularly enjoyed painting the old barns out on Tassajara Road. He met with a painting club regularly.
Betty and Don were also particularly happy with where they lived.
“They loved going to all the parties we had at the Sycamore Hill complex. They always were the first ones there,” said Talbert.
Shephard described the 44 townhouses of Sycamore Hill as a place where everyone knows one another.
“It was a close-knit community. Everybody knew them. If you walked out of your house to the court area you would see somebody you knew there,” said Shephard.
The Georges were known as kind and generous neighbors.
“There was nothing they wouldn’t do for us. If we ever needed them to receive a package or let someone in, they were always there. You could always trust them,” said Shephard.
Around eight years ago, Betty started showing early signs of Alzheimer’s, said her daughter Autumn Lockhart. She started taking things out of context, talking about things from the past as if they were the present. She also began to lose track of time and once she even got lost.
“They drove up to Sonoma. Don was painting and she went to go get sandwiches. She got completely lost. The good thing was she somehow drove to a firehouse. They got her back to Don,” said Lockhart. Betty’s health only continued to get worse.
For many years, Donald was Betty’s caretaker. He would dress her and do chores around the house like laundry and cooking.
“He took wonderful careful care of her during the development of Alzheimer’s,” said Shephard.
As her condition worsened and she became incontinent, he would have to clean her and redress her a few times a day.
He, too, was getting weaker and frailer physically. One day Shephard heard Donald yelling. He had fallen down on the sidewalk. Family and friends knew that it was becoming too much. The George condominium was two stories. If his weak knees gave out, he could have fallen down the stairs and there would have been no one there to help him.
After insistent urgings from neighbors and even arguments with family, Donald finally recognized that he and his wife had to move into an assisted living facility. It was something both he and Betty had resisted.
“They did not want to move. I can understand, you don’t want anyone coming in telling you you’re too old and feeble,” said Lockhart.
Betty’s daughters encouraged them to move closer to Katherine in Southern California but they insisted on staying in Danville.
“His friends were people in the community. He couldn’t stand the thought of moving somewhere where they’d have to start again,” said Shephard.
The Georges chose Sunrise Assisted Living in Danville on Diablo Road. Sunrise was one of the few communities that offered an Alzheimer’s unit. They initially moved into a studio apartment but eventually switched to a more spacious one-bedroom unit.
“It’s a wonderful place. I know my mom was happy,” said Lockhart. “Unfortunately for Don, he didn’t adjust well to it. He wasn’t in control. He constantly told us that he was bored.”
It was difficult to get a true gauge on how Donald felt about living there, said friend Judy Shephard.
“He always told me that it was wonderful, but he would tell his daughter and son that he hated it. He would tell them one thing and the public another,” said Shephard.
The Georges lived there for six months. They made friends and had people they ate their meals with, said Ken Claire, operations manager for Sunrise.
In July, Betty was taken to Kaiser hospital in Walnut Creek for a bladder infection. Sometime shortly before that, friends and family believe Donald purchased the .38-caliber revolver. No one had ever seen the gun or heard him discuss it.
Between integrity and despair
Even though what happened to the Georges is shocking, it is not uncommon. An estimated 1,000-1,500 murders-suicides occur in the United States each year, according to the journal Psychiatric Times.
People over 65 have the highest rate of murder-suicide. That age group also accounts for 18 percent of all suicides in the United States, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Growing old together is often far from the blissful picture couples imagined when they were young. Alzheimer’s, illness and physical frailty all affect the independence and rigor of a couple’s normal life. It seems that everything is being taken away. Couples are suddenly forced to leave their homes and are even sometimes forced to separate. When a couples’ health starts to go, it is an extraordinarily painful and taxing time – especially for the caregiver.
“Fifty percent of caregivers are suffering from clinical depression,” said Linda Fodrini-Johnson, director and founder of Eldercare Services, a geriatric care management business in Walnut Creek.
Caregivers, particularly men, have a tough time “sharing the caring,” said Fodrini-Johnson.
“It’s so hard to let go, to let somebody else do the caring. There is an intense sense of guilt and disappointment and a breach of marriage vows,” said Fodrini-Johnson. “You have to acknowledge the emotional struggle for the well spouse. They’re fiercely independent. Our society focuses on independence. I would like society to focus on interdependence.”
Although depression isn’t always easy to detect, some signs are weight loss, sleeplessness, crying, anxiety and a feeling of hopelessness. There are gradual ways to reach out to a caregiver who is possibly in crisis. Fodrini-Johnson suggests using a daycare service for the sick spouse.
“Give examples like, ‘I heard about this really nice daycare program. I’ll go with you,'” said Fodrini-Johnson. An adult daycare program at least allows the healthy caregiver to have a few hours a day to recuperate and focus on personal needs they may have been neglecting.
Fodrini-Johnson also suggests hiring help at home like a housekeeper or a nurse. Family meetings with a counselor and support groups can also be crucial.
“I was working with a man who was very depressed, almost suicidal. He came to a caregivers support group. I told him to write down, ‘Mary’s Alzheimer’s disease put her in the home,’ a hundred times,” said Fodrini-Johnson. The man came back the next week and said the simple exercise helped him cope with the crippling guilt.
Donna Cohen, a professor of aging and mental health issues at the University of South Florida, recommends communication. If you suspect someone is depressed, ask outright if they have ever thought about suicide. If they say yes, engage them and ask why. If you know that they possess firearms, remove them. If you sense imminent danger, immediately contact a suicide crisis center, a physician or a psychiatric or medical emergency room. The important thing is to seek help. Do not try to cope with the situation alone.
In the last stage of our life, our task is to consider the integrity of our life as a whole. “Either we’re going to be in integrity or despair,” said Fodrini-Johnson.
Donald George, Fodrini-Johnson believes, was in despair.
Celebrating a life together
Initially, family members were not sure if they wanted to have a joint service for Betty and Donald.
“When the incident happened, there was a lot of anger and upset and uproar and horror that this had happened. But when both sides of the family were able to see why it had happened, the families came together within a week,” said Shephard.
Betty’s daughters Autumn and Katherine are still struggling with their mother’s death. Neighbors and friends described what Donald did as an act of love. But her daughters do not necessarily agree. While Donald saw the situation as untenable, they both felt it could have been managed.
Before Betty was killed, her daughters had made plans – plans Donald was aware of – to come to Danville to help move their mother to a 24-hour nursing facility. Lockhart said Donald knew they were coming. She feels what he did the night of July 6 was premeditated.
“I am angry,” said Lockhart. “I didn’t get to say goodbye.”
Eventually the family held a service for both Betty and George at Shadelands Art Center in Walnut Creek. The families wanted to remember the integrity of Donald and Betty George’s life together.
“It was beautiful and gorgeous. We had over 100 people come,” said Lockhart. Many friends and colleagues spoke about the Georges. Katherine put together a slide show of photos of Betty and Donald as children and photos of them as a couple. The service was upbeat and positive.
“If we focused on the homicide-suicide, it was not going to help anybody. Most everybody knew them as a couple. I don’t think my mother would have wanted separate memorials,” said Lockhart.
