Ronnie Wiggs told a detective he was "depressed" and decided to strangle his wife "because he could not take care of her anymore and he could not pay the medical bills," according to a probable cause statement obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
A Missouri man is behind bars after police say he confessed to strangling his wife.
Ronnie Wiggs, 75, allegedly told a detective with the Independence Police Department that he "killed [his wife Ellen] by choking her and covering her mouth and nose to keep her from screaming" as she lay in her hospital bed, according to a probable cause statement obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
The couple's son Rusty said his mother had been admitted to the hospital "to get a new port for her dialysis."
Ronnie Wiggs allegedly told the detective he was "depressed" at the time and decided to strangle his wife "because he could not take care of her anymore and he could not pay the medical bills that had been acquired," according to the statement.
Ellen was found unresponsive and without a pulse in her hospital room on May 3, according to police. Nurses were able to resuscitate her, but she never regained brain function, so life-saving measures were discontinued and she was pronounced deceased soon after, according to the statement.
Police say that Wiggs arrived at the hospital in the middle of all this and that while the staff was trying to save Ellen's life, he said to his son and a nurse: "I did it, I killed her, I choked her.”
An off-duty police officer who happened to be working at the hospital reported to the Intensive Care Unit, where a witness at the hospital said that she observed "redness to the left and right side of the victim’s neck" and a "fresh wound in the middle of the victim’s throat" that could not have been caused by the staff's efforts to resuscitate Ellen, according to the statement.
The officer then arrested Wiggs and charged him with domestic assault, because his wife was still alive at that time. Wiggs has since been charged with second-degree murder, and while being interrogated told the detective that he had attempted to kill his wife on at least two other occasions, according to the statement
He said that he "last attempted to kill the victim while the victim was at a rehabilitation facility for her medical issues," but could not follow through after he started to choke Ellen, according to the statement. Wiggs also said that Ellen "woke up and told him not to do that again," said the statement.
His second attempt was thwarted because Ellen "was hooked up to several monitors at the hospital," Wiggs told the detective, according to the statement.
Court records show that Wiggs has never been charged with a crime or received a traffic violation in the state of Missouri. Wiggs appeared in court on Monday and will be appointed a public defender ahead of his next hearing on Thursday, according to a court order. At that time, a judge will determine if he can be released on bond.
