Woman, 61, Kills Husband, 70, Says He Requested It

A woman who told Santa Monica police that she shot and fatally wounded her husband at his request Tuesday because she is terminally ill and he did not wish to survive her has been booked for investigation of murder.

Lt. Jim Dawson said Sibyl Marvin, 61, told detectives that her husband, Donald, 70, handed her a 25-caliber pistol and asked her to shoot him, saying, “Kill me. I can’t live without you.”

Investigators questioned her story, however, after neighbors told them that Marvin had been physically abusive to his wife and that she may have fought back after a beating.

“We believe both were intoxicated,” homicide Detective Ray Cooper said Wednesday. “There was an argument, some name calling. Our information is that he assaulted her. He told her to go ahead and shoot him, and she did.”

Was to Have Had Surgery

Sibyl Marvin was taken to a Santa Monica hospital, where she was treated for a swollen jaw, Cooper said, adding that she was to have undergone surgery for throat cancer today.

She told officers that she shot her husband as he had asked, then went next door to tell a neighbor what she had done. The neighbor called police, who found the man unconscious at his house in the 800 block of Bay Street. He was taken to Santa Monica Hospital Medical Center, where he died about 90 minutes later.

Sibyl Marvin is being held without bail in the jail ward at County-USC Medical Center.