3rd Murder-Suicide Case : 77-Year-Old Kills Sick Wife, Self, Police Say

A 77-year-old Fullerton man who doted on his ailing, pain-ridden wife shot her while she lay sleeping on their bed early Tuesday and, barely a minute later, went into his backyard and turned the gun on himself, police said.

It was the third apparent murder-suicide in Orange County in six weeks, authorities said.

Anna Priniski, 72, who was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment daily on a cancerous brain tumor, was killed by a shotgun blast to her head, said Police Sgt. Bud Lathrop.

Husband Distressed

Her husband, Raymond Priniski, 77, who had been distressed over her condition for some time, died from a similar, self-inflicted wound, Lathrop said.

“We did not find any note, but we pieced this together from what friends and relatives told us and from the physical evidence at the house,” the sergeant said. “She was apparently euthanized by her husband.”

He said Anna Priniski had been a cancer patient for at least a year. She had an abdominal cancer removed surgically and then learned she had a brain tumor, he said. Besides the daily chemotherapy and radiation treatment, she was constantly taking medicine to ease the tremendous amount of pain she suffered, he said.

Raymond Priniski “was emotionally distressed and that had been evident for a long time,” Lathrop said.

“He apparently doted on his wife and demonstrated his concern in the minutiae of everyday living --the way he took care of her and took care of the house.

“He kept saying things about how concerned he was and how he despaired over his wife’s condition,” the police officer said.

Murder-suicides involving elderly couples where at least one spouse is severely disabled and the other is acting out of mercy are not common, law enforcement authorities have said.

But in the last six weeks, media attention has focused on a Florida man’s conviction for killing his ill wife, and on two Orange County cases.

On Aug. 13, a 78-year-old El Toro man killed his wife, who, at 78, was suffering from incurable Alzheimer’s disease, and then shot himself to death.

And on July 16, an 88-year-old Anaheim man in pain from a broken hip, shot and killed his blind and sick 97-year-old wife, and then shot himself.

Police suspect Priniski may have had some of those incidents in the back of his mind.

“Why he picked this time, I don’t know,” Lathrop said, “but I’m sure he was considering the action for some time.”

New Shotgun Box

One piece of evidence the police picked up from the home was the new box that the 12-gauge shotgun used in the shootings had recently come in. Police are not sure yet when the shotgun was purchased.

“It was a single-shot shotgun, which means he had to reload it to kill himself,” Lathrop said. “He was serious about this, there’s no question about that.”

Neighbors said the Priniskis were a quiet couple who kept mainly to themselves. Even their next-door neighbor, William Linderman, said he did not know Anna Priniski was suffering from cancer.

Finding of Body

It was Linderman who spotted Raymond Priniski’s body lying in the backyard about 6 a.m. Tuesday as he was getting ready for work. He did not notice the shotgun right away, seeing only the mass of blood around Priniski.

“The first thing I thought about,” he said, “was the Night Stalker,” the intruder believed responsible for numerous home attacks in California.

At about 4:17 a.m. Tuesday, another neighbor heard what sounded like a gunshot, Lathrop said. A minute later, he heard what sounded like another shot, looked at his clock and dismissed the noise as cars backfiring on the nearby freeway, the officer said.

Another neighbor, Elva Beswick, said she was “shocked” when she learned what had happened.

“They moved here about the same time we did in 1958, and I only learned about six weeks ago that she had cancer,” she said.

Helpful to Neighbor Boys

She said the Priniskis were “awfully good” to her sons as they grew up, buying candy and other goods the boys peddled as part of fund raising for the Boy Scouts or other organizations.

Beswick said Raymond Priniski used to take long, early morning walks.