‘Euthanasia-Suicide’ Seen in Deaths of Elderly Couple

An elderly Costa Mesa man distraught over his wife’s declining health apparently suffocated her in bed with a plastic bag Sunday morning before taking his own life with a shotgun, police said.

Donald Edward Moore, 72, a retired Huntington Beach firefighter, and his wife, Gertrude Ruth Moore, 68, a retired county employee, were declared dead at their home in the 400 block of Costa Mesa Street, Deputy Coroner Dan Aiken said.

“I just think it was a little too much to bear,” neighbor John Park said. “They lived for each other, and that’s it. He knew she was going, and it was just a matter of when.”

Police were called shortly after 8 a.m. when Ed Ryan, who lives next door to the couple’s tidy, wood-frame home, heard the shotgun being fired and walked out to his back yard. Looking over the fence, he saw Donald Moore’s body lying under a tree.

“She’s been sick for a long time,” Ryan said. “He’s been down for a while and taking care of her. They were very close.”

The couple had lived on the tree-shaded street for more than 20 years, neighbors said. She had retired from the county’s registrar of voters office, Ryan said.

Their single-story house was well tended, with a rock yard circling the front and cactus and palm plants standing in neat pots. Police said the inside of the home was “immaculate,” with everything in its place and no evidence of an intruder.

“A euthanasia-suicide--that’s the way it’s looking,” said Paul Cappuccillo, a Costa Mesa police detective.

“They were a beautiful couple,” said a neighbor across the street as the police wheeled a body down the walkway on a gurney. “She was very ill and expected to pass away.”

In the last three years, Gertrude Moore’s health had deteriorated steadily, neighbors said. She was rarely seen outside, where her husband loved to work on the yard under the sun without a shirt.

“He was a healthy, robust man with a great suntan,” a neighbor said. “His wife we never saw anymore.”

She apparently suffered from osteoporosis, as well as other ailments, and often seemed confused, neighbors said. More and more, she had been confined to her bed.

Recently, Donald Moore had grown increasingly anxious about his wife’s condition, Baker said.

“He’d say, ‘None of you guys know what’s going on in here.’ She was getting sicker,” Baker said.

In recent years, Donald Moore began losing his hearing, and the couple became increasingly private, Park said.

“(Donald Moore) was getting kind of reclusive because he was going deaf,” Park said. “It got so he didn’t want to talk because he couldn’t hear.”

Earlier this month, Gertrude Moore slipped at home and broke her right hip. Donald Moore had brought his wife home from the hospital Friday after major hip surgery, neighbors said.

Sunday morning, Donald Moore apparently placed a plastic bag over his wife’s face, suffocating her, Aiken said.

Then, police said, Moore walked into their back yard and placed the barrel of a 16-gauge shotgun between his eyes and pulled the trigger.

Standing outside the Moores’ walkway, Costa Mesa Police Officer Robert Coash shook his head at the scene inside the home, but he said he understood why.

“When someone’s love is as strong as that,” he said, nodding toward the door, “as I tried to explain to the neighbors, they did what they wanted.”