Florida to Set Free Ailing ‘Mercy Killer’

Florida officials signed clemency orders today for an 81-year-old man convicted of shooting his ailing wife in what he said was a mercy killing.

Gov. Bob Martinez and three Cabinet members signed the order for health reasons with the conditions that Roswell Gilbert keep contact with probation officers and not possess any weapons.

Gilbert could be released from prison as early as Thursday, officials said.

“A just society is one that tempers the need for punishment with the compassion that is our hallmark as a people,” said Martinez, who three years ago rejected Gilbert’s clemency request.

“Mr. Gilbert’s declining health, and the likelihood that his condition will continue to deteriorate if he remains in prison, leads me to the conclusion that he should be granted clemency,” Martinez said in a written statement.

Gilbert is serving a minimum mandatory sentence of life without chance of parole for 25 years for killing his wife, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis. He was the subject of a 1987 television movie that dramatized his decision.

“O Lord, it’s just such wonderful news,” said Gilbert’s daughter, Martha Moran, in Baltimore. “It’s just wonderful.”

“I saw Dad last Thursday,” she said. “He was doing OK considering the circumstances. I know he will be absolutely thrilled to death at getting out, of course.”

Moran said she will return to Florida immediately to help her father resettle.

“I hope the readjustment to life outside the prison won’t be too difficult for him,” she said.

Gilbert was examined in January, and a medical report by Dr. Irene Cody showed that he suffered from heart and lung disease and was considered “at high risk of death at any time” because of his age and physical condition.

The prosecution claimed that Gilbert, a retired engineer, killed his 72-year-old wife, Emily, in March, 1985, after 51 years of marriage because she had become a burden to him.