Son May Face Murder Charge in Mom’s Death

Police say they will probably seek a murder charge against a 54-year-old La Mirada man in connection with the bludgeoning death of his terminally ill mother in what he described to investigators as a mercy killing.

James Guthrie was originally charged with attempted murder after his 79-year-old mother survived a Saturday night attack, during which she was repeatedly struck in the head with 5-pound weights, La Habra Police Capt. John Rees said.

Evelyn Guthrie died of her injuries Tuesday morning at Friendly Hills Regional Medical Center in La Habra.

Police said James Guthrie visited his mother Saturday at the hospital, where she had been since Wednesday.

Guthrie told police that he struck his mother in the head with 5-pound weights placed inside a sock to “put her out of her misery,” Rees said.

Guthrie wanted his mother, a cancer sufferer, to avoid the pain and suffering his father had endured during a long illness that eventually took his life, Rees said.

Guthrie said that he remembered his mother saying she did not want to die like her husband and had left instructions in her will that she didn’t want extensive measures taken to prolong her life, according to Rees.

“[James Guthrie] may well have done what he did for the reasons he said, but it’s still against the law,” Rees said.

Guthrie was being held on $250,000 bail at Orange County Jail.

Neighbors in the 13000 block of Whiterock Drive in La Mirada, where James Guthrie lived with his mother, said they rarely saw the pair. They remember Evelyn Guthrie being sick often, with an ambulance out front and oxygen tanks taken into the house.