An Ohio woman has pleaded guilty to drowning her grandmother because the family could not afford to put her in a nursing home.
Heidi Michelle Matheny, 35, walked into a police station last November and told officers that she had drowned 93-year-old Alice Matheny in a sink and bathtub.
“I feel like I put the dog down,” Heidi Matheny said after she handed herself in at the Preble County Sheriff’s Office on 15 November.
Prosecutors say that Alice Matheny had been doing the dishes when the suspect forced her head into the sink and then placed her body on the couch.
Thinking her grandmother may still be alive, she moved her to the bathtub and drowned her in it for a further 15 minutes.
Her confession was captured on body camera footage, according to Law & Crime.
“I just put her head in the sink, and held it there,” she told officers. “We fought, but I held it there until she quit blowing bubbles, and then I drug her to the couch, and she kept blowing bubbles, so I put her in the bathtub until she stopped.”
She was asked by an officer what had happened to cause the attack.
“Nothing special. It’s just a day like any other day,” she replied.
Investigators say that Heidi Matheny later said that she had taken her grandmother to a doctor on 14 November who had told them to put her into a nursing home.
“But we can’t afford that,” Heidi Matheny told investigators. “It’s a f***ing nightmare. And I’m sick of seeing her. She’s stressed out. She has panic attacks every damn day. She shouldn’t have to live like that.”
She told officers that her grandmother had called her every day, asking her to sit with and listen to her, but that she could not face doing it.
In December, Heidi Matheny appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to murder. She underwent a mental competency evaluation and, in January 2023, the Preble County Common Pleas Court found her competent to stand trial.
In February, she changed her plea to a guilty one and will now be sentenced on 15 March.
