A retired barber took his own life after suffocating his wife, who was suffering hallucinations due to dementia, an inquest heard today.
Malcolm Brown, 74, and wife Pauline, 73, were found dead by family members at their home on in Monk Bretton, Barnsley in South Yorkshire on July 8, 2020.
The inquest at Sheffield’s Medico Legal Centre was also told by Detective Sergeant Stuart Hall that Mr Brown had weeks earlier told a relative there was 'only one cure - murder and suicide'.
Malcolm Brown, 74, pictured, had been a longstanding and respected town centre barber for more than 50 years
Mrs Brown was found in the couple’s bedroom floor in an ‘almost posed position’ with a pillow underneath her head and a sheet covering her, while Mr Brown was in another bedroom with his arms crossed over his body.
Post-mortem examinations of the longstanding and respected town centre barber of more than 50 years showed evidence of brain damage and insulin in his blood, suggestive of an overdose.
The inquest was told the couple had a ‘long and happy’ marriage that deteriorated due to Mrs Brown's declining mental health and her husband’s ‘aggressive’ cancerous tumour.
Statements to police from neighbours said that Mrs Brown declined mentally and had begun to see ‘two Malcolms’, two houses and children running through the couple's house.
DS Hall added: 'There’s no reports or insinuation there had been any domestic violence or domestic abuse whatsoever.
'But what had become apparent over the last couple of years was Pauline’s declining mental condition.
'It was almost as if the past and present had become mixed up in her mind.'
The inquest at Sheffield’s Medico Legal Centre was told that Mr Brown had weeks earlier told a relative there was 'only one cure - murder and suicide'
Mr Brown had also made reference to
