On Monday of this week, in the quiet town of Fountain Hills, Arizona, a 72-year-old man was shot dead by his elderly mother in a violent attack. The murderer, 92-year-old Anna Mae Blessing, apparently made the decision to kill her son after beginning to suspect that he had plans to move her into an assisted living facility.
Blessing appeared in court on Tuesday in order to be charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault, and kidnapping, and her bond was set at half a million dollars.
Now, after details and statements from the case have reached the press, people have been stunned to hear about the sheer heartlessness of the slaying.
When Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies received a call to the scene of the crime on Monday morning, they had no idea what to expect. When they arrived, they found the 72-year-old - who has not been named - with multiple gunshot wounds. It is not clear whether or not he was already dead by the time they got there.
Blessing had apparently been contemplating taking action against her son for some time and, after an argument that morning, she entered his room with two handguns concealed in her robe. When the row started up again, she shot him.
Also at the scene was the victim's unnamed girlfriend, whom Blessing had also attacked.
According to reports, the nonagenarian had turned her attention on the other woman after shooting her son. The two grappled for a bit as the girlfriend tried to wrestle both guns off of her partner's mother, and narrowly escaped being shot herself in the process.
"It is always concerning when domestic issues escalate to violence or tragic outcomes," said Sheriff Penzone, who is working on the case. "They are often isolated and neither predictable nor preventable."
After committing the violent attack, Blessing apparently showed no remorse.
"As the suspect was being escorted from the residence, she made a spontaneous statement to the effect of 'You took my life, so I'm taking yours,'" court documents said.
Despite this, some individuals on Twitter appear to believe that setting such a high bond for the 92-year-old was unfair, as she is unlikely to be a threat to anyone else given her age and frailty.
"Poor thing. How they gonna set her bail so high? She’s not a threat to the community," wrote one Twitter user.
"No one knows who was the bad one," added another. "Bullying the elderly is real. No one can judge. At 92, who truly knows her situation, until then pray for her and HELP HER! So sad to hear this. I looked after my elders when I was only a kid."
Others, however, reminded people that - regardless of her age - the woman was a killer.
Needless to say, the old woman will most likely spend the remainder of her days behind bars for her horrific crime - something she'll no doubt find worse than any assisted living facility would have been.
A court date for her sentencing has not yet been set.
