By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2026-08-07 19:37:25 | Updated at 2026-08-07 20:26:10
2 hours ago
Florida police have charged a 91-year-old senior man with the homicide of his wife after he told authorities that he viewed the act as “keeping his promise” that he would never put her in a nursing home.
St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office deputies were dispatched to a home in St. Augustine, Florida after a caller reported that his mother had been fatally shot.
According to the sheriff’s arrest report, the suspect, William Lippold, called his 63-year-old son to his home earlier that morning, telling him, “I did something bad, I need you to come over,” Tampa’s WFLA reported.
The husband told deputies that he was the sole caretaker of his wife and that she was blind and had severe Alzheimer’s disease.
“William said he had previously promised his wife he would never put her in a nursing home, so he views this as keeping his promise to her,” according to the police report.
The son told deputies that his father told him he tried to die as well by suffocating himself with a plastic bag, but the suicide attempt was unsuccessful.
The son also said his father has “alluded to this outcome in the past.”
Lippold allegedly old investigators he recently purchased the murder weapon and learned to use it at a local gun range.
The night before the man’s arrest, a neighbor reported hearing a suspected gunshot at around 11 p.m.
“As deputies were securing the scene, William spontaneously made the statement, ‘It’s not complicated, I shot my wife,’” the arrest report said.
Lippold’s wife was found deceased on a bed in the master bedroom, with “apparent blood around her body, a firearm, a shell casing, and a note,” according to WFLA.
Lippold has been charged with first-degree murder with a firearm, which can carry a sentence of life in prison. Just how many years that would be would depend on the 91-year-old’s health.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
