Suspect asked if wife alive after shot
AKRON, Ohio — The man charged in the suspected mercy killing of his wife at a hospital intensive care unit asked the doctor who confronted him, “Please tell me she’s dead,” the doctor said Monday.
In his first interview about the shooting at Akron General Medical Center, Dr. Michael A. Passero Jr. said he repeatedly asked John Wise, 66, to give up his weapon after the shooting.
“He said to me, ‘Please tell me she’s dead,’ ” Passero said. After checking the monitors, Passero said, “I said quietly, ‘she’s not dead.’ ”
The discussion over giving up the weapon had been interrupted when the victim, 65-year- old Barbara Wise, gasped for air. According to Passero, John Wise then said: “Oh, God, she’s still alive. How can she still be alive?”
Wise was charged with aggravated murder in the Aug. 4 shooting. His wife died one day later.
A friend said Barbara Wise had been disabled by a stroke and Wise’s attorney said his client had always acted toward his wife with love.
Passero, 37, rushed to the scene from several rooms away when he heard a popping sound. Passero said he concluded the man with the white beard down to his chest was Barbara Wise’s husband, then noticed he was holding a gun.
Wise never surrendered the weapon and within minutes security officers entered, forcefully ordered him to drop the weapon and then tackled him, Passero said.