Carpinteria Man Arrested for Attempted Murder-Suicide

Be interesting to know the backstory on these poor people, journalists, and possibly enlightening. We all are headed that direction: to old age.

What really happened to create this scenario?

Were they old and at their witts end?
Not hard to be believed and a real portrait of the state of national healthcare and the economy.

I wish the reporting was more informational and less like a tabloid.

My parents are 78 and 80. One has Alzheimer's and the other Parkinson's with clear signs of dementia. My father used to tell me that if he ever got old and senile, I should just take him out back and shoot him. I told him that patricide is a felony and that I wouldn't be able to do him that favor. Now he IS old and senile and we are struggling to help them manage an independent lifestyle before moving them into assisted living. Getting old sucks. Older people's pensions and savings are vaporizing before their eyes. Health care and insurance are costly and complicated to manage. Wit's end? Likely! Who knows, they may have made this decision together. If so, how much better will their quality of life be if Mr. Wheeler goes to prison? In any case, it's sad. I wish the Wheelers all the best in surviving their survival.

The Independent missed a golden opportunity here to report on not just the state of our nonexistent affordable healthcare in this country, but on our general approach towards aging and anybody over 50 in general.

My 80 year old mother died in July, and you cannot begin to believe the nightmare we all went through with regard to health care.

We can do SO much better in this country, yet we steadfastly refuse to do so.

So we will be spending how many dollars to house this old man in jail? Old people who are suicidal belong in mental health institutions, not jail. If he were determined to be a danger to himself or others he should have been put on a 5150 (involuntary mental health hold) in a gero-psych ward.

YOU BET THERE IS MORE TO THIS STORY!!!! The reader's comments are so much more insightful than your reporter's story. The BIG ISSUES in this story deserve attention. I'll list some in conclusion.

Jim Wheeler is a respected man in Carpinteria among his family, friends, neighbors and bridge group, which he oversees every Tuesday. I ask his friends to come forth with his biography or a reporter to recover a past newspaper article about his accomplishments.

My 96 year old mother, his friend for 30 years, called me in San Francisco to tell me that Jim didn't show up for Tuesday bridge, where the group had a birthday card (filled with appreciation for his service to the group,) to give him. The SHOCKING UNBELIEVABLE news was that he had been jailed for trying to kill himself and Becky, his dear wife whom he took such devoted care of even as she visibly declined from dementia. I purport that his desperate action was totally out of character and the act of an exhausted, depressed caregiver.

Tonight after bridge Mom called me to report that, through the grapevine, she'd learned that this respectable, intelligent presentable 84 year old man was SLEEPING ON THE JAIL HOUSE FLOOR!!! The jailer even refused to let his daughter give him a sweater to keep warm or a deck of cards ( probably to play solitare to keep a fragment of his identity) I WAS HORRIFIED!

Tomorrow I'll get on the phone and try to remedy this jail abuse. Ironic that news organizations spread the story nationally that this "old man" (falsely pictured looking like a wicked 103 year old homeless street person) was arrested on elder abuse. Get this, then he suffers elder abuse in jail AND IN SANTA BARBARA!

Some of the issues a thoughtful person would look at are:

1. Shallow news reporting that distorts the people and story, often making the people and true story unreconizable.
2. Role of prosecutors making the accused look evil. (As my mother said that's their job, but does the press join them in demonizing a person?)
3. Impossibility of an elder to care for an infirm dear one over long periods.
4. The health threatening and financial burden of a younger family member (usually female) to care for elderly relatives. (I've had to care for my mother when she had lymphoma at age 87, my S.F. bipolar uncle (87), my aunt (94), my uncle (88) in Oklahoma. At 65 I'm a sick and broke caregiver, and who's going to take of me?)
5.The lack of care for our aging population even in a civilized city like Santa Barbara which has more services than most cities.
6. Disrespectful public description and treatment of older people.
7. Abuse of incarcerated people.