Daytona Beach Police Chief Jakari E. Young said at a 4 p.m. news conference that an elderly couple, Ellen Gilland, and her husband, Jerry Gilland, who was 77 and dying from an undisclosed, terminal illness, made an agreement that she would kill him and then herself if his illness progressed. Instead, Ms. Gilland shot her husband and killed her terminally ill husband in his hospital room but could not follow through in taking her own life.
She then barricaded herself inside the room, shutting down some hospital operations at AdventHealth hospital in Daytona Beach, Fla., for a few hours Saturday afternoon. She was arrested just after 3 p.m. after a standoff and will be charged with first-degree murder, police said. Although the woman was not a threat to anyone, evacuating the other patients, many on ventilators, proved to be a logical nightmare.
SWAT and hostage negotiation teams talked with the woman, who did not threaten police but wouldn’t put down her gun, Young said. They eventually threw a “flash-bang” device in the room, causing her to drop the gun, and took her into custody.
