MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) - A suburban New York man who spent years caring for his ailing 88-year-old mother “snapped” when he strangled the woman as she slept and then slashed his neck and wrists in a suicide attempt, an attorney said Friday.
James Olsen “lacked the capacity to appreciate his conduct” when he placed one of his neckties around his bedridden mother’s neck three years ago and pulled it tight until she died, defense attorney Paul Delle said in opening statements of Olsen’s murder trial, in which he is invoking an insanity defense.
He said his 59-year-old client had tired of the stress of caring for the woman, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
“This was his duty. He was a loyal son until he snapped,” Delle said.
Olsen and his mother, Ruth, were found by emergency workers after he called 911 hours after the killing inside their modest Garden City, Long Island, home. Nassau County prosecutors said he methodically planned the killing, including picking out a necktie he would use the night before.
“He knew what he was doing was wrong,” Assistant District Attorney Christine Geier told jurors.
Olsen told a 911 operator, “I’m just crazy. I have to be crazy,” on a tape played later Friday. He is then heard describing how emergency workers can safely get into the two-story brick house using a rear entrance.
Ruth Olsen’s body was found in her bedroom, with the tie still around her neck, Geier said. James Olsen, who suffered from diabetes and was unemployed at the time of the killing, was found in another upstairs bedroom with self-inflicted slash wounds to his neck and wrists.
His physical ailments - his attorney said his blood-sugar needs to be monitored four times a day - are part of the reason why the case has taken three years to come to trial.
“He did everything for her,” Delle said. “It’s a sad, sad case.”
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