An Ohio woman who told police she intentionally drowned her grandmother in the kitchen sink to put the elderly woman out of her misery, has pleaded guilty to murder.
After pleading not guilty to the murder charge late last year, Heidi Matheny changed her plea last Friday to guilty, multiple outlets report.
Matheny Held Grandmother Under Water ‘Until the Bubbles Stopped’
According to WKBN-TV, the day before the Nov. 15, 2022, killing, Matheny, 35, explained to detectives that she took her grandmother to a doctor’s appointment the previous day, where a doctor told them the elderly woman needed to be in a nursing home, something they could not afford and insurance would not cover,
The next day, after she and the victim, Alice Matheny, ate ice cream, she told police she snuck up behind the 93-year-old while the victim was washing dishes and held her head in the kitchen sink “until the bubbles stopped,” at the victim’s Eaton, Ohio, apartment, per the outlet.
Citing police records, WXIX-TV reported Matheny told police she then dragged Alice to the couch, before drowning Alice in the bathtub to finish the job. Matheny said she held her grandmother underwater for 15 minutes and left her dead body in the tub.
Matheny Said She was Sick of Alice’s Panic Attacks, Seeing Her ‘Stressed Out’
“I just lost my s—,” Matheny said, according to the station. “It’s nothing that she did. She’s a perfect freaking grandma.” Matheny told detectives her grandmother suffered from daily panic attacks.
“It’s a fââ nightmare. And I’m sick of seeing her. She’s stressed out. She has panic attacks every damn day. She shouldn’t have to live like that.” Asked why she killed her grandmother, Heidi Matheny said that Alice Matheny called her every day, asking her to sit and listen with her.
“And I do it every day,” she said, but added that she couldn’t do it anymore. She suggested she almost died by suicide.”But I can’t drown myself,” she said.
Following the killing, Matheny said she escaped through a window because she “didn’t want the neighbors to see her,” the outlet reported. According to the Journal-News, Matheny turned herself in two hours later.
