A Murder-Suicide Fueled by Love

Virginia was the one and only love of Harvey’s life
Credit: Couple&DPZ via facebook

This is Melissa’s story as told by her.  Our “Opening Our Hearts” stories are based on people’s real-life experiences. By sharing these experiences publicly, we hope to help our readers feel less alone in their grief and ultimately aid them in their healing process. In this story, Melissa writes of the tragic deaths of her dear friends Harvey and Virginia, who died in a murder-suicide after Virginia’s Alzheimer’s threatened to tear them apart. 

It was the strained look on Daddy’s face that told me something terrible had happened. 

“I’ve got to tell you,” he said quietly. “Harvey and Virginia are dead.” 

Disbelief stymied my response.  

“Both of them at once? In a car wreck?” I sputtered. My face burned, and adrenaline rushed into my veins.  

Daddy didn’t respond.

I drifted into another realm of consciousness. Happy memories flashed upon my mind. There was Harvey, his big jowls and always smiling face laughing as he swung the six-year-old-me around in the church foyer after services. Harvey was like that, always hugging us and winking slyly. When we got too big to swing around, he would pinch us on the cheek and tell us to behave. I knew he was growing older, as I was, but he was so vital and so full of laughter that I couldn’t get my head around the thought of a dead Harvey.

It was impossible to imagine this beautiful couple lying in cold caskets, surrounded by flowers, a still-life tableau. My mind could not go there.  Not my Harvey and Virginia. 

She would take my hand in hers, pat it with the other hand, and say gently, “And how are you today, dear?” whenever she saw me.

Harvey and Virginia sang in the church choir with me. It was like yesterday that I could feel Virginia tapping me on the shoulder at rehearsal and whispering into my ear in that soft soprano, “We’re so proud of you, dear, for making the honor roll.” She would take my hand in hers, pat it with the other hand, and say gently, “And how are you today, dear?” whenever she saw me.

Harvey and Virginia were well into their 70s, but still held hands on their walks

My sister and I had always talked about how we wanted to have a marriage just like Harvey and Virginia’s. We thought it endlessly romantic that they still held hands and put their arms around each other even though they were well into their 70s. Harvey would call her his “Ninny,” and she would wink back at him as only people who love each other do. 

Daddy started talking again, sensing that I had gathered my thoughts. 

“You know, Virginia had Alzheimer’s.”

Since I had gone to college, married, and moved away from home, I hadn’t seen Harvey and Virginia very often, only on the occasional Sunday when I visited church.  In a youth-induced nonchalance, I hadn’t really understood the implications of such a diagnosis. I didn’t realize that Alzheimer’s would render Virginia incapable of taking care of herself. It never dawned on me that Virginia would lose her movements, her vitality, her sweetness, her memory. 

Daddy spoke quietly, knowing how hard I would take this news.  

“Harvey was absolutely devastated when he heard the diagnosis,” Daddy said. 

I could only faintly guess at his grief – a searing, continual, knife-edged bludgeoning into his being. A pain allowing no reprieve from the constant sight of his wife failing into nothingness. 

They had no children. My sisters and I theorized that their lack of children was why they loved other people’s offspring so much.

Here was true tragedy. Virginia was, after all, the love of Harvey’s life. They had no children. My sisters and I theorized that their lack of children was why they loved other people’s offspring so much. It was also the reason they were so close: there were no children to distract from each other.  Harvey and Virginia orbited around each other. 

As a young girl, I had no idea that Virginia’s Alzheimer’s would rob her of her sweetness and cause Harvey so much pain

In the end, it was Harvey alone who spent all his time caring for his wife. He had made a promise more than 50 years ago to love, honor, and cherish – through sickness and health – and he meant to keep his vow. 

“Daddy, did Virginia die from Alzheimer’s and Harvey from a broken heart?” I asked as I pulled myself out of my reverie and tried to make sense of this double death. 

A hesitant shake of Daddy’s head, so unlike the usually boisterous, laughing father I knew preceded his response. “No. Not exactly.”  

A leaden silence.

“Harvey murdered Virginia and then shot himself.”

Waves of dread and shock crashed down. 

“My Harvey and Virginia? That sweet couple who helped at all the church dinners? Who worshiped joyfully with their voices? Who celebrated graduations, weddings, births with us?”

It wasn’t grief I felt. It was disbelief.

Harvey agreed, but came back later that night with a small caliber gun, murdered his wife, sat down in the chair next to her bed, and took his own life.” 

Daddy was trying to help me understand. “Virginia had made Harvey promise that he would never put her in a nursing home. The doctor in the hospital told Harvey that she had to be moved. Harvey agreed, but came back later that night with a small caliber gun, murdered his wife, sat down in the chair next to her bed, and took his own life.” 

Murder. Suicide. Horrible words that I thought were reserved for the hopelessly lost or depressed, the drug addicts or criminals, the mentally insane. Harvey and Virginia were none of these.  I was too stunned to cry.

Weren’t suicide and murder sins?  Is dying with dignity a choice we really get to have? There may come a time when only my husband is there to care for me in my incontinence, infirmity, and the nether-world of lost memories.  Could I bear to put him through that? More to the point, could I stand to see my husband become senile and uncaring, not recognizing me or feeling my love? 

Months after their deaths, I visited the choir loft where Harvey and Virginia sang for 50 years. Looking at the empty chairs they once occupied, I was finally able to cry.

Years later, I still struggle to come to grips with the tragedy of Harvey and Virginia. It was not a newspaper story about other people, but a real-life struggle of two people I had known and loved all my life.  

One Sunday, months after their deaths, I visited my old home church. In the choir loft were two empty seats kept warm for fifty years by Harvey and Virginia. 

Finally, I was able to cry. Tears flowed for two people who felt they had no alternative. I could not bear to think of Harvey and Virginia rotting in hell, and I prayed that the words of Lamentations 3:22 were true: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed because his compassion fail not.”