Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office(FOUNTAIN HILLS, Ariz.) — A 92-year-old woman was charged with murder for allegedly shooting her son after he threatened to move her into an assisted living facility, authorities said.
Anna Mae Blessing allegedly pulled two pistols from her robe at about 10 a.m. Monday fired one several times at her unidentified 72-year-old son inside his Fountain Hills, Arizona home, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office ABC station KNXV-TV reported.
Deputies responding to a 911 call found Blessing lounging in a recliner and, as she was put in cuffs, Blessing allegedly said, “You ended my life, so I’m taking yours,” according to the sheriff’s report acquired by KNXV-TV.
A 911 phone call made from the home suggests that Blessing may have been a threat to commit further bloodshed.
“Complainant is saying that Anna is coming for her now, there’s a lot of screaming,” the 911 operator is heard saying in a recording.
Blessing allegedly pointed a second gun at the dead son’s girlfriend and they tussled over it.
“She still has a gun,” the 911 operator was recorded telling dispatch. “I have another woman crying out that she’s gonna get shot.”
But the late son’s girlfriend managed to wrest control of the weapon from Blessing’s hand, authorities told KNXV-TV.
For six months, court records show, Blessing had taken up residence at her son’s home in Fountain Hills, approximately 40 miles northeast of Phoenix, the station reported.
She told authorities that she bickered with her son before drawing the firearms about how she was being treated and angered over his decision to move her out of his home and into assisted living, officials said.
“According to statements provided by suspect Blessing and received by the detectives, she had been contemplating for several days her son’s intentions to place her in an assisted living facility,” the sheriff’s stated in a release.
Blessing told detectives she acquired both handguns back in the 1970s — one bought at a gun store and the other handed down from her late husband, according to statements she made to detectives.
At her arraignment on Tuesday, Blessing was ordered held in lieu of a $500,000 bond, KNXV-TV reported.
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