Crime Weekly - S3 Ep205: Crime Weekly News: Man Chokes Wife to Death Over Medical Bills

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

A Missouri man faces a second degree murder charge after admitting to choking his hospitalized wife to death because "he could not take care of her anymore" or "pay the medical bills that had been acquired." Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod 

At Emory University, we believe in those with the ambition to achieve, the passion to learn, and the optimism to see the possibilities ahead. Founded on a belief that the wise heart seeks knowledge, an Emory education combines experiential learning in Atlanta and beyond with unrivaled collaboration and discovery, all to prepare you for a world that needs your leadership. Learn more at emory.edu. Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. Real quick, thank you to everybody who went over to Criminal Coffee Co. and purchased the decaf coffee, the Stealth Roast.

We're already getting low on it, so I got to order some more. I did get a couple questions as far as K-Cups. As I said in the episode, they will be coming shortly. It will not be until, won't be for a few more weeks. All depends on the production company making it, but we will get to it for sure. We will absolutely get that done. So regarding why we're here tonight, you recently sent me a link on this case out of Missouri, Independence, Missouri, where a man allegedly strangled his wife in a hospital bed just

last week. And this is allegedly after already trying to kill her multiple times due to medical expenses. So I'm sitting here on the surface reading that line, asking myself, did law enforcement know about this? Were they aware of what he was trying to do? Was this all after the fact when they started conducting their investigation? Because if there's in any world a scenario where they knew he was attempting to do this, why was he left alone with her? So that's the question I'm at right now. Why don't you give

us the details and then we can discuss. Okay. So here's the probable cause statement that was released May 4th, 2024. And it says an independence man faces a felony charge for strangling his wife and causing her death as she was lying in an independence hospital bed this weekend. Jackson County Prosecutor Gene Peters Baker announced today Ronnie Wiggs faces murder in the second degree. According to court records filed today, the defendant told police he killed the victim who had come to the hospital for a new port for dialysis. He said he choked her and covered her nose and mouth to keep her from screaming. The defendant told police he couldn't take care of her or afford her medical bills any longer. And according to this probable cause statement, this happened on the evening of Friday, May 3rd, when an off-duty police officer at the hospital responded to the ICU to a report of a possible assault. The officer

learned a witness had found the victim unresponsive and without a pulse, so they initiated a code blue, which refers to someone going into cardiac arrest. The victim reportedly regained consciousness and was transferred to another floor. But another witness reportedly observed suspicious injuries on the victim, including red marks on her neck and a fresh wound in the middle of her throat. According to the probable cause statement, the witness said the injuries were most likely not caused by resuscitation efforts. The victim's son reportedly said that his mother was initially admitted to Centerpoint Medical Center for Newport for her dialysis. Hospital staff allegedly tried to contact the victim's husband, who's Ronnie Wiggs,

after finding the victim unconscious, but he said he was having car issues. When the son learned his mother was unresponsive and had no brain activity, he reportedly picked up Wiggs and brought him to the hospital. According to the probable cause statement, Wiggs told the son and the nurse that he allegedly choked his wife, and he was reportedly heard saying, I did it, I killed her, I choked her. So the off-duty police officer arrested Wiggs on an investigation hold for first-degree domestic assault. The victim was still alive at that time, but she didn't have any brain activity, most likely due to prolonged lack of oxygen, and medical staff were going to discontinue any life-saving measures.

During an interview with the Independence Police, Ronnie Wiggs reportedly confessed that he choked his wife and covered her mouth and nose to keep her from screaming. Afterward, he allegedly left the hospital before the victim's son brought him back. And according to this probable cause statement, Ronnie Wiggs said he had tried to kill his wife two to three times before while she was in the hospital. He once allegedly tried to kill her in a rehab facility, but she woke up and told him not to do that again. Wiggs told police he also planned to kill her another time, but he couldn't because she was hooked up to several monitors at the hospital. According to the probable cause statement,

Ronnie Wiggs said he was depressed and he killed his wife because he couldn't take care of her anymore, couldn't pay her medical bills that had been kind of, you know, piling up. She was pronounced deceased on the morning of Saturday, May 4th, and now he is facing the second-degree murder charges and he's held on a $250,000 bond. This is crazy to me because so it doesn't seem like the police knew he had tried to kill her before. No, no, they didn't. But he just confessed to it after which at that point it's like you killed

her so you didn't have to take care of her or pay for her medical bills. But now you're going to be in prison where you wouldn't have had to have taken care of her or pay for her medical bills, but now you're going to be in prison where you wouldn't have had to have taken care of her or paid for her medical bills anyways. Well, that's what leads me to my opinion on this, where just from what you've read, it's clearly not an assisted suicide. She didn't want this. He admitted that, that she said, hey, don't do that again. He had said he was quote unquote depressed. You're probably looking at a situation where I know this is kind of like, it sounds like a broken record at this point, but there's something going on there. There's something mentally that's not right with Mr. Wiggs. Because clearly, not only the fact, let's say this was a situation where he wanted to kill her intentionally. He could go in there

and lie to police and say, listen, she wanted this. This was something we planned. We've been trying to do it. She's no longer around. She can't dispute it. You could at least make a valid defense. You could come up with something and see how it works out. But he's in there not only spilling his guts about the murder itself, but about other failed attempts to kill her and her telling him not to do that. What stood out to me in everything you said here is it sounds like you mentioned they had a child, too. The victim's son? Well, she said, yeah, they said the victim's son. And it sounds like an older child because he was able to go and pick Ronnie up. Yes.

So he would have had to drive. Maybe not Ronnie's kid. I don't think Ronnie's kid. I don't think Ronnie's kid. So that's really terrible to think that this is all occurring while her son is transporting people or in the process of coming to and from the hospital. So again, just another story where there's so many residual effects in the way this happened. And I don't know what her medical condition was, how dire it was. Obviously- Well, she's on dialysis, so she's clearly not in the best of shape, but you never know. With modern medicine today, maybe there's a chance

she recovers. Maybe there's a grant or something. Again, somebody in the comments might be like, Derek, you don't know the medical system, the insurance. I do know that it's corrupt, so maybe that's not the case. Maybe I'm just naive. I don't think that. I don't think that. That's the. That's why. That's not an option. I mean, I'm just sitting over here like thinking about because you're saying all people in the comments are going to like no one in the comments should be defending or justifying anything.

No, no, no. I don't care. I'm saying as far as being naive with could she recover? You got married to her. That's better for worse. Sickness and health. Sick don't care. I'm saying as far as me being naive with, could she recover? You got married to her. That's better for worse. Sickness and health. Sickness and health. Yeah, there you go.

Okay, like you can't stand up there and say sickness and health and then not mean sickness and health. I don't care if you got handed a $2 million hospital bill. There's things that can help you with that. You can go and seek aid and relief and things like that. And it looks like I'm looking at Ronnie Wiggs, a picture of him.

He's not a spring chicken. All right. He's got to be. I don't even know. I don't see his age here, but he's not a young man. OK, so it just doesn't seem like and you can have a payment plan you know but if you went on a payment plan with this you would be dead long before you paid any high hospital bills off and then what are they gonna do but it's like to kill your wife to kill your wife because you can't

afford her medical bills like why wouldn't you just take off your car and drive what is she gonna do chase you she's on dialysis like go away you know if you can't afford this and then this is like depressing you and it's it's oppressive to you then you leave and you let her have her fighting chance at life and you let her son sit by her bed and help her and have his mother with him that's not your decision to make yeah no there's definitely more going on here i don't think this was this the motive here was and help her and have his mother with him. That's not your decision to make. Yeah, no, there's definitely more going on here. I don't think the motive here was financial in nature, even though that might be something that was making him depressed,

one of the many things that was making him depressed. But overall, on a more broad spectrum, you see this a lot where there's an evolution. I would venture to say domestic violence was prevalent in this household prior to this. And this was probably an evolution of what's happened over the years. And at this point, due to his health condition, his mental health, it's got to a point where he just doesn't care anymore. And he didn't even try to be secretive about it.

He did exactly what he wanted to do right under everyone's nose. And then after the fact, just diarrhea of the mouth said everything that happened. And then some who even knows if what he was saying is true. I mean, maybe they knew, maybe they had like camera footage to show that he was, that he had been at the hospital earlier because he said he did it and then left. Right. So maybe they had surveillance camera or he had checked in or something and they were able to prove he was there. And then they were like, OK, dude, you were here. So what are you talking about? And he broke and he cracked because he was like, well, what do I do?

I didn't think that I was going to provide an alibi. Right. And he just had nothing else to say. I don't know. They could have broken. But the fact that she woke up and she's like, don't do that again. I can think it supports what you're saying was that this wasn't the first time he put his hands on her because that's not the response of somebody who's not sort of used to somebody crossing your boundaries. the $250,000 bond. It seems right. Second degree murder. We're looking at a situation here where clearly based on what they've gathered, they didn't find any information that it was premeditated. In this circumstance, you can try previous attempts and still have the actual attempt

where you're able to carry it out, not be first degree murder. If in that moment, he goes into it, maybe not planning on killing her, but once he's left alone, he sees the circumstances, he sees he has an opportunity, he snaps in that moment and he suffocates her. I think, yeah. Maybe he felt bad about it. I don't know. Right. And with first degree murder, I will say just in my, and I haven't worked a ton of murders when I was a police officer, but in my experience, when you're talking about first degree murder, you're looking at a case of deduction where you go in there, you're trying to find evidence that this was planned out and lack of that evidence would lead you to second degree.

If you know the person killed the other individual, you got the murder charge, right? But now you have to decide what degree it would be at. And with this particular case, they must've gone and looked at his records, look at whatever it is, his phone records, computers, whatever research they did. And they couldn't find anything to suggest that his intent in this moment was to kill her under these circumstances and to try to disguise it as malpractice or an assisted suicide or whatever the case may be. And by the way, probably the worst place you can do it, you're going to do it, you would rather do it at home and you can kind of- At home, yeah. You could do it under your circumstances, your environment, kind of control the narrative a

little bit more. So it really does sound like a guy who just snapped and nobody just snaps, right? There's something that's going on there. And that's why I keep referring to it where they touched on it briefly here saying that he admitted he was depressed. There's probably some mental health issues going on there and not excusing it. They're clearly charging him with second degree murder, but I'll be interested in how this trial plays out because whether it's a private attorney or a public defender- I mean, he confessed. Do you think he's going to go to trial? I'm sure he'll just take his license. Whenever you go to an arraignment, I don't care who it is,

they always plead not guilty initially. Your attorney will always recommend you do that. And even though he's guilty, you may have an attorney who's young. Like a Jose Baez. Someone who's hungry for some recognition. Hungry to try to work a case and to see what he can do or she can do. They may go in there and say, yeah, your honor, he did it. But we believe he's not in the right mental state and shouldn't necessarily go to a prison,

but more so a mental health institution to get the care he needs. Dude, we're all depressed. None of us are smothering our spouses when they're in the hospital. Well, I mean, that's why I want to see how this one plays out. Is it going to be a slam dunk case where you walk in there, you walk out, he gets found guilty of second degree murder. And obviously he's an older gentleman. He's not going to do he's not probably going to get out ever again. Or are they going to send him to a mental health facility where or is even going to be healthy enough to stay on trial?

Are they going to go that route? Because this is like a selfish a selfish crime you know like we're covering the menendez brothers on crime weekly and we're discussing i had no idea yeah we're going on four parts now so so we're covering the menendez brothers and we're over here kind of trying to figure out you know like uh why did they do it for was it for the money was it for the abuse so if you look at it and you say well it was because they were being abused by their parents for for years and years and years you can sort of understand that because the the victim in that case actively did something bad for an extended period of time to the assailants but in this case the only thing that this woman did was get sick you know get sick. And then he's like, well,

not even he could have said I couldn't stand to see her in pain anymore. He could have said, I just thought, you know, this this was not a good for her. She was she was depressed. She didn't want to live anymore. And I love her so much. I couldn't stand to see her suffer every day in that hospital bed, just fading day by day. But instead he was like, I could not pay those bills, man. I couldn't do it. And it's just such a selfish motive. I don't know. No, I agree. The only other thing we can look at here is culpability. Is there anybody else who could be held responsible to a lesser degree for this?

And my first thought is hospital staff, what did they see? What did they hear? My initial impression, probably not. I mean, especially if the charge him with second degree murder, there may have not been a lot of indications that he was going to do this. But it'd be interesting to have the witness statements from hospital staff to understand what they heard or saw prior to this incident? And was there an opportunity to intervene? That's always a question you have. And I'm sure that her son, that is one question of many that he's going to attempt to answer. Did anybody see or hear anything that was an indicator where maybe he shouldn't have been left alone with her?

I don't know if that's going to be the case or not, but definitely something worth exploring. I mean, they can definitely question doctors and nurses and be like, hey, did you see this guy was getting more and more depressed? Did he seem super anxious when he was visiting? Was he asking a lot of questions about the bills? Was he going to the financial department to try to work out a payment plan or figure something out? You know, I would like to see, did this dude attempt to figure out another way to solve this problem before going straight to smothering his wife in the hospital? Like I, for my own well-being mentally, I'd like to know that he at least tried to do

something like, look at John Q. When he had a high medical bill that he couldn't pay. He just barricaded himself in the hospital. Yeah. All right. He didn't kill his son because he couldn't afford the operation. Really want to see the story more impact because it's pretty vague at this point.

We were talking in between and on camera and off camera. It doesn't even seem like they're really mentioning the victim's name anywhere right now. So it's pretty fresh, this case. And we're going to see how it plays out. And if there's like an interesting twist or development in this story, even if it's not enough to cover a new Crime Weekly news, we'll still update you in one of the other Crime Weekly news to say, hey, remember that case we told you about? There's been a twist here. Now this is going on. Now

there's a civil lawsuit or something against the hospital. If something like that develops, we'll definitely let you guys know. And I also, the way that he confessed and so quickly, it makes me wonder, was there another motive? Like, did he just want her dead? Like, does she have life insurance? And he's just kind of making it seem like it was these extraneous or external factors of like, oh, the financial thing and the financial burden and the burden of caring for a sick wife. But really, he had an ulterior motive like these things matter. And I think that, you know, this is just unfolding now as time goes on. Like you said, we'll get some more information.

We absolutely will. We'll keep you updated on it. Thank you for joining us here on another episode of Crime Weekly News. We will be back on Friday on audio with the Menendez Brothers Part 4 series. And we will be back to you on Sunday with the YouTube version. So until then, stay safe out there. We will see you soon. Bye.