Retired Washington professor with amnesia shoots caregiver wife dead, tells 911 she was 'destroying' him
BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON: "I shot her," were the first words a retired professor said as he dialed 911 and admitted to having committed a crime to dispatchers, according to Bellevue Police who spoke to Seattle's KOMO News. Thomas Jarboe, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, was under the care of his wife when he shot her dead, claiming that she had been "destroying" him.
Jarboe was struggling with advanced amnesia when he murdered his wife, 63-year-old Kay Saw, on October 8. He allegedly confessed to having carried out the shooting with a 12-gauge shotgun in their home in Bellevue, Washington DC.
"It was on purpose but in self-defense," court documents quoted him as saying to the dispatchers. "She has been abusing me. She is my caretaker and is completely destroying me," he allegedly said. "She hates all my kids, my kids all hate her."
Jarboe willingly surrendered himself to the police. He was already waiting for the cops on the front porch of his house that's located in the Cougar Mountain section of Bellevue, a Seattle suburb, and turned himself in to the police as they arrived at the property. The corpse of Saw was still inside the house, police spokesperson Meeghan Black informed Kima TV.
"The man came out of the house willingly and turned himself in to the officers... When they went inside, they found his wife deceased inside," Black said. One of the neighbors told the station that he often heard the couple arguing. "Oftentimes yelling about medications. Not taking medications," said the neighbor, Mike Hopkins, who said that things were off between the couple since the last one year. Then early Thursday, October 8, "We heard the two gunshots," Hopkins told KOMO.
"She was very hospitable. Brought fruit over. Befriended my son," he said about Saw who lived across the street from him. "I think everyone in the neighborhood is broken up to say the least. My heart goes out to the family. I can't even imagine what that must be like," he said.
Jarboe was a professor at the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at the University of Washington and had retired from teaching full-time last year, the University said. He had been a plasma physicist and proposed a simpler design for a nuclear fusion power reactor, according to The Sun. He retained the title of professor emeritus which still allowed him to stay connected to the school, but Jarboe did not have any current teaching assignments.
There's not much information that is publicly available about Saw at the moment. Jarboe has waived his right to appear for his first court hearing. At this point, it is not very clear as to what led to him allegedly killing his wife and it would be really difficult to determine the same due to him being amnesiac. He has no known criminal history. He is expected to remain behind bars until his next court hearing that is later this month and the judge has set his bail at $2.5 million.