this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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me_irl
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The story is a bit more complicated than the meme lets on.
First, while she was certainly very ill after 2 heart attacks, it is unclear if his wife was terminally ill. She was disabled and had mental illness. The husband says that she wanted to die so she left the nursing home. Second, the drug binge went on for 5 days and her condition deteriorated throughout. While she was presumably doing large amounts of meth amphetamines, she also was not taking her prescribed medications. Third, at least in the article that I linked above, the sex occured at the very end and he said that she was unable to speak at that point and she died more or less immediately after. Finally, she died of a meth overdose, and not of her other illnesses.
I'm all for dying on your own terms, and if this was truly her idea or she was fully on board, more power to them. However, the wife can't speak for herself and all we've got is this guy's word.
So in other words, if you want to die right, have it written down with independent witnesses on what you want to experience before you go, and how you want to go.
Fuck the "death paneeeeeel!!" haters, i too will go when i want in my way, and there is shit all I'll allow them to do about it.
I know that there are open questions about this event, but as this was a long term couple, I want to imagine they trusted each other and cared for what the other was going through
Edit: adding to this; If I had to choose between slowly withering away in a nursing home, alone, or have her ending, I knowmy choice. Again, this woman may not have wanted the same, or maybe she did, we don't know, but this looks and sounds like a husband who wanted his wife to be happy. As unhinged as he (and likely she) were.
"Third, at least in the article that I linked above, the sex occured at the very end"
That's definitely what someone who started sex after the end would say
Nonreductionist history is such a drag man.
Sometimes with people, I try to imagine them as ants and what type of ant they'd be.
I have a tendency to see most people as so pathetic, they are cute, so pathetic, they could be pets, or deranged demonic beasts. Really hard to have actual respect for humans when I'm feed news like this.
Huh. This is new
Anyways, she could have left a note back at the nursing home under her pillow: “I wanted this” in her handwriting would have saved hin a lot of headache. But I’m assuming she could write and that’s not her specific handicap from the disability? Can’t tell without access to the article.
Fired up my VPN :)
Tap for spoiler
By Crystal Bonvillian, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
August 13, 2019 at 11:47 am EDT
SEARLES, Minn. — A Minnesota man who threw his wife a drug-fueled “death party” before she died in January was sentenced Monday to serve three years in prison.
Duane Arden Johnson, 59, of Searles, was initially charged with third-degree murder in the death of his wife, Debra Lynn Johnson. Debra Johnson, 69, died of methamphetamine toxicity Jan. 24 in the couple’s home.
The Mankato Free Press reported that Duane Johnson agreed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of felony neglect. A Brown County judge sentenced him to three years, with credit for 201 days already served.
Related story: Police: Man, ailing wife had ‘death party,’ used meth for days before she died
Johnson was arrested Jan. 24 and charged with criminal neglect after he called 911 and reported his wife’s death.
According to court documents, the first deputy to arrive at the couple’s home found the words, “Death Parde God Hell” in red spray paint on the screen door. A naked Duane Johnson opened the screen door and screamed, “My wife is dead upstairs,” the charging document stated.
He ran back inside saying he “needed to wash this stuff off of (him).”
The deputy found him sitting in the bathtub in a bathroom on the main floor of the home, the court document said. Johnson told the deputy he had to wash with soap and bleach to get little black and white “things” off his skin.
While sitting in the tub, Johnson said his wife had been “shaking so violently” and he “couldn’t stand seeing her flop around anymore,” the document said.
When the deputy asked why Johnson did not seek medical help for his wife, he told him the last time she was brought to New Ulm Medical Center, “them (expletives) revived her” and “them (expletive) in New Ulm made my life (expletive).”
Other responding deputies found Debra Johnson’s body wrapped in a sheet at the top of the stairs, the charging document said. The sheet was held in place by a belt.
Debra Johnson was still warm, but rigor mortis was beginning to set in.
Read the entire criminal complaint against Duane Johnson below.
Duane Arden Johnson Complaint by National Content Desk on Scribd
Duane Arden Johnson Complaint
When the deputies asked if that was his wife in the sheet, Duane Johnson told them it was and that he “prepared the dead like the Bible told (him) to,” the document said. He said he followed the Old Testament by “cleaning her, making her beautiful and wrapping her in linen.”
Johnson told deputies that his wife had been a patient in a nursing home but begged him to take her home to die. Officials at the New Ulm Medical Center told investigators Debra Johnson had been at a nursing facility following two heart attacks.
She also had diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as mental illnesses for which she took antipsychotic medication.
Duane Johnson took his wife home against medical advice, the document said.
In her final days, Duane Johnson said, his wife had stopped taking her medication as they used meth and “rocked out” for several days to their favorite band, Quiet Riot.
The charging document stated when Debra Johnson could no longer eat or drink, her husband used snow from outside their home to moisten her mouth.
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Duane Johnson said his wife suffered convulsions during that time frame but would not allow him to call for help. He told investigators he held her to keep her from hurting herself during the seizures.
He also told deputies Debra Johnson disabled the telephone, so he could not call for help. The charging document stated investigators found the phone in working order.
“(Johnson) reported that he couldn’t stand to see (his wife) suffer anymore and that he had promised her a party,” the document said. “He said he didn’t want her to hear him crying, so he turned up the music real loud and that they had been ‘rocking out’ for three days.”
The “death party” Johnson said his wife had requested had been ongoing for five days, the court document said. He said his wife had been shaking and trembling in the couple of days leading up to her death.
Less than two hours before she died, Johnson said, his wife wanted him to have sex with her one more time. He also said, however, that she could not speak as they were having intercourse, but “her body had told him that she was enjoying it.”
He said that “after they were finished, she was no longer trembling and was more at peace,” the document said.
Related story: Man who held meth-fueled ‘death party’ for sick wife now charged with murder
When deputies asked Johnson why he did not call 911 immediately after his wife died, he said, “I wanted to make sure she was dead.”
Johnson was charged with murder after his wife’s autopsy found she died not of natural causes, but of a methamphetamine overdose.
Johnson was also charged with receiving stolen property after investigators found several guns, including four rifles and two shotguns, in the home, as well as hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Duane Johnson told them he had 47 guns, several of which were stolen.
The disposition of those charges was not immediately available
Also, the guy in the picture is 58
He looks trustworthy thought...