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Man Accused Of Trying To Kill Wife

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By LISA A. DAVIS

ldavis@tampatrib.com

Published: November 13, 2008

HOLIDAY - A 69-year-old Holiday man gave his ailing wife three sleeping pills last week, hoping she would never wake up again, Pasco County sheriff's officials say.

She lived, and her husband ended up in jail.

John McKim told Pasco County detectives he had planned to kill his wife and then stab himself to death, according to his arrest affidavit.

He gave his wife three Restoril pills on the morning of Nov. 3 and wrote a note to her children, saying she had "suffered enough pain and problems and we cannot take anymore any longer."

The note also had a burial request.

After McKim's wife, Claire, fell asleep, though, he changed his mind and called a doctor for help.

Pasco deputies monitored telephone calls between McKim and his stepson, during which McKim told him he tried to kill his wife, a report states.

A detective interviewed his wife, who said her husband routinely gives her food through her feeding tube at their home, but she didn't know he wanted her to die, the affidavit states. Sometimes in the evening he gives her smaller doses of Restoril, his wife told detectives, but never during the day, according to the report.

The wife told Detective Michelle March she doesn't want to die and is now afraid of her husband and doesn't want contact with him.

Nobody answered the phone at the couple's home.

McKim, of 3300 Hearthstone Court, was arrested Tuesday at Community Hospital in New Port Richey, where he had been involuntarily committed to the psychiatric ward because he had threatened to harm himself.

He was being held Wednesday at the Land O' Lakes Jail on a charge of battery on a person 65 or older. Bail was set at $50,000.

Sheriff's office spokesman Kevin Doll said the reason McKim was charged with battery rather than attempted murder is because he had sought help.

Reporter Lisa A. Davis can be reached at (727) 815-1083.

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