Australian woman who helped terminally ill husband die avoids further jail time
An Australian woman who helped her terminally ill husband end his life avoided further jail time after a court accepted that she had acted out of compassion.
Kylie Ellina Truswell-Mobbs, 52, from Queensland was sentenced to two years in prison on Monday but the sentence was immediately suspended because she had already spent 14 months in custody.
Ms Truswell-Mobbs had initially faced a murder charge over the December 2023 death of her husband, former firefighter David Ronald Mobbs, 56, at their home in Alexandra Hills near Brisbane. She pleaded not guilty to murder but admitted to assisting his suicide.
Prosecutors accepted the guilty plea, prompting Queensland’s Supreme Court to dismiss the murder charge.
As Ms Truswell-Mobbs left the court, she was cheered and embraced by relatives and supporters. “It feels good,” Ms Truswell-Mobbs said. “David was beautiful. He will never be forgotten about.”
She had broken down in the dock when Justice Tom Sullivan dismissed the murder charge against her.
Mobbs had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of the motor neurone disease in April 2023 and it had rapidly robbed him of his physical independence, the court heard. He had become completely bedridden within months and needed assistance to move. By early December, he had also lost the ability to speak.
Defence barrister Ruth O’Gorman told the court Mobbs communicated by blinking, making sounds or using a letter board when someone helped him move his hand.
He was experiencing significant distress and pain, including after losing the ability to use the toilet without assistance.
“That night he begged to die,” Ms O’Gorman said.
Mobbs died on 6 December 2023 after Ms Truswell-Mobbs gave him a lethal combination of drugs.
Her client had no criminal history and lived an “entirely blameless life”, Ms O’Gorman told the court. Ms Truswell-Mobbs had been with her husband for about 20 years, she added, and people who knew them had described her care for him after his sudden degenerative illness as “extraordinary”.
“It is uncontentious that she was a devoted carer,” the barrister said.
“It wasn’t a hastily made decision by Mr Mobbs,” she argues. “He had been expressing his desire for his life to be over for at least a month,” she said.
