Mother Killed Her Son Saying it Was an Act of Mercy

The mother of a then 22-year old man claims her decision to kill his son was the right thing to do because he suffered from brain damage and did not have quality of life, the Daily Mail reports.

Frances Inglis, the mother of Tom, was sent to jail immediately after she committed the crime and five years after. She says that every night while she was in prison all she was thinking about were the times she spent with his son and remembers him as a strong and handsome young man who was blessed with a wonderful sense of humor and a zest for life. During some of her sleepless nights in jail, she would recall how much his son's life has changed since he jumped off a moving ambulance and suffered from brain damage.

Tom's tongue became swollen to the point that it protruded from the cracks of his lips and his limbs also became contorted. His eyes remained open but he could not see and there was a large dent where his skull had been previously removed to free his brain from pressure. Tom was in a vegetative state and was also unable to communicate. "Seeing my darling son like that was pure hell. It was like watching someone you love being captured, held to ransom and tortured every single day. It was horror, nothing but endless horror."

Frances reportedly killed Tom by injecting him with street heroin which she bought from a dealer in London's King Cross. She narrated: "So in prison, whenever I asked myself, 'did I do the right thing?', I made myself think of Tom in that terrible state, alive but not with no life to speak of, and I felt at peace that I was able to release him from his suffering."