Just weeks after Robert Latimer was sentenced to life imprisonment for ending the life of his physically incapacitated child, a similar incident occurred.
This time, a Hamilton, Ontario mother killed her handicapped son and took her own life. On December 5, the bodies of Cathy Wilkieson and her 16-year-old son Ryan were found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Sadly, a few weeks earlier, Ms. Wilkieson applied to the Ontario Health Minister for 13 more hours of in-house help for her deaf and blind son Ryan. The extra hours, which it was later revealed would have cost the ministry about $117 was refused.
Ms. Wilkieson, alone and at wits end, then killed her son and herself. Health Minister Tony Silipo (NDP) stood by the ministry’s decision to refuse the aid saying it had nothing to do with the suicide.
