(WESH) — A 76-year-old woman faces multiple charges including first-degree murder after police say she shot and killed her terminally ill husband.
Police say Ellen Gilland shot 77-year-old Jerry Gilland as part of what was supposed to be a murder-suicide pact.
Daytona Beach police got a call about someone shot on the 11th floor of Advent Health.
"Obviously we're unsure how she brought that gun into the hospital. But this was planned," said police chief Jakari Young.
Young says because the husband, Jerry Gilland, was terminally ill, he and his wife Ellen made a pact about three weeks ago to go through with a murder-suicide if Jerry continued to take a turn for the worse.
"Apparently the goal was for him to do it but he did not have the strength, so she had to carry it out for him," said Young.
Hostage negotiators spoke with Ellen Gilland for hours as neighboring rooms on the eleventh floor were cleared.
"This was somewhat of a logistical nightmare which is why again I'm very, very proud of my team because that eleventh floor is made up of terminally ill patients so pretty much all the patients on that floor are on ventilators," said Young.
He says they didn't have room to evacuate the entire floor. He also says Gilland never left the room where the shooting happened, and while she never threatened to shoot any officers, she never put the gun down.
"So we would have to assume that, you know, if we were to rush in there, we didn't effectively communicate that it could have turned into a shootout situation," said Young.
So, they used a device to distract her, so she'd drop the gun.
"It's called a flash bang that the SWAT team uses. They use it, it just makes a loud noise...So they threw in a flash bang to distract her and luckily it worked," said Young.
They also hit Gilland with a bean bag.
