Police have released a recording of 999 call a woman made after she strangled her husband of 31 years to death with a dressing gown cord.
Lorraine Smith, 63, called police in the early hours of 13 December 2021 and said, “my husband’s deceased body has been in the house for three days”, and, “I think it was me”.
Smith recalled having an argument with her husband before grabbing the cord from his dressing gown and pulling it tight around his neck until he lost consciousness.
Andrew, her husband of 31 years, was strangled to death.
At Peterborough Crown Court on May 11, Smith pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility.
On Friday she was sentenced at the same court to a hospital order.
Smith, 63, called police in the early hours of 13 December 2021.
She told police: “My husband’s deceased body has been in the house for three days”.
And she added: “I think it was me”.
Officers and paramedics went to the property in in Beauvale Gardens, Peterborough, and found 70-year-old Andrew Smith dead.
In interview, Smith described feeling confused and having “some sort of vision”.
She recalled having an argument with her husband before grabbing the cord from his dressing gown and pulling it tight around his neck until he lost consciousness.
Smith pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility.
Diminished responsibility is a partial defence to murder, which is enacted when a defendant is deemed to be suffering from an abnormality of mental functioning, and therefore not in full control of their actions.
DC Kirsty Forth said: “This is a tragic case where a man has lost his life prematurely. I hope now the case has been concluded his family can begin to move on with their lives.”
