Background: The Rogers County Sheriff's Office in Claremore, Oklahoma (Google Maps). Inset: Naomi Austin (Rogers County Sheriff's Office).
An Oklahoma woman is accused of trying to kill her husband by unplugging his oxygen supply and telling him to "just die," authorities say.
Naomi Austin, 73, has been charged with "solicitation for murder" and "abuse or exploitation by a caretaker," Rogers County Sheriff's Office jail records show. She was arrested late Saturday and booked into the Rogers County Detention Center the following morning.
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Authorities were alerted to the married couple's home when her 77-year-old husband called for help, saying his wife had disconnected his oxygen, grabbed him, and refused to reconnect it, Tulsa-based CBS affiliate KOTV reported.
This apparently wasn't the first time the husband made such a claim. On Oct. 11, a firefighter is said to have been called to their Claremore home for a similar call about the husband's oxygen being disconnected.
While Austin maintained her innocence, alleging her husband had "gone cuckoo," investigators put forward evidence in an arrest affidavit that appeared to back up the victim's account. The details suggested the suspect had been pondering her husband's life for months.
"I hate [victim]," Austin allegedly wrote in a text message shared with deputies by a family realtor. "He needs to die soon," another message read. According to the realtor, Austin went as far as asking her and her husband during a 15-minute phone conversation over the summer whether they would help "facilitate" her husband's death.
Following Austin's arrest, Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton said he had "no enjoyment putting anybody that age in jail," per KOTV. "But in the interest of his health and the crimes that she's committed, it was the thing to do."
He added: "I think in more ways than one, we were able to show easily, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this lady wanted her husband dead."
The jail records reviewed by Law&Crime show that Austin has a court date scheduled for Nov. 12. She is being held on no bond.
Claremore is located in eastern Oklahoma about 30 miles northeast of Tulsa.
