A Roanoke County man charged in connection with a killing and attempted suicide in April may have chosen unusual methods to inflict death, but his alleged decision to kill his ailing wife and attempt suicide is not unusual at all, experts say.

William Wallace Hurt, 82, is charged with first-degree murder in the April death of his 83-year-old wife, Neva Hurt. Hurt waived his preliminary hearing in Roanoke County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on Tuesday. The case will go to a grand jury in August.

According to court documents, the Hurts' son found his mother lying on the couch in her Parkwood Drive home on April 12. She had a plastic bag over her head. An autopsy report indicates she died of asphyxiation due to strangulation and smothering.

William Hurt was found lying on the basement floor, also with a plastic bag over his head. He had drunk weedkiller and struck himself on the head several times with a hammer, documents say.

William Hurt was taken to Lewis-Gale Medical Center, where he was hospitalized in the intensive care unit. He recovered and was sent to Catawba Hospital for mental evaluations. He has since moved to his son's home in Moneta.

A document in the case file indicated that the Hurts had been married more than 57 years and had a good marriage.

A 2002 study by the Violence Policy Center indicates that about one-fifth of murder-suicides in the United States involve an offender age 55 or older. Physicians and social workers agree that when elderly people or their spouses become ill with a debilitating disease, they are likely to consider suicide. And when they decide to carry out the plan, they are far more likely than a younger person to be successful.

"People 65 and over have the highest suicide rate of any age group," said Margaret Adameck, a professor of social work at Indiana University. "A lot of people don't seem to realize that because there's more in the media about adolescent suicide."

Ron Eskew, associate professor of psychology at Hilbert College in New York, added that when a younger person commits suicide, there are often 10 to 15 documented attempts before that.

"With the elderly, the ratio is about one to one," he said.

Eskew said the method of asphyxiation is not uncommon, but he was surprised by the use of weedkiller and a hammer.

Court documents reveal that Neva Hurt suffered from Alzheimer's disease and depression. Alzheimer's is one of the most difficult diseases to deal with, especially for an aging spouse, said Sandy Hamilton, director of the crime victims program for Elderserve in Louisville, Ky.

"They appear to be determined to take care of this ailing spouse and the caregiver becomes even sicker than the victim in many of these cases," she said.

Chris Head, owner of Home Instead Senior Care in Roanoke, said that caregivers who see an Alzheimer's patient through to the end can be stressed to the point that their immune system resembles that of an active AIDS patient. Eskew said that misconceptions about depression in the elderly are common among both elderly and younger people. Some young people assume that depression is a normal part of aging. It is not.

When an elderly person becomes depressed, he or she is more likely to complain about physical problems, almost hypochondriacally, than they are to seek help for mental health problems, Eskew said.

"This is a generation that if you had a mental illness, an emotional disorder, you were looking for the guys in white coats to come in a van and take you away," he said.

Head pointed out that many elderly people are afraid of going to a nursing home and have promised that they will never send their loved one to a facility. He stressed that there are other places an older person can turn to in order to find an alternative.

A few are the Center for Healthy Aging at Carilion, the LOA Area Agency on Aging, veterans' associations, churches, the AARP and Alzheimer's associations.

"Sometimes, that little bit of extra help is all they need to be able to hang on," Head said.