A 66-year-old woman is facing a murder charge after investigators found her 97-year-old mother dead in the family home in the Greenacres area the morning after Christmas.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office arrested Martha Jo Blake on a charge of first degree murder after the Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that her mother’s injuries were not consistent with natural death.
An autopsy indicated that Patricia Blake was either suffocated or strangled, according to her daughter’s arrest report.
Martha Jo Blake told investigators that her mother expressed a wish to die because she suffered from several illnesses, including Parkinson’s disease and a thyroid disorder.
During a Dec. 27 hearing at the Palm Beach County Jail, County Judge Lourdes Casanova ordered Blake held without bail and granted the state’s motion for a pretrial detention hearing. If granted, such an order could keep her in custody pending her trial.
The judge appointed a public defender to represent Blake. As a matter of policy, the county Public Defender’s Office does not comment on active cases.
Deputies responded shortly before 8 a.m. Dec. 26 to the Blakes’ home in the Cresthaven Ashley neighborhood, near John I. Leonard High School and just north of Greenacres city limits, to conduct a death investigation, according to the arrest report.
Martha Jo Blake told investigators she last saw her mother alive the night before.
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Because Patricia Blake’s primary care physician was unavailable, investigators referred the case to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy. The doctor assigned to her observed that the elderly Blake had a fresh neck fracture, internal bleeding on both sides of her neck and an indication that something had been placed on her face, the arrest report said.
Martha Jo Blake voluntarily told investigators that she had been her mother’s primary caregiver for about five years. She said her mother had expressed a wish to die because of her health issues, and that she had previously discussed a “Death With Dignity” option with her mother’s primary care physician in Maine.
The “Death With Dignity” act is a form of assisted suicide that is currently legal in 12 states, including Maine and the District of Columbia. Not legal in Florida.
Martha Jo Blake told investigators that her mother was deemed ineligible for the Maine Medical Aid In Dying program because she did not have a terminal illness. She indicated that she and mother had discussed the option of suicide by taking pills, but determined that they did not have any lethal enough to kill her.
Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on the Palm Beach Post: Florida woman faces murder charge in death of 97-year-old mother