Arizona Man Charged with Allegedly Slitting His Dementia-Suffering Grandmother’s Throat

An Arizona man was charged Sunday with slitting his grandmother’s throat because, police say, he no longer wanted to care for her because she had dementia.

Officers in Chandler, Arizona, arrested 30-year-old Brandon Smith on July 29 after the body of Helen Smith, the suspect’s 81-year-old grandmother, was found lying in a bathtub, dead from a slit throat, according to Chandler’s CBS affiliate.

Smith was not in the home when officers arrived at 3:30 a.m., but he was later apprehended nearby, police reported.

According to a police report, Smith allegedly said that he became frustrated over caring for his grandmother who had dementia.

Police say Smith told them that the victim had urinated on herself and when he took her to the shower he slapped her for it. He said she then fell and was knocked unconscious. It was then he allegedly decided to retrieve a knife from the kitchen and slit her throat as she lay unconscious.

The suspect reportedly said he could not “live like this anymore,” when he told police of his actions.

A neighbor noted that she heard the victim’s family arrive after the attack.

“I could not imagine, I could feel her feeling, walking in, seeing your mom dead,” neighbor Marca Whitehair said.

“She was screaming, she was frightened,” Whitehair added. “She just kept yelling, like, ‘Grandma’s gone, grandma’s gone!'”

Brandon was charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutors noted the suspect was already on probation for aggravated assault.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.