A 66-year-old woman and her 97-year-old mother are facing murder charges after investigators found her 97-year-old mother dead in her Greenacres home on Christmas morning.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office arrested Martha Jo Black on a first-degree murder charge after the medical examiner’s office ruled her mother’s injuries were inconsistent with death from natural causes.
An autopsy showed Patricia Black was suffocated or strangled, according to her daughter’s arrest report.
Martha Jo Black reportedly told investigators that her mother had expressed a desire to die because she suffered from multiple medical conditions, including Parkinson’s disease and thyroid disease.
During a Dec. 27 hearing at the Palm Beach County Jail, County Judge Lourdes Casanova ordered Black held without bail and granted the state’s motion for a pretrial detention hearing. If granted, such an order could keep her in custody until the trial begins.
The judge appointed a public defender to represent Black. Per policy, the county public defender’s office does not comment on active cases.
According to the arrest report, deputies responded shortly before 8 a.m. on Dec. 26 to the Blakes’ home in the Cresthaven Ashley neighborhood, near John I. Leonard High School in the northern Greenacres neighborhood, to conduct a death investigation.
Martha Jo Black told investigators the last time she saw her mother alive was the night before.
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Because Patricia Black’s primary care physician could not be reached, investigators referred the case to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy. The arrest report said the doctor assigned to the case observed the elder Black had a new neck fracture, internal bleeding on the sides of her neck and signs that something had been covering her face.
Marsha Jo Black voluntarily told investigators that she had been her mother’s primary caregiver for about five years. She said her mother had expressed a desire to die because of her health problems and that she had previously discussed “death with dignity” options with her mother’s primary care physician in Maine.
Death with Dignity bills are a form of assisted suicide currently legal in 12 states, including Maine and the District of Columbia. This is not legal in Florida.
Martha Jo Black told investigators that her mother was deemed ineligible for Maine’s Medical Assistance in Dying program because she did not suffer from a terminal illness. She said she and her mother had discussed the option of taking medication to kill herself, but determined they did not have enough to kill her.
Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can contact him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on X (formerly Twitter): @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared in The Palm Beach Post: Florida woman faces murder charges in death of 97-year-old mother
