GUILTY UT - Jean Chamberlain, 70, Roy, 16 Feb 2014 - Murder or mercy killing?

Before Jean Chamberlain died Feb. 16 in her Roy home, prosecutors say her husband had amassed a small library of suspicious titles. "The Peaceful Pill Handbook." "The Final Exit." "If You Go Into A Nursing Home, Will Your Spouse Go To The Poor House?"

The books and articles provided arguments for assisted suicide, warnings against nursing homes, and ways to kill a person without being caught — for instance, suffocation with a helium-filled bag. Techniques are punctuated with handwritten notes such as "Excellent," "How to do it," and "Silence is your best protection."

But in Dennis Vance Chamberlain’s preliminary hearing Friday, his defenders pointed to an open-ended autopsy, which could not deduce the cause of the death of a 70-year-old woman who suffered "a plethora" of maladies, from an early stroke to an enlarged heart.

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Smith said actions Dennis Chamberlain had taken on the day his wife died later aroused suspicion among other family members. “He’d called his family and he’d called the mortuary, but he failed to call any medical services and he didn’t call law enforcement,” Smith said. “[He] told his family that certain people had come to the house and pronounced that his wife was dead.”

But Smith said police later discovered that didn’t happen.

“Some of these misleading statements became kind of suspicious to the family and so they came to the police about a week after their mother had been buried in Bountiful and asked that we look into it,” Smith said.

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According to Smith, Jean’s body was exhumed from the Bountiful City Cemetery a few weeks after her death, and that over the following months, investigators obtained warrants to search the Chamberlain home.

He said detectives found evidence that Chamberlain was researching methods to commit suicide without being detected, including Internet records and a book of suicide instructions obtained by investigators. Smith noted that some of the researched items that could be used to cover an intentional death were found inside the Chamberlain home.

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Dennis Chamberlain accepted a plea deal in February, pleading guilty to attempted murder, a first-degree felony, in his wife's death. He was sentenced Thursday to three years to life in the Utah State Prison.

Prosecutors argued that Dennis Chamberlain killed his wife in their home, 3750 Midland Drive, because he saw her as a financial burden, not to spare her suffering...

The Chamberlains' adult children spoke of stolen years as they addressed 2nd District Judge Joseph Bean. Their mother had been uncomplaining as she battled declining health, they said, and had asked to be moved to an assisted living center.

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