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This episode discusses suicide in some detail. Please use discretion. Well, the police asked me if I knew that
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what I'd done was illegal before I did it. And uh I told them that uh there are higher laws than Pennsylvania
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laws. And then it didn't make any difference to me if it was legal or or illegal. It
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was nobody else's business. >> [music] >> In 1998, [music] Philip Benight was working in a clothing store in
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Washington, D.C. when he met a woman named Becky Golden. He was 42. She was 54. Becky said the thing that stood out most
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uh was that I she heard me laugh and it reminded her of her father. And uh So, she reached out to me [music]
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first. Then we just went from there. Philip says he'd never met anyone like Becky before. He'd never met someone
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where no matter what they did together, even just driving around, it was fun. He said she was outgoing and curious and
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incredibly funny. They went dancing. They went to art shows and antique stores. For his
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birthday, she got him a Chihuahua. Then he moved into her house. I'd been in and out of relationships.
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I'd had several relationships with men. Uh None of them Well, they would last a couple of years,
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a few of them, but none of them lasted like uh Becky and and my relationship did.
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We took a a trip out west, went to 27 states and three provinces uh driving with the dog.
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And um we were just really, really close friends. And, uh then Becky got cancer.
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So, we got married so I could put her on my health insurance. Um we got married in 2005.
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When they decided to get married, Becky Golden changed her name to Becky Benight
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because she said she felt like Philip was the only person who really, truly loved her.
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Philip told us we had all of the really important things. He says they had trust and commitment
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and comfort in knowing [music] that the other person would always be there no matter how bad things got.
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I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. >> [music] >> For about 6 [music] years, Philip and
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Becky had a happy life. And then, >> [music] >> she was diagnosed with cancer of the
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supraglottis. And, to tell you the truth, I'd never heard of a supraglottis before.
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Um >> [music] >> it's in the throat. It's close to the uh vocal cords. By then, [music]
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they were both working as school bus drivers. They wanted a job that [music] would
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give them the summers off so they could travel and have free time. When Becky got sick, she quit working,
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but she was able to get medical care through Philip's insurance. She had a 7 and 1/2 hour surgery to
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remove the cancer. Philip stayed home to help her recover. Her speech was temporarily affected by
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the surgery, so she couldn't speak or call out to him. Philip slept on the floor of her bedroom, so if she woke up
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in the middle of the night and needed something, he'd be right there. And uh we had a cat and a dog. They
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slept with us. Um so we all hung out in one room. A few weeks later, Philip had a heart
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attack. The doctors said it was stress-related. And then, on top of it all, their house burned down.
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Philip says Becky somehow kept her sense of humor through all of this. They tried
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to be positive. And since Becky had always wanted to live in a log cabin, they moved to Lancaster County in
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Pennsylvania and bought one. She sewed curtains for all the windows in the house.
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And then, Becky began to have a series of strokes. Her quality of life declined quickly.
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Her health issues are constant. She fell and broke her shoulder. The radiation from the cancer treatment had damaged
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her teeth so badly they had to be removed. A blood clot formed behind one of her
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eyes. Philip says she was exhausted. Her attitudes changed. Uh she started talking about wanting to die and
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hoping that the next stroke would just take her out. >> [snorts] >> And one day uh while I was driving a school
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bus, she sent me a text that said um "Don't call me. Don't text me. Uh I'm I'm through."
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And I thought it was uh like a suicide message. Of course, it panicked me and I called
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the police. And the police came. She couldn't hear them because she wore hearing aids and she'd taken them out.
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Uh but I'd told the police where a key was hidden outside and they let themselves in.
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And she was upstairs with her feet up, eyes closed, relaxing when suddenly there policeman standing
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over her that frightened her half to death. The whole thing was a fiasco, but what she was telling me was no, the
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text didn't mean that she was uh going to commit suicide. It just meant she was through for the day and and
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didn't want to be bothered and that was really a turning point. She was so angry at me for calling the police
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that we didn't talk for 3 days and when we did talk, she'd calmed down and said, you
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know, if I decide to kill myself, that is my business and nobody else's, not even yours.
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And she wanted me to promise that if she decided to do that, that I would not call anyone to stop her.
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I wanted her to promise that she would talk to me first. I needed to know that she wasn't just
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having a bad day and gave up without thinking about it that we needed to discuss it.
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And she promised um and after that, that changed things. Every so often, every few months, she
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would talk to me about wanting to die and I would convince her each time, just give me a little bit more time where I'm
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working with it. Um I I just didn't want her to go. One day Philip came home from work to
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find that Becky had had a stroke and fallen and hit her head. They called 911. Becky stayed in the hospital for more
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than a month. And when it was time for her to be discharged, her doctors advised
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full-time medical care, a nursing home. Becky refused. She wanted to go home. And so Philip took her home.
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Philip says his insurance, which was with Cigna, covered 16 hours a day of in-home medical care. Philip applied for
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it, and until it got sorted out, he took off work to stay home with Becky. Uh I took care of her 24 hours a day.
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Before [snorts] she came home, I had to buy enough food to hoard up so that I cuz I couldn't go to the grocery store.
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I couldn't leave her until Cigna sent someone here to stay with her. Um when I brought her home,
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the rehab hospital called uh Office of Aging in Pennsylvania uh to report that I was taking her home
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against doctor's wishes. And uh Office of Aging came, they interviewed me, interviewed her.
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Uh they said, "No, she was being cared for, she was happy. Um and she was where she wanted to be,
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and they didn't see any danger." Philip says that after several weeks of negotiations, Cigna pushed back on
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paying for someone to come to their house. The insurance company said it was willing to pay only if Becky was in a
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nursing home. If Becky wanted to be at home, she and Philip would have to pay for her care
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out of pocket, which they couldn't afford. And there was no way around it. >> [music]
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>> Um was uh decision that Office of Aging had made >> [music] >> uh that for her own safety,
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she had to go to the nursing home. Philip went to see her every single [music] evening after work.
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He would pick her up and take her to dinner. After dinner, Philip says he would often
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take her home to their house. She couldn't stand up on her own anymore. And so they wouldn't go inside.
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They'd sit in the car in the driveway and talk. We live on top of a hill. You can see for miles. It's really pretty
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view. And [music] we would sit, listen to the radio, and look at the view, and remember things that we had done here.
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And and she would tell me that she remembered [music] planting these flowers or those
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flowers or really was just a way for her to reconnect with her home. Um it felt normal because we were
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together and we were home. Even if we were outside. Becky spent a lot of time outside. So
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um we were still home. And she used to tell me if anybody can get me home, you can.
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And um >> [music] >> she asked me to promise that she would come home. And I told her that she
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would. I promised her that she would come home. When [music] Becky went into the nursing
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facility, she was so miserable, so unhappy. She was very vocal about it. Reporter Ann Newman. Her son John came
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to visit her and she said, "Hey John, did you bring the gun?" And he said, "No." And she said, "That's too
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bad." So the nursing staff knew that Becky did not want to live anymore. >> [music]
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>> And they were afraid that she would run away. And so they put her in a locked
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ward of the facility without telling Philip. [music] And that's what that's what made Philip say, "I'm
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[music] ready." I realized that I'd lost the battle. There was no way that she was ever going to be able to
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come home. And [music] when that happened, um >> [music] >> I started getting things together.
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>> [music] >> Philip and Becky decided to escape the situation and the only way out they saw
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was ending their lives. I could help her, but I also knew that if I did, um 60 years old and be going to jail for at
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least 10 years. Um I'd be 70 when I got out. That's uh if I ever got out. And um I wasn't going
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to do that. That was a ridiculous thing to do. Um So, I decided that I would rather just
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go. I told Becky that um we would face that the same way that we faced all of the uh health decisions,
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that we'd just do it together. Um she didn't want me to, but after I explained that I would be going
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to jail and that it was really my decision, um was her decision whether or not she did it and it was mine and if I
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wanted to join her and And so, it was agreed upon. And when we made the choice, um
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and that we were going together, it was actually kind of comforting and seemed right.
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Um I talked to Becky and told her that I'd gotten everything ready. And uh but I thought that Sunday
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because we would have the whole day together, um would be the day. Um Sunday, I picked her up early. We
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drove down by the Conestoga River and sat down there for a while watching uh the birds in the river. And we went to
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lunch. And then brought the came and parked in our driveway. Which was for us the
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fulfillment of my promise that she was coming home, that she would be home. Did you tell anyone
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before No. >> you did it? No one. I didn't think that would be fair. Didn't seem right to bring anybody else
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into it. It was personal, it was ours, and we weren't going to discuss it with anybody else or try to explain it, and
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they would want an explanation. Um So, uh no, we didn't do any of that. What What I did do is I wrote
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letters and kept a journal. So, that uh my aunt and Becky's relatives would be able to
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see and read that we did know what we were doing. No, they couldn't have done anything.
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And uh it just seemed uh like the right thing to do. Um Before picking her up, I'd placed all
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of the important papers and things in the kitchen. That was all prepared for the executor of the will to come in and
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have everything that they needed, computers and whatnot. Um I told Becky I would have to come in and
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get the pills and she said, "Okay." She that she would wait in the car. Becky had been sick for 14 years.
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And in that time, she'd been prescribed a lot of medications. Philip collected every pill he could
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find and dumped them out onto the marble island in the kitchen. He crushed the pills in a mortar and
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pestle and mixed them into a cup of Kraft vanilla pudding. He walked outside of the house, opened
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Becky's car door, and knelt down beside her. She could no longer swallow pills and her pills had to be ground up.
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Uh she ate her pudding first and then I came around and sat down next to her and
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and swallowed the pills and um it was a large amount of pills. Uh I can if I remember correctly, it was
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three heaping handfuls of of pills to get them all down. And when I turned to look at her,
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uh she was already unconscious. So, I knew it wasn't going to take long and that
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was the last thing that I remember. >> [music] >> They became unconscious. And >> [music]
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>> after several hours, the nursing home um became concerned because >> [music] >> Philip had not returned Becky to the
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facility. And so, they called the police for a wellness check. Um >> [music] >> and so, police showed up in Becky and
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Philip's driveway in after midnight in the wee hours of the morning >> [music] >> and um of the of January 26th.
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And they found Becky and Philip [music] in the car unconscious and pulled them from the car and [music] cut their
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clothes off and stabbed them with Narcan. Um and resuscitated them and took them
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to Leicester General Hospital. The first thing that I remember is um >> [music] >> a light
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and I was shocked that I would even recognize a light or have any sort of consciousness because I didn't believe
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that I thought when you died you just die. Um >> [snorts] >> no religious anything. And I thought,
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"Oh my god, now why am I um seeing light?" And and my first thought was "Son of a [ __ ] there is a light."
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And then I started uh like mentally mental telepathy or something telling Becky, "We have to go
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to this light. I have no idea what's there, but I can't see you. I can't If you can hear
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me, come to my voice, but we have to do this together." And so I was searching for her.
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Um the light disappeared and and I was still calling out to her and the next time that I saw the light, it
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was horrifying. I I realized it was not the light. It was just a light and hospital and
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uh there were people all around the bed holding me down. I was physically uh restrained to the bed
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and I came up fighting. Um I remember hating everybody that was there, Um um I was terrified, angry,
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uh um and really uh scared and worried about Becky because I didn't know where she
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was. And I asked where Becky was. They told me that she was uh in the next room.
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Philip had been in a coma for 3 days, and when he woke up, the police arrived. They asked me questions. I I answered
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them, and at the end of that, they said they were um arresting me. They apologized for having
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to arrest uh arrest me, and [music] um that they were taking me to jail. So, you went straight from the hospital
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to jail? Yes. And only hours after waking up. Had you ever been in trouble with the
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law before? No. Did they put you in handcuffs? Yes. Uh they put me in handcuffs. Um
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they handcuffed me in front of my body rather than behind my back >> [music] >> uh cuz they said it was more
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comfortable. How long were you in jail for? >> [sighs and gasps] >> Time doesn't mean much to me, but it was
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the same day. Uh a matter of hours, but I don't know how long. They took me in front of a judge.
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Um >> [music] >> He set my bail at um $300,000. And as soon as um that happened, the guard asked me, "Do
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you want me to call a bail bondsman?" And I said, "Yes." Um um Uh yeah, they took the last money that
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we had. What a surreal thing to walk into your house again? Uh it was, and uh outside my house was a barrage of
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reporters, cars, uh video cameras, uh television cameras, uh They stayed several days, um
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parked across the street so that every time I went out. Also, they would come occasionally and knock on the door and
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>> [music] >> ask me if I wanted to talk. Did the judge tell you that you could not go anywhere near Becky? My attorney
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told me that the judge had ruled that I was not to be able to see Becky, and that I could not go to the hospital.
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So, the attorney said, "If you feel like you have to go and see her, all I can tell you is that I'll
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>> [music] >> do my best, but I don't know what I can do if they decide to put you back in
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jail." >> [music] >> How did you feel when you heard she had died? None of it felt real to me because
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it felt like a dream or some sort of nightmare because I didn't expect to be here. I never expected to be back in my
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home. I never expected to be separated from Becky. Um even when she died, I um my attorney said uh
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that the rule the judge had put in place was still in place, even though she was uh
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no longer living. I was still not allowed to see her. What were you charged with?
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I was charged with assisting suicide. And the assisting part was that I ground her medication up. And what potential
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sentence were you looking at? The sentence for that is 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
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During the trial, Becky's son John testified that he knew that his mother had wanted to die and that he believed
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that Philip was carrying out his mother's wishes. Other family and friends of Becky's
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testified that Philip would never do anything to hurt her and that they had no doubt that Philip had done exactly
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what Becky had asked and had been asking for years. The judge himself had just lost his parents not
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long ago, so I think he was sympathetic. At any rate, I got 6 months of house arrest and 5 years of
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probation. Did anyone make you feel like a murderer? No, not really. There are a few people that um
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they don't talk to me anymore. So I'm assuming they disapprove. Um but they never voiced it.
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Um >> [snorts] >> and surprisingly most people were supportive and um when Becky and I were going through it
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those last few years, uh I had really felt like the both of us were invisible. People didn't listen to
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us. So I was surprised that I actually got cards from people that worked in stores.
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Uh one of the pharmacist and the card said that they knew that uh I was a good caregiver, that I loved Becky, that they
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had watched seen us together. Uh, that [music] they had admired the way that we worked
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together. Uh, it was mostly all positive things. Was there anyone who who stood up and
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and who knew Becky and Philip and said this was wrong, this was not what Becky wanted or should have been done? Not a
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single person. And I think that's why Philip was only given 6 months house [music] arrest because so many people
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had heard Becky adamantly say that she no longer wanted to live. Ann Neumann is from Lancaster County and
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was home visiting her sister when she read about Philip in the local paper. She'd been researching cases like Philip
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and [music] Becky's for years. She'd written a book called The Good Death, an exploration of dying in America.
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So, when she realized that Philip was just a few miles down the road, she knocked on his [music] door. When I met
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him, I was um, probably the first few weeks or interviews, um, I wanted I wanted to find the cracks. I
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wanted to find his errors. I wanted to see what could [music] have gone differently, um, to allow Becky to still
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be alive. And ultimately, I realized that there was nothing. She was so determined
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>> [music] >> and they were committed together to doing what was best for Becky, what she
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had wanted, um, >> [music] >> and what was in keeping with her sense of autonomy and independence.
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You know, what's funny is that whether we think this is right or wrong or doesn't matter, our
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opinions or or this story that's coming with it. I mean, it's a crime. Exactly. And I think anyone who's spent time in a
00:26:55
nursing home can see that there's a big problem. There's a big problem with just
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caring for someone's body, but forgetting about someone's mind and intellectual stimulation and giving
00:27:06
agency and dignity to to people at the end of their lives. Do you think about this all the time in your work?
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All the time, every day. We know that this is not just an issue that Philip and Becky experienced. Kaiser Health
00:27:20
News just did a fantastic report on the rate of suicide in long-term and elder facilities [music]
00:27:28
and they've noted that these facilities are placating patients, making them as easy to manage as possible. Part of this
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is because staffing is too low and resources are not invested in, you know, the the health and livelihood and
00:27:44
maintenance of these individuals' intellects or social lives. It's really just about getting their bodies through
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the course of a day and this is detrimental to seniors' health, mental and physical, and they're
00:27:58
profoundly unhappy. No one listens to you when you're in a nursing home. No one listens to you when you're over
00:28:04
65. >> [laughter] >> You know, and I I do think it's challenging when dementia, Alzheimer's are brought into
00:28:12
the picture. It it's harder to just call something black and white in the way that you might
00:28:18
handle an individual, but this wasn't with Becky. >> No, um I think some of the local news
00:28:24
reports stated that she had dementia, but that was completely untrue. She did not have a dementia or Alzheimer's
00:28:31
diagnosis. Um and I think she was always clear and consistent in what she was willing to
00:28:37
tolerate and and when she no longer wanted to be alive, she was always very clear about
00:28:43
that. >> [music] >> What's a typical day for you like now? How is your life different?
00:28:57
>> [music] >> I am I have friends here helping to get my house ready. I'm going to sell this
00:29:03
house and move. >> [music] >> Um It's too big for me. Uh it's too expensive for me.
00:29:12
And here I don't [music] get the choice of memories to keep. Um I think when I move, I'll be able to
00:29:26
keep the memories I want. And [music] not remember the things that I don't want to remember quite so
00:29:38
often or at least have a little more control over it. Here, I'm bombarded every day
00:29:45
with um memories that um would be easier just not to have every second. Do you ever feel like Becky talks to you
00:29:56
[music] now? I I talk to her all the time. All the time. We called Philip last weekend to check
00:30:07
in. He said he'd just been thinking about Becky when he was brushing his teeth. Thinking how he used to wake up and look
00:30:14
forward to talking to her. He said it seemed like it was going to be a long day.
00:30:21
>> [music] [music] [music] >> Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.
00:30:42
Audio mix by Johnny Vince Evans. [music] Ann Newman wrote about Philip and Becky
00:30:48
along with other couples [music] in similar situations for Harper's Magazine. We've got a link in the show
00:30:54
notes. Special thanks to Melissa Kaplan. [music] Julian Alexander makes original
00:31:00
illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You [music] can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
00:31:06
We're on Facebook and Twitter @criminalshow. Criminal >> [music] >> is recorded in the studios of North
00:31:12
Carolina Public Radio WUNC. We're proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collection of the best podcasts
00:31:21
around. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Radiotopia >> [music] >> from PRX.