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- A man said he killed his wife because he couldn't pay her medical bills, per a police statement.
- Ronnie Wiggs said he choked his wife and covered her nose and mouth, the police statement said.
- He faces a second-degree murder charge, punishable by up to life in prison, per Missouri law.
A man charged with strangling and killing his wife at the hospital said he did it because he couldn't pay her medical bills, according to a detective's probable cause statement.
Ronnie Wiggs reportedly told police he choked his wife and covered her nose and mouth to keep her from screaming while she was staying at Centerpoint Medical Center in Independence, Missouri.
She was there to get a new port for dialysis, per the statement issued by Detective Todd Winborn.
Winborn said Wiggs made the confession after being read his Miranda rights.
On Friday, medical staff at the hospital were alerted to a "Code Blue" around 8:30 p.m., local time. They found the victim unresponsive and with no pulse, the statement said.
The victim was not pronounced dead at the time but had no brain function, prompting medical staff to stop any life-saving measures, according to the statement.
The statement said that medical workers heard the victim's husband say: "I did it, I killed her, and I choked her."
Wiggs was subsequently arrested by a police officer working off-duty at the hospital, per the statement.
He admitted to killing his wife by choking her and covering her mouth and nose to keep her from screaming, before leaving the hospital, according to the statement.
He later returned with a relative, it said.
According to the statement, Wiggs told a police officer he'd tried to kill the victim on two other occasions while she was hospitalized, adding that he was depressed and killed her because he could not afford the medical bills.
Wiggs faces a second-degree murder charge and is being held on a $250,000 bond, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a statement on Saturday.
Under Missouri law, a person convicted of second-degree murder faces class A felony charges with penalties of up to 30 years in prison, or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Medical indebtedness is a growing concern for many Americans.
More than 100 million Americans, including 41% of adults, carried medical debt in 2022, according to a joint investigation by NPR and The Kaiser Family Foundation, based on a nationwide poll conducted that year.
Medical debt has surged over the last decade, becoming the largest source of debt in collections, per the National Institutes of Health.
As Business Insider previously reported, about a quarter of Gen Z and millennials are skipping rent and mortgage bills to pay off medical debt.