Who is David Hunter and why did he kill his wife?
- Everything you need to know about David Hunter after he was released from prison
A retired British miner who tearfully killed his terminally ill wife was released from a Cypriot prison on July 31 after serving 19 months behind bars.
David Hunter, 76, was sentenced by Paphos District Court judges to a two-year prison sentence for the murder of his childhood sweetheart Janice, 74.
But who is David Hunter? Why did he choose to kill his wife in the first place?
Read on below for everything you need to know about David Hunter.
David Hunter, 76, was released from a Cypriot prison on July 31 after serving 19 months behind bars for the murder of his terminally ill wife
Who is David Hunter?
Hunter, 76, said he met his wife when she asked him to dance at a miners’ party in Northumberland.
“She came up to me and said, ‘You’re in my chair.’ I had never seen such a beautiful woman,” said Mr Hunter, when asked how the pair met.
The couple would go on to marry at St John’s Church in Ashington, Northumberland in 1969.
Mr and Mrs Hunter had holidayed in Cyprus before buying a property in the country in 1999, moving to it after their retirement in 2001.
When asked how their marriage was, he said, “Perfect.” He also revealed that he worked at the mine seven days a week to pay for their only child, Lesly, to become the first member of the family to attend college.
Mr Hunter’s daughter – who campaigned tirelessly for his release – said: ‘Speaking to my father was the most amazing thing. I feel like my heart has been put back together.”
Why did David Hunter kill his wife?
Mr Hunter’s wife, Janice, had ‘begged’ him to end her life as she was suffering from blood cancer, which meant she had to travel to the capital Nicosia every week for procedures and injections.
As her condition worsened Mrs Hunter asked to be transferred to Paphos General Hospital as she was unable to cope with the travel but when Covid hit it was shut down and so they kept her injections in their fridge and self-medicated.
She received two injections of 125 euros per week, but suffered from side effects such as diarrhoea, headache, dizziness and nosebleeds.
Mr Hunter, who married his childhood sweetheart Janice in 1969, described the couple’s marriage as ‘perfect’
Hunter said he ‘never in a million years’ would have taken his wife’s life if she hadn’t asked him to
Unfortunately, this did nothing to improve her health, which led to Hunter choking her to death in December 2021.
In July 2023, judges acquitted Hunter of murder and instead convicted him on the lesser charge of manslaughter, with Judge Michalis Droussiotis accepting that he “loved and cared for his wife.”
Hunter said he “never in a million years” would have taken his wife’s life unless she asked him to.
He showed the court how he put his hands over his wife’s mouth and nose and said he finally decided to grant her wish after she became “hysterical.”
An apparent suicide note written by Hunter proved crucial to the British pensioner’s dramatic acquittal of murder.
A blue notebook and pen were found in his home with a message inside apparently left for those who would find the bodies of Mr. Hunter and his wife.
The farewell note read: “My wife is in so much pain. She asked me to help her, so we did this together.’