An elderly woman was charged with murder after surviving an attempt to kill herself while her husband died in the suicide pact.
Dennis Eccleston and wife Mavis had decided to end their lives amid Dennis', 81, battle with bowel cancer.
But while he died from the pills they had swallowed, she lived and was charged with his murder, reports the Birmingham Mail.
In an emotional interview, son Kevin spoke of how his parents had urged him to smother them with pillows if the attempt failed.
Kevin said that Dennis had refused any treatment after his devastating diagnosis in an interview with the BBC.
Birmingham Live reports how Kevin reacted to his dad's shock cancer news.
He said: "I just burst into tears.
"It was just devastating. He didn't want any treatment whatsoever - no chemo, he wanted to die his way, in his own time, in his own house and I totally respected that."
But as Kevin and his sister Joy tried to come to terms with the thought of losing one parent, they were blindsided by their 80-year-old mother's admission.
"My mum decided she was going to go with him," Kevin continued.
"They told all the family - we were all there when they sat us down and told us what they were going to do.
"They explained they were going to take some tablets, I was going to find them, it was going to be on a Tuesday - every Tuesday I took my mom shopping.
"My dad said: 'Once we've taken the tablets and when you find us, if we're still alive, you've got to finish us off with a pillow over the head'. He made me promise that.
"Obviously I wouldn't have done it but every time for the next 12 months that I went down my mom and dad's, I thought: 'Is this the day I'm going to find them dead?'
"I had to live with that, it was awful. I prayed many a day, I wished my dad would die naturally instead of doing what he did."
Joy added: "I remember my mum holding my hand and I said to her: 'You haven't got to do this, I know you think you've got to go with dad and you want to be with dad and don't want to stop in this bungalow but there's room at my house'.
"She just held my hand looked me straight in the eye and said: 'I love you, I love you with all of my heart Joy but I want to be with your dad' and I knew then.
"I then didn't think of her as selfish, I just thought: 'This woman is willing to sacrifice her own life because she loves my dad this much'."
Mavis and Dennis took the pills at their Raven Close home in Huntington, near Cannock, on February 19, 2019.
But Mavis's suicide bid failed and she awoke in hospital, with her dying husband in the bed next to her.
She held his hand as he died - only to be arrested on suspicion of his murder the following day and later charged - thanks to "throwaway remarks" between her and two nurses.
The pensioner sobbed in the dock after being unanimously cleared of murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter following a two-week trial at Stafford Crown Court.
"That word murder - that's not a word that belongs in our family," Joy said.
"It was a love story that tragically went wrong."
