Care home shooting: 'I trapped the gun between us with my chest' says manager

These are the words of Julie Curtis, moments after Ronald King fatally shot his wife in the head and approached her with a gun pointed under his chin.

It was the morning after Boxing Day at De La Mer House in Essex, when care home resident Rita King was shot in the right eye by her husband. Mr King had been staying at the care home in Walton-On-the-Naze for a week with his wife last Christmas. The day before he was due to return home he shot her. On 11 June, Mr King pleaded guilty in court to manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

“There was no sound”, recalls care home manager Julie Curtis of that day when Rita, who had dementia, was shot with her father’s gun, a World War Two Enfield service revolver, as she sat in the lounge watching TV. No one heard anything as her husband made sure there was no noise and had modified the bullets.

'Shaking like a leaf'

Only the sight of Ronald approaching Julie Curtis with the revolver to his head, saying ‘I’ve killed my wife’, alerted staff.

“He said he had killed his wife and he was trying to kill himself.” “All he said was ‘She’s had enough’.

“My two colleagues were taking cover.

“He was shaking like a leaf. He was trying to point the gun at himself and he said he couldn’t do it

Pretend cuddle

“I moved forward very slowly. My two colleagues moved with me.

“Once he was in arms reach, I put my arm around him as if I was going to cuddle him.

“He had the gun under his chin. I trapped the gun between us with my chest. It was pointing under my arm."

Aged 87 years-old, Ronald King was shorter than Mrs Curtis and had one arm.

“I put my hand over the top of the gun and got hold of it and said ‘Please, let go’.

"It seemed like a very long time passed. After a while, he gave it.”

“I was shocked at how heavy it was” says Mrs Curtis of the 1934 Enfield service WW2 revolver he’d inherited from Rita’s father.

While one staff member locked the gun in the drug cupboard, another went to the TV lounge.

Care worker Cecelia Cole dropped to the floor and screamed when she saw Rita. But one older lady was still watching television, totally unaware of what had happened.

’Try to act normal’

Mrs Curtis stood in front of Rita, while the other resident was wheeled out of the room, then locked the lounge and covered its windows with paper.

“I put paper on the door saying the big lounge was closed.

“Another lady tried to walk in but I led her away.”

Julie Curtis then told staff: “‘Just try to act normal’. And then, I organised lunch.

“I told the cook, we haven’t got time for two sittings, only one as we’re going to be busy.

“Then I thought, there’s something I’ve forgotten and I rang the police.

“We’re not used to having armed police in the corridors and people in white ‘space suits’ doing forensics. If it was a shop, it would have been shut. But we had to carry on.”

With 43 residents, lunch and medicine rounds to finish, staff did just that. The residents were informed of Rita’s death after lunch.

One police officer told Mrs Curtis, that if in her shoes, he would never have approached anyone with a loaded gun who had just killed someone, particularly as their adrenaline would be pumping. But Jane Curtis’ presence that day was pure chance and good fortune. She was not expected at work but the day after Boxing Day was a Bank Holiday, and she thought she’d go and help staff on duty.

Ronald King had put three bullets in the WW2 revolver. One for Mrs King, one for his sister and one for himself.

Being a slow eater saved his sister’s life

It was also pure chance that his older sister, 92-year-old Eileen was not in the lounge at the time of Rita's 9 am shooting, simply because she hadn’t finished her breakfast.

“We hadn’t wheeled his sister in yet. The only thing that saved her was the fact she was a slow eater.”

Ronald King had asked his wife: “You had enough?” before shooting her.

Recalling her former resident, Mrs Curtis says of Rita King, “She was a lovely lady. She had dementia but she would light up when her husband came to visit her.

“She wasn’t ready to die. She was quite strong.”

The 81-year-old resident was eating well but with short term memory loss, staff would ask whether she would like tea or coffee but she would simply repeat ‘tea or coffee’. Although she recognised him immediately, Rita King couldn’t remember her husband’s name when he came to visit her several times a week.

The next day, as national newspapers and television channels covered the shooting, ‘a strange quiet’ fell on the lounge. With many residents having seen coverage via access to televisions in their rooms, nobody was talking.

Keep Calm and Carry On

So Julie Curtis initially broke the ice with the words: “Now that she has been reassured that the care home is safe and secure, the Queen has said she is ready to come up and stay with us.”

After that, everyone had a laugh and things did go back to normal. The people that are the most shocked by what happened are the staff says the manager.

She remembers the residents were "very matter of fact about it" and carried on and believes the residents were far more resilient than the staff, “because they’ve lived through a war.”

Manslaughter by diminished responsibility

At Chelmsford Crown Court, a guilty plea to manslaughter by diminished responsibility was accepted and Mr King was found not guilty of murder.

The court heard that an MRI scan on 1 July, revealed he had brain damage in his frontal lobe which made him suffer from delusions and paranoia, preventing him from thinking rationally.

After the guilty plea, Rita King's family released a statement which stated: "The tragedy of what happened has had an impact on the whole family. We are a large but close family.

"We would never have imagined what happened to Rita. It has shocked us all and left us deeply saddened.

"We know her last months in the De La Mer home were happy and she was well looked after.

“She used to love sitting watching the birds, especially when they used the bird bath. We are sure she still watches them now she is at rest."

Ronald King was remanded in custody.

Looking to the future, Julie Curtis says of the care home, run by Novocare Ltd,: “We can’t change our policies. We can’t search bags. If he was of sound mind, this would never have happened.”

But the care home manager does have this warning: “Some people look at guns they got from the war and like to tell stories about it. My dad did. “Older people with guns should hand them in because they can still kill people.”