When Katherine "Kim" Yarbrough married Lloyd Yarbrough in 1997, they exchanged vows promising to love and cherish one another in sickness and in health. On May 27 of last year, police found her near death after the Austin, Texas woman gave her husband a fatal dose of crushed prescription pills before taking the pills herself. While in hospital, Kim Yarbrough reportedly told police that she had killed her severely disabled husband "because she was tired of taking care of him": After being initially charged with murder, a Texas judge has authorized a plea-bargain in which Kim Yarbrough pled guilty to injury to a disabled individual. While the felony is technically punishable by up to life imprisonment, the judge sentenced Yarbrough to ten years probation
Lloyd Yarbrough, a Vietnam veteran, had been left incapacitated by a crippling case of encephalitis in 2007 following treatment for non-Hodgkins' lymphoma. After the disease left him unable to walk, talk, swallow, or care for himself, Kim Yarbrough was left with the grim task of tending to her husband on a full-time basis. As she movingly described in the blog that she maintained of her experience in dealing with her disabled husband, Kim had become frustrated and despondent due to the lack of support from outside workers and social agencies. Four days before his death, she wrote in her blog that: "I wonder if I will ever change Lloyd's diaper without feeling the pain of what has been lost".
In discussing the probation order, both prosecution and defense attorneys stressed that Kim Yarbrough's lack of a criminal history and the circumstances of the case indicated that a prison sentence was not warranted. Under the terms of her probation, Kim Yarbrough must serve 400 hours of community service and continue seeing a private therapist.
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