Couple end their lives together after cancer shock

Their love survived six decades, illness and a five-year parting. But an elderly King Country couple were found dead last Thursday, just two weeks after a diagnosis of terminal cancer.

The bodies of Valmai, 87, and Alan Charles (Charlie) Opie, 89, were found by their son inside their redbrick house in the isolated Mokauiti Valley near Te Kuiti.

Mrs Opie was found lying in bed and Mr Opie in a chair in another room with a gun at his side.

Police say they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the couple's deaths.

Friends say Mr Opie had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and his wife was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Neighbours have described the couple as "devoted", to each other and to the community they loved.

Mr and Mrs Opie were engaged before the outbreak of World War II but when Mr Opie was sent to fight, Mrs Opie, a petite woman with an infectious laugh, waited five years for his return.

They had lived all their married life, raising a family, in the farmhouse where they were found.

The small, close-knit community in the farming valley was yesterday still coming to terms with the couple's tragic deaths.

"This just doesn't happen in Mokau," one said.

"It's quite a shock really. Charlie is the last person you would think would do that."

Australian pro-euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke said elderly people who were given a serious diagnosis often did desperate things.

Often couples who had been together for a very long time said they didn't want to go on without the other person. But Dr Nitschke said when people were aware they had choices they were less likely to take "desperate steps".

Voluntary Euthanasia Society president Jack Jones said the number of suicide pacts among the elderly would increase because of New Zealand's ageing population.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY