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Tuesday, July 08, 2008, 07:00
Patricia Mulpeter, pictured right, stunned officers when she walked into Tavistock police station last October and told them her friend was dead in the back of their hired car outside.
Mulpeter, aged 48 and from Streatham in London, was due to face trial yesterday charged with the murder of Kaija Kyllikki Savolainen, aged 58.
But at the eleventh hour, she pleaded guilty to an alternative charge of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring suicide, on the basis that she had encouraged her friend in her final suicide bid.
Blonde Mulpeter, a prison officer, wept in the dock as prosecutor Martin Edmunds QC read the first sentence from Ms Savolainen's suicide note:
“I have asked and begged Tricia to assist me to take my life, as I cannot do it by myself.”
Mr Edmunds said the Crown Prosecution Service agreed that it would not be in the public interest to proceed with the murder charge, and High Court Judge Mr Justice Robert Owen agreed, formally clearing Mulpeter of murder.
Sarah Munro QC, defending, said Mulpeter met Savolainen when Savolainen was 25, and the couple had enjoyed a close and loving relationship for more than 20 years, living together in London.
But both had suffered health problems and spent time in hospital, Ms Savolainen from late 2004 to early 2005.
She walked with a stick and had severe breathing difficulties, but her most serious problem was cirrhosis of the liver, and Home Office pathologist Dr Guyan Fernando believed she would have died within six to 12 months of natural causes if she had carried on drinking. In July 2007, a bank loan saw £10,000 transferred into their joint account, boosting the total to £13,000, and the pair hired a Vauxhall Astra and took off for an extended holiday in Sussex and the West Country.
They spent the money on accommodation, food and at off-licences, and after nearly four months had gone through £15,000 and were £2,000 overdrawn.
On October 5 and 6, they stayed at the Tavistock Inn, Tavistock, leaving on the morning of October 7.
An hour later, Mulpeter entered the police station and said her friend was dead in the car outside.
Ms Munro described how police found Ms Savolainen on the back seat of the car.
Five strips of white adhesive tape had been fastened across her mouth and nose, and she had asphyxiated.
Tape and scissors were beside her, a suicide note was beneath the body, and there were no signs of a struggle.
The only fingerprints on the tape were Ms Savolainen's.
A reporter's notebook with earlier drafts of the note was found in the boot.
The note said her health had deteriorated and after months in hospital she could not take any more.
It ended: “Please, please help me, Tricia, to end it all. I love you and I always have.”
Mulpeter told police about previous individual and joint suicide bids involving paracetamol overdoses.
The couple also tried to gas themselves with the aid of a vacuum cleaner hose brought from home, but the Astra was fitted with a catalytic converter which negated the poisonous exhaust fumes.
Ms Munro described the relationship as “most adoring” and said that while Mulpeter took no active part in the suicide, Ms Savolainen had needed her there.
“This was a final act of love, not a criminal act,” she said.
Judge Owen told Mulpeter her encouragement had been born of compassion, and that it was evident the women had cared deeply for each other and shared a loving relationship.
He said Mulpeter had committed a serious criminal offence under current law, but he was imposing the shortest possible sentence – six months – and suspending it for a year.
He also ordered that Mulpeter continue to live with her niece and her niece's husband in Hereford for three months,
He added: “I have been able to take this highly unusual course because of the unique circumstances of this case and the unique view I have formed that you deserve compassion and not punishment.”
After the hearing, DS Steve Carey, who led the investigation, said the case was a difficult one and that the two women had cared for each other “very deeply.”
He said: “This was a very sad case. A case in which the two people involved obviously cared for each other very deeply.
“Indeed, the investigation never showed anything else other than that. Pat Mulpeter was obviously of the belief that her partner was very unwell.
“As it happens the medical evidence did not support that Kaija Savolainen had a fatal disease. There was no clear evidence that she was terminally ill.
“However, Pat Mulpeter and the victim may have believed differently. Assisted suicide is a very unusual occurrence.”
He said it was the first time he had investigated such a case.
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DEFENDANT: Left, Patricia Mulpeter; Tavistock police station, above
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