Ellen Gilland is a woman from Florida who fatally shot her husband inside of a Daytona Beach Florida hospital. According to police reports Ellen Gilland would barricade herself inside of her husbands Daytona Beach hospital room and fatally shooting him. Ellen Gilland who would later tell police that the plan was to take her own life after killing her husband however she was unable to. After negotiations with police Ellen Gilland would turn herself over to authorities and was arrested. Ellen Gilland husband had been terminally ill and the couple planned the murder suicide.
Ellen Gilland More News
Daytona Beach police responded to a shooting at AdventHealth Daytona Beach Saturday morning.
According to police, responding officers discovered that a woman had shot and killed her terminally ill husband and confined herself to his room.
He was the only patient in the room, according to police.
“Upon arrival, our officers were directed to the 11th floor, where they encountered an elderly female who had apparently shot her terminally ill husband,” Daytona Beach police Chief Jakari Young said at a news conference.
Officers say staff and patients near the room were evacuated.
No one else has been injured.
“At no time were any of the hospital staff threatened or any other patients,” Young said.
Around 3 p.m. after negotiation, the wife was taken into custody.
Police have identified the victim as 77-year-old Jerry Gilland and the shooter as his wife, 76-year-old Ellen Gilland.
Both of them were from New Smyrna Beach.
The Daytona Beach Police Department said an investigation revealed the couple planned this weeks ago.
They say the pair made a pact to go through with a murder-suicide three weeks ago if the husband who was terminally ill continued to take a turn for the worse.
“Apparently because he was terminally ill, they had a conversation about it and they actually planned this approximately three weeks ago that if he continued to take a turn for the worst that he wanted her to end this,” Young said. “Obviously, we’re unsure how she brought that gun into the hospital, but this was planned.”
Police say the plan had been for the husband to do the shooting, but he was too weak.
They got a call about the shooting around 11:30 a.m. Saturday and it took hostage negotiators hours before the woman was taken into custody.
Meanwhile, the surrounding rooms had to be cleared in what police called a bit of a “logistical nightmare.”
“Because that 11th floor is made up of terminally ill patients so pretty much all the patients on that floor are on ventilators,” Young said.
He says they didn’t have room to evacuate the entire floor but says Gilland never left the room where the shooting happened.
“She never put the gun down, so she never specifically made a threat that she was going to shoot any of us, but she never put the gun down,” Young said. “So we would have to assume that you know if we were to rush in there, we didn’t effectively communicate that it could have turned into a shootout situation.”
So they used a device to distract her so she’d drop the gun.
“It’s called a flash bang that the SWAT team uses,” Young said. “They use it. It just makes a loud noise it’s like a — pretty sure you’re familiar with that. So they flew in a flash bang to distract her and luckily it worked.”
They also hit Gilland with a bean bag and she was ultimately taken into custody.
“It’s a tough situation, so her husband (was) terminally ill, so she was already in a depressed state just based on her husband being terminally ill and knowing that the end was near,” Young said.
She was at the Daytona Beach Police Department Saturday afternoon.
The police chief says she’s being transported to the Volusia County Jail.
Gilland is facing charges of first-degree premeditated murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
AdventHealth released a statement Saturday afternoon on the shooting.
“We are devastated by the tragedy that unfolded at the AdventHealth Daytona Beach campus today, and our prayers are with those impacted. We are grateful for the Daytona Beach Police Department in helping ensure the safety of our patients, team members and visitors,” AdventHealth said in a statement.
https://www.wesh.com/article/daytona-beach-hospital-shooting/42603602