CHANDLER, Ariz. — A 30-year-old Arizona man has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder after slashing the throat of his grandmother with dementia and telling investigators that he did so—amid frustration that he was the only family member caring for her—because he didn’t want her to “live like this anymore.”

According to reports, police arrived at Helen Smith’s apartment in Chandler on Sunday morning after family members found her dead. Her grandson, Brandon Smith, was soon arrested and questioned by police.

Court documents state that Smith told investigators that he was frustrated that he was the only family member caring for his grandmother. He said that after she urinated on herself, he became upset and took her to the bathroom for a shower.

Smith then allegedly slapped his 81-year-old grandmother in the face, who fell into the bathtub unconscious.

“The defendant then indicated that he did not want his grandmother to live like this anymore, and he decided to end her life,” court documents outline.

Smith is accused of cutting his grandmother’s throat with a knife that he retrieved from the kitchen. He soon fled the scene.

Read the report filed by police here.

Neighbor Marca Whitehair told local television station KTVK that she could hear the cries of other family members who found the elderly woman dead upstairs.

“She was screaming; she was frightened,” she recalled. “She just kept yelling, ‘Grandma’s gone! Grandma’s gone!’”

Smith was soon apprehended and has been charged with first degree murder. According to reports, he was on probation from an assault conviction.

In an article for Bible.org, Steven Cole, pastor of Flagstaff Christian Fellowship, laments, “We live in a day when human life is no longer regarded as sacred. The devaluing of life is spreading not only through violence in the ghettos, but also through abortion on demand, which results in the deaths of 1.5 million babies in America each year. On the other end of life, the push for euthanasia is further eroding the sanctity of human life.”

“All of these problems stem from the erosion of the Bible as the standard for truth in our society,” he continues. “If you throw out the Bible and accept evolution, then man is just an animal and there is no basis for human morality, other than cultural norms. Without the Bible, there is no basis for affirming that humans are created in the image of God and that human life is thus sacred. For the survival of our nation and culture, we desperately need to understand and proclaim the biblical truth regarding the sanctity of human life.”

2 Timothy 3:1-5 reads, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”

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