An elderly Florida woman convicted in the shooting death of her terminally ill husband is speaking publicly after her release from prison, saying she accepts the legal fallout — and would make the same choice again.
“I’m accepting the consequences,” Ellen Gilland, 79, of Winter Park, told FOX 35 Orlando in an exclusive interview that aired Monday, Jan. 26.
Gilland shot her husband of 53 years, Jerry Gilland, 77, in his hospital room at AdventHealth in Daytona Beach on Jan. 21, 2023 — an act she has said he wanted, according to FOX 35, WESH and KBTX.
According to FOX 35, the couple had agreed to a murder-suicide pact about three weeks before the shooting. Jerry, who was dealing with dementia and other health problems, had told Gilland he wanted to die if his condition worsened, KBTX reported.
During her trial, Gilland described the moment she fired the gun. “I held the gun behind his ear,” she said, according to the outlet. “I pulled it away and asked him if he was sure.”
She said Jerry then placed his hand on her arm and pushed the gun back toward his head. “There was a loud bang and he was gone,” she told the court, per the outlet.
Gilland said she planned to shoot herself afterward but became “hysterical” and couldn’t pull the trigger, FOX 35 reported.
Hospital staff responded after hearing the gunshot, and Gilland pointed the gun at them, prompting a lockdown and a standoff once police arrived.
Gilland later fired into the ceiling as officers deployed a flashbang and tried to take her into custody.
She was arrested and initially charged with first-degree premeditated murder, according to online court records. That charge was later dropped, and prosecutors instead charged her with assisting self-murder/manslaughter, aggravated assault with a firearm, and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer with a firearm, the records show.
After pleading no contest in December 2024, Gilland was sentenced on Feb. 28, 2025 to 366 days in prison and 12 years of probation.
She has since been released after serving most of her one-year sentence.
In her interview with FOX 35, Gilland said she felt increasingly overwhelmed as her husband’s condition deteriorated — describing the strain of caring for him while also navigating his vision issues and depression.
At the same time, she said she couldn’t imagine life without him.
“We’d known each other since middle school,” she told the outlet. “I knew how difficult it would be without him.”
Gilland said she felt “there wasn’t anything else to do,” though experts cautioned against that mindset and urged people in crisis to seek support and resources, according to the outlet.
She told FOX 35 that she deeply misses her husband, describing him as “supportive” and “generous.” She also said she had never been in trouble before, adding that she “never planned to hurt anyone ever,” per the outlet.
