Mr. and Mrs. Morant were husband and wife. Mrs. Morant suffered from chronic back pain and depression. She also had 3 life insurance policies which totaled $1.4 million. The two were a religious couple. ⁣

During the case, some witnesses testified the following facts. Mrs. Morant's chronic back condition was causing her a lot of pain. Mr. Morant told her that she was in too much pain to be able to survive a religious event named the 'rapture.' The rapture is the event where believers, dead and alive, will rise and be sent to heaven to be with Christ. Mr. Morant said that he didn't want to see her in pain and so it would be better if she killed her self now and got it over and done with. He also told her that committing suicide wasn't a sin because the insurance money would be going towards the church. Mr. Morant told his wife that he was going to buy a property with the insurance money for when the raptures came so that there would be a safe place. He took her for a drive to the property he was planning to buy and said, "‘This is what I will buy with the insurance money when you’re gone.’”⁣

Prior to the suicide, they heard Mr. Morant on several occasions talk about another person's incident where the husband committed suicide and the wife received insurance money. He referred to it as a blessing and "an amazing and wonderful thing that [he] has done for [his wife] to leave her debt-free.”⁣

Mrs. Morant also made promises to many people that they would receive money upon her death. She was having doubts and so she bought a lottery ticket in the off chance that she won so that they could use that money instead of the money from her life insurance. Nevertheless, she additionally said, “I’m going to take my life and then Graham (Mr. Morant) will be happy. He’ll have the money. I’ll be out of pain and I’ll be gone.”

Lastly, they both went to Bunnings Warehouse and bought a petrol generator and they placed it in the back of the car. Later, Mrs. Morant committed suicide in the car by carbon monoxide poisoning produced by the petrol generator's fumes.⁣

Mr. Morant told the police that he had no knowledge of the insurance policies and had no knowledge of what the petrol generator was going to be used for. ⁣

The court held that his motivation for pressuring her to commit suicide was to receive the life insurance money. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for 1) counseling suicide and 1) aiding suicide.⁣

Further Reading