VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – A woman accused of fatally shooting her terminally ill husband at a Daytona Beach hospital last year will go on trial Jan. 6.
Ellen Gilland was charged with assisting self-murder/manslaughter charges in the January 2023 shooting of her husband, 77-year-old Jerry Gilland. According to Daytona Beach police, the shooting, which took place in his hospital room, was part of a murder-suicide agreement.
“The goal was for him to do it, but he did not have the strength, so she had to carry it out for him,” Daytona Beach Police Chief Jakari Young said during a news conference. “We were able to establish a dialogue with her, we used a distractionary device to get her to put that gun down long enough for us to hit her with less lethal (force) and get her into custody.”
Thursday’s hearing also discussed motions filed by state prosecutors to exclude testimony in the upcoming trial from the defense’s witnesses -- a psychiatrist and a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner.
Ultimately, Judge Kathryn Weston agreed.
“Was that his plan? Was there a reason for it? I’m going to let a little bit of that come in so that the jury can evaluate whether it was self-murder or caused exclusively by as an act by the defendant,” she said in court.
The state argues that Ellen Gilland’s lawyers have not said it would pursue an insanity defense and because of this, “expert testimony as to mental status, especially when offered to bolster an affirmative defense, would be improper in and of itself since it would only tend to confuse the jury,” the motion reads.
The fatal shooting at AdventHealth Daytona Beach led to a standoff between Ellen Gilland and police after she barricaded herself for four hours in her husband’s room. She told police she and her husband planned the shooting together three weeks beforehand.
Bodycam video showed Ellen Gilland engaging in a standoff with police before surrendering. At one point, police said she shot at them.
Part of the hospital was evacuated and some doctors, nurses and others took cover in locked closets and rooms. Ellen Gilland did not harm herself and nobody else was injured.
Gilland was also charged with aggravated assault with a firearm and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer with a firearm.
Gilland was initially denied bond when she faced first-degree murder charges but later bonded out of jail in March 2023 when her charges were reduced.
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