Leisure World Couple Found Dead in Home : Aging: Sheriff’s officials believe deaths of Laguna Hills pair may be a murder-suicide. The husband, 87, cared for his ‘semi-invalid’ wife, 88.

LAGUNA HILLS — An elderly, ailing couple, described by their Leisure World neighbors as devoted and loving, died in what sheriff’s officials called a possible murder-suicide.

Leisure World security officers found the bodies in their apartment just before 10 a.m. Tuesday, after their son-in-law was unable to reach them by telephone and asked them to check on the couple.

The cause of death will not be confirmed until autopsies are performed, according to Lt. Dick Olson of the Sheriff’s Department.

The husband, 87, “was a gentle and very lovely man,” said neighbor Bernard Siegel, 74. The wife, 88, was a “semi-invalid,” Siegel said, who was able to walk downstairs from the family’s apartment until a few weeks ago, when an ambulance took her to the hospital. He had not seen her use the stairs since.

The husband “was taking care of his wife continuously,” Siegel said. “Her illness made his life miserable.”

Another neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said the husband “was a wonderful man” who was “just overwhelmed. . . . When you get old, it’s hard to face these things.”

The woman “was all skin and bones,” the neighbor said, and her husband “waited on her hand and foot. He was a very caring and tender man.”

The deaths had a considerable impact on all the neighbors, the woman said.

“We’re all old people in this building,” she said. “This has been an awful experience for all of us.”

Kirk Watilow, director of community relations and government affairs for the retirement community of 20,000, said three licensed clinical social workers are on staff to try “to prevent things like this from happening.”

But that is not as easy as it sounds, said Gemma M. Heffernan, manager of the retirement community’s social services department. Leisure World is, as it advertises itself, “an independent living community,” Heffernan said, much like the neighboring towns outside its gates.

“You can’t knock on doors in Mission Viejo, asking, ‘Are you depressed?’ ” Heffernan said. “You can’t do that in Leisure World either.”

The social workers advertise in publications and on television, and reach out in person to various community groups, urging people who need it to seek help.

Heffernan said that her agency had no file on the couple found Tuesday, indicating that they had not asked for help.

Their situation was not at all unique, she said.

“A concomitant of old age are the losses of old age,” Heffernan said, including the loss of loved ones and physical and mental faculties.

But, she added, “depression is a treatable condition,” with medication or therapy or some combination.

Some Leisure World residents have an “abiding fear that they may end up sitting in a nursing home,” Heffernan said. “Some don’t have a very good support system: family, friends, church, community. . . . They become isolated. With the isolation comes increased depression.”

Murder-suicide is not unprecedented at Leisure World communities.

“There have been some in the 14 years I have been here,” Watilow said, but he was unable to say how many.

In December, 1989, at Leisure World in Seal Beach, an 80-year-old man committed suicide after killing his 72-year-old wife.

Heffernan said that she tries to dissuade people from thoughts of suicide by speaking “about the legacy that this act would leave to the family. . . . The most important thing is to determine if it is a severe depression,” and, if so, to help the individual “feel there is some quality to their life that makes it worthwhile to live.”