CHICKAMAUGA, Ga. -- The last walk that Ronald Westbrook took began as early as 1 a.m., when he slipped unnoticed from his North Georgia home with his two dogs.
It ended three hours later when Westbrook, a 72-year-old who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, knocked in the dark on a stranger's door last month. Police said a man inside that home, 34-year-old Joe Hendrix, got a handgun, went outside to investigate and shot Westbrook in a horrible mistake.
The unlikely collision between two strangers -- one deeply confused, another perceiving a threat -- illustrates both the difficulties that caregivers face in keeping loved ones with Alzheimer's safe and the consequences of miscalculation in a state that celebrates its gun culture.
Westbrook's widow struggles to comprehend how she lost her husband of 51 years and discussed what happened in an interview in her house this week, sitting on her couch beside her Bible.
"I can't imagine him feeling threatened by my husband, that's what surprises me," said Deanne Westbrook, 70. "Because Ron wasn't like that. He probably, I think he was so cold. He was looking for help when he was ringing that doorbell at their place. I think he just wanted somebody to help him."
Hendrix declined to comment because of the ongoing investigation. His attorney, Lee Davis, described his client as distraught. The local district attorney has not yet decided whether to press criminal charges against Hendrix for what happened on Nov. 27.
"He is not a gun-toting rights activist who's saying, 'Keep off my property,'" Davis said. "He's a man who thought he had to take action because of what he believed to be a real and imminent threat."
A retired nurse who once cared for dementia patients in a nursing home, Westbrook's wife was perhaps better equipped than most to care for a spouse with Alzheimer's. The progressive disease results in memory loss, impairs judgment and can leave its victims disoriented.
"I don't feel angry," she said. "I just feel sad. I never would have thought he would've (come) to an end like this. I was prepared for the Alzheimer's to get worse and for me to take care of him here. And I was going to do it."
Under Georgia law, people are not required to try retreating from a potential conflict before opening fire to defend themselves from serious imminent harm, said Russell Gabriel, director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at the University of Georgia. State law allows people to use lethal force to stop someone from forcibly entering a home if those inside reasonably fear they are going to be attacked.
"Different people have a different understanding of what is reasonable," Gabriel said. "Reasonableness is a classic jury question."
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