BARNSTABLE — The physician who shot and killed her husband on Easter Sunday after years of domestic abuse will face no charges, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said yesterday.
A grand jury decided not to indict Dr. Ann Marie Gryboski, who police said shot her husband, Patrick Lancaster, 50, during an argument he was having with her and one of their sons on April 8.
Truth and justice
A documented history of domestic violence can lead to victims avoiding jail time for killing an abuser:
Sept. 15, 1982: Carolyn Best, 35, is charged with murdering her husband after years of domestic abuse. In their Marstons Mills home, Best allegedly killed her husband, Otis, 60, with a single shot to the chest with a .22-caliber rifle. She contends that it was "self defense from atrocious and unprovoked attack." According to grand jury testimony, Otis Best had beaten his wife with the rifle used to kill him, as well as with a broomstick, and he may also have burned her with scalding water and lit cigarettes. Less than a month after she is charged with the killing, Best is freed after a grand jury finds insufficient evidence to indict her. July 13, 1987: Therese Rogers, 33, is accused of stabbing her husband, Walter E. Quinn Jr., to death. After Walter abuses Therese and her 9-year-old daughter for 16 months, Therese fatally stabs Walter in the eyes while he sleeps on the waterbed in the home they share in East Bridgewater. In December 1989, a Brockton Superior Court jury of seven women and five men acquits Rogers of first-degree murder in the stabbing death. The case is believed to be the first successful use of the battered-woman syndrome defense in Massachusetts. Aug. 17, 2007: Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe announces Dr. Ann M. Gryboski, the Cape physician who shot and killed her husband, Patrick Lancaster, in April after years of domestic abuse, will face no charges in his death based on the decision of a grand jury.
The grand jury heard testimony from 27 witnesses and returned a "no bill" finding that ended the prosecution against Gryboski.
"This is a finding by the grand jury consistent with the evidence in this particular case," O'Keefe said in a press release.