Mom Charged With Murder of Dying Sons

June 10 -- Tragedy brought a mother to the breaking point.

Carol Carr, 63, was charged today with two counts of malice murder in the death of her two adult sons. Authorities in Georgia said she fatally shot them over the weekend with a small-caliber handgun in the nursing home where they were receiving care for a debilitating disease. She could face additional charges and is currently in custody in the Spalding County Jail.

She reportedly told the police she shot her sons because she didn't want them to suffer anymore. "At this time, it looks like her motive was a mercy killing," said Lt. Joe Estenes, a police investigator in Griffin, about 35 miles south of Atlanta.

Huntington's disease had left her two sons, Andy Byron Scott, 41, and Michael Randy Scott, 42, helpless — they were unable to walk, feed themselves or even think clearly. And the nursing home they were in made matters worse, according to the family.

Their brother, James Scott, 38, was furious about the quality of their care. "I went down to see them Thursday, they were laying there naked and laying in pee."

The family says Carr was at her wits' end. "She was depressed all the time," recalled her niece, Debbie Henry. "She just didn't know what else she could do for the boys. It's just a sad situation."

An Entire Family Afflicted

Not only did her sons suffer from the degenerative disease, but Carr had also lost her husband to Huntington's disease. The disease is inherited and can afflict an entire family. By mid-life, some sufferers find it drains their bodies and minds of control.

"Huntington's disease is actually one of the most diabolical of all diseases, because it affects everything that makes you human," said Nancy Wexler, a professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University in New York who has spent years researching the disease, searching for a cure.

Wexler's own mother died of Huntington's and she understands how a family could come to the breaking point. "This is one of the all time cruelest diseases in the entire world, in the entire planet," she said. "It is just appalling and has devastating deadly impact on every person that comes in contact with them."