SAN ANTONIO – It has been just over a year since Daniel Hernandez called the Bexar County Sheriff's Office and said that he shot his wife to death.
Hernandez said his wife, Jody, was suicidal, depressed and in constant pain with Crohn's disease and several other health issues.
"It was an act of love, an act of compassion," Hernandez said Friday during an interview at his attorney's office. "That's the way I saw it."
Hernandez said his 31-year-old wife was wrestling with a myriad of health issues.
"She would say that her body was a prison, that's how she felt," Hernandez said.
He said that keeping her focus positive was a battle, and she would often discuss suicide.
"I would always try to convince her that life is worth living," he said. "That we will continue to work with the doctors."
Reluctantly, he said, he agreed to her requests that he kill her. He shot her once in the chest.
Hernandez, 34, was arrested and charged with murder. He was released on bond.
His lawyer, Tylden Shaeffer, negotiated with Bexar County District Attorney Nicholas "Nico" LaHood for a plea deal.
Shaeffer asked for a charge of assisting suicide instead of murder.
"When you talk to family members, and you look at the evidence, we had to consider this man just wasn't a murderer," LaHood said.
The two agreed to a plea deal on assisted suicide charges, which included five years probation and a $1,500 fine.