Man charged in botched suicide pact

JOHNSON COUNTY, Ind. - Johnson County investigators call it a suicide pact that wasn't followed through. Now a woman is dead and her fiancé is charged with murder.

James Betts and Christina Santana left suicide notes that claimed the couple had nothing to live for.

"She had lost her children and he was supposedly going to lose his children," said Chief Deputy Doug Cox with the Johnson County Sheriff's Department.

Investigators said the couple made a pact. Betts was supposed to kill Santana with a knife taken from his former job as a butcher and then kill himself with the same knife.

Betts and Santana found a quiet barn and climbed into the loft. Police said Betts then repeatedly slit Santana's throat and then tried to break her neck. After that, police say Betts got scared.

"He did have some injuries to his arms where he inflicted injuries to himself with the same knife. However, I suspect from the pain he suffered, he didn't have the nerve to go any further," said Cox.

Police said Betts fell asleep next to Santana's bleeding body for two hours before he ran to a relative's house for help.

Betts will be charged with murder.

An Indiana law was passed in 1993 banning assisted suicide.

"If you provide the means for someone to commit suicide and they go ahead and follow through with it, they've committed a C felony, which is assisted suicide. If you are the person who performs the physical act and kills the individual, then under Indiana law, you have committed murder," said Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper.

Both the prosecutor and the chief deputy said the incident is one of the strangest they've ever seen.

"It seems, so far, out of the ordinary. We are kind of dealing with uncharted waters here," said Cooper. "I've been doing this for 28 years and this one is a new one on me," said Cox.

Police say the couple met last month around Easter.

Betts is still in the Johnson County Jail.