KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An 80-year-old woman faces a first-degree murder charge in the beating death of her 75-year-old husband.
Related: 80-year-old woman stabs, kills man
The Jackson County Prosecutor says Annie Oliver killed her husband by cutting him with a knife and hitting him in the head with a baseball bat.
According to court documents, Annie Oliver told her granddaughter that while her husband was helping her Wednesday he hit her on the hand and began “talking smart” to her. That’s when the elderly woman says she “lost it.”
“It really doesn’t make sense,” said Claude Pegue, a neighbor of the Olivers for 12 years. 
“Something was wrong that somebody didn’t know about.”
Looking at the home where Annie and Ronald Oliver lived for more than 40 years, neighbors say you’d never suspect this would be the scene of a violent crime. Neighbors say it was one of the best kept homes on the block, and the Olivers were considered friendly and helpful neighbors. No one Fox 4 talked with suspected any problems between the couple.
“If I couldn’t get along with a person all those years, separation would solve the problem,” Pegue said.
Annie Oliver told detectives that she was tired of her husband’s verbal abuse and she claimed he was taking her clothing. According to court documents, Oliver confessed to detectives that she hit her husband with a bat. Police say they found Ronald Oliver lying on the floor of the bedroom in a large amount of blood.
The domestic violence incident stunned Clifford Bell, pastor of the Community Praise Worship and World Outreach Center.
“We’ve known them literally since 1973,” Bell said. “We’ve known them that long. It’s really devastating to hear of this happening, because they are like family. they are part of this neighborhood.”
In court documents, detectives observed that Annie Oliver had a small cut that was swollen between her thumb and index finger. Neighbors tell FOX 4 Annie Oliver had been sickly in recent years. She was rarely seen without her oxygen supply.
She’s being held on $250,000 cash bond.
