Police: Resilient woman killed by own son

NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- New Orleans police allege a 73-year-old woman who survived cancer, diabetes and hypertension has been killed by her own son.

Police have charged Tony M. DeClues, 52, with stabbing his mother Louise to death last weekend while desperately trying to find money to buy drugs, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported Sunday.

Police spokesman Garry Flot said DeClues allegedly confessed to killing his mother Saturday because he needed cash to buy narcotics.

DeClues has four previous drug paraphernalia possession convictions and was on probation when his mother was killed.

The slain woman's other family members remembered the 73-year-old as a generous and resilient woman.

In addition to surviving battles with health afflictions such as cancer, Louise DeClues had endured the death of another son, Wayne, when he was only 16.

"Her breast cancer was in remission for the last seven years of her life because she was a praying woman," her niece, Doris Black, told The Times-Picayune. "She was fine with her diabetes and hypertension. It took (a murder) to take her."