Mr. and Ms. Conners had four children and six grandchildren. She was a homemaker and a devout Christian, her husband told the police.

Ms. Conners had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer the winter before her death, and it had spread to her liver, colon and abdomen, the Hartford Courant reported.

An obituary said she loved gardening and architecture, and was known for her compassion — “sponsoring needy children, feeding and helping locals in need, doting on her grandchildren (and of course, letting them win all the card games).”

When the 911 call came in, Mr. Conners was crying, according to the warrant. He told investigators he was woken by the gunshot in his wife’s bedroom and found her bleeding and watched her die. The couple slept apart, he said, because he snored.

Mr. Conners told investigators that his wife had Lyme disease for close to two decades and that its symptoms were conflicting with chemotherapy and making her very sick.

She was “constantly” writing suicide letters, he told investigators, who found 13 such letters in the couple’s home, including three on her nightstand. When she was found, Ms. Conners “didn’t have much head hair,” the warrant noted, because of chemotherapy treatments.

But she was lying on her bed with one arm outstretched and the other on her chest, her hand curled in a fist, according to the warrant. A silver .38 caliber revolver lay on a pillow, but she was not touching it. There was no gunshot residue on her fingers.