O’Connor Family Volunteered for Personal Alzheimer’s Story

U.S. Supreme Court

O’Connor Family Volunteered for Personal Alzheimer’s Story

Posted Nov 16, 2007, 01:39 pm CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A Phoenix television reporter is defending her decision to broadcast a story about the husband of retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who formed an attachment to another woman at the Alzheimer’s facility where he resides.

O’Connor retired from the Supreme Court in 2006 to care for her husband, but he was later placed in the facility because of his deteriorating condition. At first, John O’Connor was depressed, but now he has formed an attachment to a new woman, O’Connor’s son Scott told KPNX reporter Veronica Sanchez. O’Connor is relieved her husband is happy, Scott tells the TV station in its report on how common it is for Alzheimer’s patients to form new attachments.

Sanchez told PoynterOnline that she obtained the interview with Scott O’Connor through the Huger Mercy Living Center where John O’Connor was staying. She was merely looking to speak to families dealing with the issue.

“The director at Huger told me she had two families willing to speak on camera but that only the sons would be doing the interviews,” she said. “When I pressed to speak to the wife in question, that’s when I discovered the wife was Sandra Day O’Connor.”

She said her goal in airing the story—and the goal of the O’Connor family—was to raise Alzheimer’s awareness. “The question of whether this is news or ‘too personal’ is very simple for me,” she said. “The family said they wanted to bring awareness to the reality of Alzheimer’s, that they are not alone. From the moment the camera rolled, that was our objective.”

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