British gran who flew to US to marry jailed killer dies of blood clots caused partly by flights to meet him
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A gran who married an American killer and flew back and forth to visit him in a US prison died from a freak blood clot, an inquest has heard.
Kay Frazier, 50, wed Gary Frazier after exchanging some 12,000 letters with him.
After a ceremony in his cell, she went home to Wigan. She wrote her husband 12 letters day and flew regularly to see him in Nebraska’s state jail. But in May she was hospitalised with serious headaches, coroner Jennifer Leeming heard.
She had a huge clot, or thrombosis, in an artery, blocking blood to her brain.
(Image: Cavendish Press)
(Image: Cavendish Press)
(Image: Cavendish Press)
Radiologist Toby Williams told the inquest there was “nothing left to lose” in doing a risky thrombectomy.
He said while it has a one to 10% mortality rate he was “100% sure” she would die with­out it, adding: “We have treat­­ed thrombosis like this before with success.”
But mum-of-three Mrs Frazier suff­ered a ruptured artery during surgery, and died two days later at Salford Royal Hospital, Bolton coroner’s court heard.
(Image: Cavendish Press)
(Image: Cavendish Press)
It is not known why she developed the clot, believed to have occurred naturally.
Coroner’s officer Peter Yates confirmed repeated attempts to contact Mrs Frazier’s children, from a previous marriage, about the inquest had failed.
Frazier, 37, got 49 years for shooting two people, killing one, when 19. He is eligible for parole in 2024. In a 2014 interview Mrs Frazier said she began writing to him in 2010 and wed two years later. The coroner is yet to return a verdict.