Close up image of a caretaker helping older woman walk

A 102-year-old woman faces a second-degree murder charge after allegedly killing her 100-year-old roommate in a Massachusetts nursing home about five years ago.

Laura Lundquist, 98 at the time of the alleged crime, was charged with strangling Elizabeth Barrow, “who was found with a plastic bag tied around her head in her bed at the Brandon Woods nursing home in Dartmouth,” The Associated Press reported.

Scott reportedly asked the staff of the nursing home to separate his mother and Lundquist before the incident happened, but the workers assured him that his mother and Lundquist had no problems, according to news reports published Friday.

However, Lundquist was ruled “incompetent to stand trial” because of her “longstanding diagnosis of dementia” and has been staying a psychiatric hospital since her indictment, the AP noted. Barrow’s son, Scott, said that he realizes Lundquist will “likely never stand trial.”

Instead, Scott said he hopes a “wrongful-death” lawsuit filed against the nursing home, its operators and owners will be heard by a jury, although an arbitrator found the nursing home in favor in 2012.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court is expected to rule whether the case can go to trial after hearing arguments in April, the AP reported.

Contacts for Lundquist, Barrow or the Brandon Woods nursing home could not be contacted as of press time.

NOTE: The headline has been slightly modified from its original form to better portray the legal proceedings.