Kim and Lloyd Yarbrough renewed their wedding vows on a hot, sunny day in May.

The small ceremony at their Northwest Austin house echoed their marriage 12 years earlier: same bride in the same white, summery dress; same groom in the same gold Hawaiian shirt; same judge, best man and guests.

But now, Lloyd was in a wheelchair and unable to say his vows to his wife.

Two years earlier, encephalitis had stolen Lloyd's ability to walk, talk, swallow and perform even the most basic functions. Lloyd, 62, spent much of his time lying in bed. Kim, 52, spent her days taking care of him.

But this day, unlike so many before, seemed like a happy day.

"He broke down and cried, and he hugged her hips," said friend Eric Harrison, who attended the wedding. "It was a real emotional deal."

Three weeks later, Lloyd was dead and Kim was charged with murder as she lay in a hospital bed after what Austin police said was a suicide attempt.

According to an arrest affidavit, on May 27, the Austin woman "admitted that she caused the death of Lloyd Yarbrough by injecting his feeding tube with an assortment of prescription pills that she had ground up and mixed with water." Kim also tried to overdose on pills, police said.

The stress of nursing ill relatives puts caretakers at risk for murder-suicide attempts, said Donna Cohen, a professor at the University of South Florida who studies such cases. But these killings are not committed out of mercy or devotion, she said.

"It's not a rational act," Cohen said. "It's depression and desperation."

If convicted of murder, Kim Yarbrough could face life in prison. But first, she has to be indicted by a grand jury. That could be a tough sell for prosecutors because jurors might feel sorry for her, said Austin criminal lawyer David Gonzalez.

"It will be personal," he said. "This really goes to the core of what we believe."

Travis County First Assistant District Attorney John Neal said prosecutors will continue to assess the case as the police collect more information.

"Murder is a serious charge, and our attorneys and the police felt like this fit all of the elements of murder," he said. "Filing the case is the beginning of it, and we'll see where it goes from there."

Neither Kim Yarbrough nor her lawyer responded to multiple requests for interviews. But conversations with the couple's friends — along with entries from a blog Kim kept until two days before her husband's death — depict a woman overwhelmed with depression.

"Everybody dies," she wrote in her blog two days before Lloyd's death. "Some people don't live all that long. It's not so tragic. Why should I try to keep living through all this?"

The early days

Kim and Lloyd Yarbrough met in the early 1990s while working at the Futon Co. — and it wasn't love at first sight.

"When I went to work for the Futon Company, I thought the woodshop manager was a nice enough guy," Kim wrote in an e-mail to friends earlier this year. "His sense of humor gave him an unexpected charm, but my overall impression of him was that he was a backwoods Texas redneck."

Kim soon began to see Lloyd in a different light. Lloyd had served in Vietnam with the Air Force and was a voracious reader. He was a World War II buff and a highly accomplished woodworker specializing in cabinets and furniture.

"As I came to know him, I found there was an intelligent, funny, and in fact, very sophisticated man beneath that redneck exterior," Kim wrote in the e-mail.

Their first date was on Feb. 4, 1994. They went to see "Schindler's List."

Three years later, they were married in a casual ceremony next to Lake Travis.

Lloyd was the outgoing one who always had a story to tell, said friend Paul DeGroot. Kim was a self-professed introvert but was "kind and sweet," he said.

Kim was a competitive swimmer, so the pair traveled together to meets. They spent time on their boat, and Lloyd started his own woodworking business.

In 2004 Lloyd got non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer that attacks the immune system. By 2007 — after chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant — he had kicked the cancer. But that summer, Lloyd contracted encephalitis, a viral infection that causes swelling of the brain. Severe cases can cause brain damage or death.

No one knows exactly how he got it, but Lloyd frequently complained of being bitten by mosquitoes while working outside, said friend Charlie King. Mosquitos can carry the virus.

Several days after contracting the illness, Lloyd fell into a coma, Harrison said. When he woke up, he had lost most of his physical abilities. But he still smiled and made eye contact.

"He couldn't talk, he couldn't go to the bathroom, couldn't walk, couldn't do anything for himself, but you could tell he knew you were talking to him," Harrison said.

King says Lloyd never wanted to live in such a state. After watching his mother waste away in a Houston nursing home, "he always told Kim that she could never let him live like his mother did after having a stroke," King said.

After the encephalitis

For a while, Harrison said, Lloyd lived at a private rehabilitation center. When Kim's insurance ran out — she had worked at a local gemstone company — the pair turned to Medicaid. Lloyd moved to an Austin nursing home.

Kim wasn't satisfied with the care he received there and eventually brought him home, King said. But she had trouble finding qualified home health care aides.

"It doesn't occur to them that it's right or wrong not to not show up," King said. "They just didn't come."

Finding good home care is very difficult for people on Medicaid, said Dennis Borel, executive director of the Coalition for Texans with Disabilities. Most attendants make a little over the minimum wage of $7.25 without benefits, he said.

So Kim tried to do everything herself, Harrison said. She'd go days without showering because she was afraid to leave his side.

In May, Kim invited friends to the house to witness the couple renew their vows.Lloyd could not say his part, so senior state District Judge Jon Wisser — who had presided over their wedding12 years earlier — said the words and asked the guests to repeat them.

Before their friends, Kim pledged her love. Lloyd kissed her hand.

"It was very touching," Wisser said. "I had a couple of tears running in my face."

A few weeks later, Wisser said, he received a note from Kim, saying that she needed to let go of the past and that the ceremony would help her focus on the future.

Butlater in the month, Kim blogged about her frustrations with poor caregivers, Medicaid problems and a lack of a support system.

"I wonder if I will ever change Lloyd's diaper without feeling the pain of what has been lost," she wrote on May 23.

She wondered in the blog how long she could keep it up.

'The downhill slide'

On May 27, the Yarbroughs' home health care aide called 911 to say he was worried about the pair because he had not seen them in several days. Officers went to the home on Meadowview Lane. When an officer peered through a back window, he saw Kim and Lloyd lying in bed, the affidavit said.

Kim "appeared to be weak and each time she would attempt to get up she would collapse back on the bed," the arrest warrant reads.

At first, police thought Lloyd died of natural causes and that his wife had attempted suicide in a moment of despair, said police Sgt. Joseph Chacon. But while in the hospital, the warrant says, Kim admitted killing Lloyd "because she was tired of taking care of him." An officer asked her if Lloyd wanted to die. She said no.

"I have seen parts of her blog, and it's tragic," Chacon said. "You just saw the downhill slide of what she was thinking."

Kim Yarbrough was released on $20,000 bail.

Similar cases across the country have resulted in criminal punishments ranging from probation to life in prison. But friends say Kim should not go to jail.

"I think she's done all the suffering she can do," King said. "They don't need to punish her."