I was under the impression that these were not simply "sleeping pills" he used, but a drug that was used in surgery to put a person "under" or "asleep" so they could be operated on without causing them pain... i.e., a general anesthetic. Are they just using the term "sleeping pills" loosely to describe this anesthesia drug, or were they truly just "sleeping pills" that people regularly take when they have trouble sleeping? When I've taken sleeping pills, they just help me to fall asleep, but they never "knock me out" or put me into such a stupor that things could be done to me without my knowledge. Or who knows, maybe they do, but I would never know since no one ever did anything to me while I was sleeping under their influence. But I don't think I'm ever that completely out on them. I know at least once, someone knocked on my door after I'd gone to sleep after taking sleeping pills, and I heard it and was able to rouse myself enough to get up and answer the door. I felt pretty groggy and went right back to sleep, but I remembered all this when I woke up.
So if he was using regular sleeping pills on her, was he just giving her more than the recommended dosage every time, enough to knock her out so completely that she never knew any of this was happening and had no memory of it when she awoke? That is so risky! That's what people do when they try to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills. Sometimes it works and they never wake up, and if it doesn't work, they usually wake up in the hospital, where I assume they have to have their stomach pumped out. How was she able to wake up every time after this and not end up in the emergency room?
I still don't think I understand what kind of drug this was that he used. Maybe there's really no difference between saying sleeping pills (at high doses) or anesthesia, but I thought they were different things. Maybe at the doses he gave her, there really is no difference in the effects. No matter what it was, I think he was really playing a life or death "game" every time he "dosed" her, which is just as bad as all the things he did or allowed others to do while she was asleep. How could he live with himself all those years and still keep doing it again and again? If she had died because of an overdose of what he gave her, I suppose none of this would ever be known, and he would have played the part of the grieving husband. Such an evil thing to do to a person, and to think it was his own wife, and he did it over and over for all those years. I get sick thinking about it.