Dr. John Christopher Handy was a skilled and well-respected physician in Tucson. His wife, Mary Ann Page Handy, was eight years younger than her husband, and in poor health. She complained to her neighbor, the wife of Heney's' brother, Ben, that her husband abused her. In December 1888, she filed for divorce; rumors circulated that Handy had threatened to kill the judge and her lawyers, and she withdrew her suit within the next month. Judge Sloan described Handy as "a man of strong will, aggressive, and both quarrelsome and vindictive." The following year, John sent the couple's four oldest children to his mother's home in Oakland. Over the next four years Mary developed an addiction to morphine, possibly administered to her by her husband. Morphine was readily available at the time and was prescribed for a variety of ailments.