Bodies exhumed in connection with poisoning investigation

Case of nurse murder suspect expands to Nokia cemetery

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Early on Tuesday morning, the Tampere unit of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) embarked on an assignment at the cemetery of the city of Nokia, near Tampere that it had anticipated for several weeks.
      Police investigators and cemetery workers began to open five graves in order to re-examine a number of bodies buried in recent months to see if foul play was involved in their deaths.
      The five bodies exhumed on Tuesday were those of aged patients from the hospital ward of the Nokia public health clinic. They had been treated by a nurse who stands accused of the poisoning deaths of two people under her care in another institution.
     
The police spent the entire daylight hours of Tuesday on the operation at the cemetery. The samples taken from the remains are expected to indicate whether or not the nurse may have other victims than the two mentally disabled people she is currently suspected of killing.
     
Nokia police cordoned off nearly the whole cemetery.
      "We have had to turn away grandmothers", said a police officer who had been guarding the area.
      The exhumation of the coffins took place behind plastic tarps set up to make sure that no curious onlookers got a glimpse of the grim operation. The police even contacted the air traffic control of the nearby Tampere-Pirkkala Airport to find out what a plane flying nearby was up to; it turned out to be carrying skydivers, and not photographers.
     
A small excavator worked behind the barriers for a while, with investigators in white overalls standing around. Soon a hearse arrived to take a coffin to the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Tampere University Hospital, where full post mortem examinations were scheduled, to find all possible toxins.
      Professor Pekka Karhunen says that the new post-mortems will show if the original death certificates are accurate, with respect to the cause of death. Each of the patients suffered from serious basic illnesses. The earliest case is from late last year, and the most recent one is from May this year.
     
In addition to taking samples from the bodies, the coffins themselves and the surrounding soil will be examined for possible traces of medicines and toxins that might have dissolved from the remains. The task is complicated by the fact that while they were alive, the patients were taking an array of prescribed drugs.
      The full results of the post mortems will take weeks before they are complete, and the forensic chemical analysis is expected to take longer, as some of the samples might have to be sent to foreign laboratories.
      One of the most interesting substances being sought is insulin.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Backgrounds of people who wish to work in social and health fields to be checked (17.8.2007)
  Nurse remanded over suspected double murder (13.8.2007)

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