Nurse found guilty of poisoning elderly patients; psychiatric evaluation called for

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On Friday morning, the Helsinki District Court returned a guilty verdict in the case of a 59-year-old Helsinki nurse who was charged with committing five murders and six attempted murders.
      The woman was found guilty of having poisoned elderly people under her care with drug overdoses.
     
Before the final verdict and sentencing, the woman will undergo a pyschiatric examination, following a request to the court from her defence counsel.
      The court will determine the actual nature of the offences under the Penal Code only when the psychiatric evaluation has been completed.
      Heikki Lampela, acting for the defendant, said that she had expressed shock at the verdict, and had fully expected to be acquitted of the charges.
     
The District Court found that the woman had given the elderly patients in her care a variety of drugs, mainly acting on the central nervous system, with intent to poison.
      The victims were eleven men and women between the ages of 70 and 91, some of whom had been treated at their homes and others in various institutions.
     
The Prosecution Service is demanding a life sentence for five counts of murder and a further six counts of attempted murder, two cases of aggravated assault, drug offences, and theft.
      The defendant denied all the charges.
      The woman has been held in custody since March of last year. The court hearing began in January and ended at the end of March.
      The case has attracted widespread attention, since serial killings of this nature are almost unheard of in the Finnish experience, and yet the case bears some similarities to a recent trial in which a 28-year-old nurse, who subsequently committed suicide in prison in March of this year, was found guilty of using insulin to kill an elderly mentally disabled patient under her care in 2007.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Trial of nurse accused of multiple murders begins (13.1.2010)
  Case of nurse suspected of poisoning reveals problems in information sharing among officials (22.5.2009)
  Police exhume body at cemetery in murder investigation (20.5.2009)

See also:
  Nurse convicted of insulin murder found dead in prison cell (9.3.2010)

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