Police investigating use of insulin in Lehtimäki death

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Police investigating the death of a cerebral palsy sufferer who died at the Lehtimäki Institute in South Ostrobothnia in July are keeping open the possibility that the two night supervisors who have been remanded in custody may have been using insulin to try to calm down the young woman.
      The woman, who was attending a course at Lehtimäki, was found to have had a large amount of insulin in her system, even though she wass not a diabetic.
      The police are working on the theory that while the death was not accidental, it may not have been premeditated murder. This suggests that while the personnel were knowledgeable of the effects of insulin, they did not deliberately set out to kill their victim.
     
"It is one angle of investigation among others", says police inspector Esa Uusi-Kakkuri. "Then we should also find out why there would have been a reason for such a need."
      Police consider both women suspects in the case.
     
The presence of insulin in victims of poisoning deaths at another institute for the disabled, in Ylöjärjvi, was confirmed on Thursday. Police believe that the victims in that case were deliberately killed with the insulin.
      The 20-year-old victim in Lehtimäki did not suffer from diabetes, and therefore had no need for insulin. In any case, administering insulin was not the prerogative of the night supervisors: a doctor's permission would have been required.
      On the other hand, insulin is easily available at pharmacies, even in some instances without a prescription; officials want to make sure that it is easily accessible for emergency situations.
      "Buying without a prescription is nevertheless very rare. Apparently no abuse potential has ever been seen", says Erkki Palva, head of the medicine safety department of the National Board of Medicines.
     
The investigations of both cases continue.
      The homicides have caused considerable debate and consternation, not simply because of the position of the victims as patients under someone's care.
      In Finnish terms, the killings are highly unusual: by far the most common form of murder or manslaughter in this country is an unpremeditated killing-in-anger by a drunken male, often carried out on a spouse or other relative, or someone from the perpetrator's immediate circle.
      Random killings are extremely rare, and premeditated murder is also not a very "Finnish" concept as such.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police suspect homicide in insulin death of disabled person (6.9.2007)
  Bodies exhumed in connection with poisoning investigation (5.9.2007)
  Ylöjärvi poisoning suspicions alert authorities of need to check criminal backgrounds of workers (15.8.2007)
  Nurse remanded over suspected double murder (13.8.2007)

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