Police suspect homicide in insulin death of disabled person

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Police are investigating the recent death of a mentally disabled woman suffering from cerebral palsy, which took place in Lehtimäki in South Ostrobothnia, as a likely homicide.
      Seinäjoki District Court has ordered two night supervisors at the Lehtimäki institute remanded in custody over the incident.
      The death took place in early July at the Lehtimäki Institute where the woman was attending a course. The Tampere woman, in her early 20s, was found dead in her room in the morning.
      The investigation began when high insulin levels were found in her body - even though the woman did not suffer from diabetes. Insulin is not among the medications regularly administered at Lehtimäki.
     
Police believe that two night supervisors had given the woman a lethal dose of insulin. The two were remanded in custody in late August.
      Helsingin Sanomat has learned that one of the suspects is a 35-year-old nurse, and the other is a 51-year-old woman who had long worked in services for the disabled.
      The suspects had worked at Lehtimäki for about two years on temporary contracts, mainly as substitutes. Before the events in July they were known to be very conscientious.
      The woman's insulin death in Lehtimäki took place before the suspected poisonings at a rehabilitation centre in Ylöjärvi, in which a nurse is being held in custody. The two cases appear to have no other connection with each other, notes Paavo Tuominen of the Tampere unit of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
     
"Terrible, shocking news", said Sisko Halonen, the director of the institute, after hearing that two members of the staff had been remanded on suspicion of homicide.
      "We are completely shocked. I cannot understand that anyone could do what has been reported. Completely inconceivable."
      Halonen is also concerned that in addition to coming as a shock to her personnel, the news will also cause consternation among the family members of the students of the boarding school specialised in education and rehabilitation of the mentally disabled, CP sufferers, and people with other long-term disabilities and illnesses.
      The apparent poisoning death of one of the students has led to calls for clarification in the allocation of responsibilities in supervising the staff.
     
This latest incident is unlikely to have reached the public eye without the widely-reported suspected poisoning deaths of mentally disabled people at Ylöjärvi.
      However, there is no indication that the suspects in the two cases would have known each other.
      "Insulin was not expected initially in the Lehtimäki case. The investigations were requested when the Ylöjärvi cases were made public", says Pekka Karhunen, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the Tampere University Central Hospital.
      Insulin is not detected in routine autopsies: investigators need to test for it specifically, and a suspicion arose in the case when the Ylöjärvi deaths came to light.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Bodies exhumed in connection with poisoning investigation (5.9.2007)
  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)

Helsingin Sanomat