Trial of nurse accused of multiple murders begins

Investigation launched by suspicions of elderly woman that she had been poisoned

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In March last year an 80-year-old retired English language teacher was taken to Helsinki’s Maria Hospital almost unconscious. “My first impression was that the patient would not survive”, said a doctor who treated her later in a police interview.
      The account was in police investigation papers, which were made public on Tuesday.
      Fortunately, the woman did improve, and two days later the patient told hospital personnel that she suspected that the woman who was caring for her at home had poisoned her. The hospital contacted the police.
     
This started an unusual murder investigation, leading up to the arrest of a 59-year-old nurse on suspicion of five murders and six attempted murders. The woman is suspected of having poisoned elderly people under her care with drug overdoses.
      During their investigation, the police examined information about patients who had been under the nurse’s care, and even exhumed the body of one of them for forensic tests.
     
The doctor who treated the elderly woman who had been rushed to Maria hospital says that her recovery was a stroke of luck.
      “For some reason it occurred to me to try the medicine Lanexat, which is an antidote to benzodiazepines”, the doctor told police. The doctor also said that the move was simply a test, as he did not know what the woman migh thave taken.
     
The patient later told police that the nurse had arrived at her home without prior notice and offered a yoghurt as a snack.
      “She had a beautiful skirt on, and said that she had been in Sweden”, the woman said.
      She also said that the nurse had been fussing in the kitchen, preparing the yoghurt. “Cooking was quite unnecessary in my view, and I mentioned it to her.”
     
The woman says that the yoghurt tasted strange. “I suspected that the oat bran may have gone rancid.”
      “I don’t remember anything after eating. My next recollection was that I was in hospital.
      The yoghurt dish in the woman’s kitchen sink was found to have traces of benzodiazepines.
     
The patient died last summer. The prosecutor in the case does not claim that the death would have been related to the poisining in the spring, which is being treated as an attempted murder.
      The defendant has denied giving any of her alleged victims any medicines at all. She has also proposed theories of where the drugs may have come from.
      For instance in one case the nurse says that the elderly husband of an 83-year-old patient might have given her some of his own medicines in order to calm her down.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  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)

Helsingin Sanomat