Monday, Jul. 25, 1977

Long Count to a Guilty Verdict

The strange events sent a chill through the sprawling Veterans Administration Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich. Within a six-week period in the summer of 1975, 27 patients, many of them in the intensive-care unit, suffered mysterious breathing failures. Several were stricken more than once, and eleven of the patients died (TIME, March 22, 1976). After an investigation by the FBI. two young Filipino nurses who worked in that section of the hospital were arrested. They were charged with dosing some of the stricken patients with the muscle relaxant Pavulon, which is a synthetic version of curare, the lethal plant extract used by South American Indians to tip their poison arrows.

The nurses, Leonora Perez, 33, and Filipina Narciso, 31, stoutly maintained their innocence, and their case became a cause celebre. Nursing groups rallied behind them, and their supporters in both. Manila and the U.S. raised a defense fund of more than $100,000. At the University of Michigan, many feminists and liberals regarded the nurses as victims of an overzealous local FBI office eager to redeem itself after its failure to crack the still unsolved kidnaping of former Teamsters Boss Jimmy Hoffa that same summer.

Indeed, as the prosecution struggled to build a case against the two nurses in U.S. District Court in Detroit, local press reports made it seem increasingly unlikely that the shy and soft-spoken young women would ever be convicted.

The prosecution's evidence was entirely circumstantial: the nurses were nearly unique in having easy access to the drugs and the victimized patients. No motive for the crimes was ever demonstrated. Midway in the 13-week trial, the judge threw out the murder indictment against Perez, although he let most poisoning charges stand.

Fund Drive. Last week, after deliberating 93 hours over the course of 15 days, the jury found each of the nurses guilty of three poisoning charges and conspiracy, but acquitted Narciso of the murder count against her. The nurses, who could be sentenced to life imprisonment, listened impassively to the verdict, but later emotionally charged that they were victims of a racially prejudiced jury. From Manila, Dr. Pacifico Marcos, brother of the Philippine President and head of the defense fund drive, expressed shock. Said he: "It's a miscarriage of justice." Still free on $75,000 bond, the nurses will appeal.

One expert who regarded the verdict as plausible was Dr. Emanuel Tanay. a forensic psychiatrist who normally testifies for defendants but in this case aided the prosecution. Said he: "A crime like this could only be committed by a doctor or a nurse, somebody who had access, looked reasonable, acted reasonably. This was a senseless crime, and so by definition there was no easily recognizable motive. Even if we assume the defendants did it, they themselves might not be able to tell you why they did it."

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