VA Nurses Arraigned On New Set Of Jury Charges

VA Nurses Arraigned On New Set Of Jury Charges

BY JOHN BARTON
Police Reporter

DETROIT — A federal grand jury met here late Monday and handed down a new indictment charging two Filipina nurses with murdering and poisoning patients at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital.

The new charges against Leonora Perez and Filipina Narciso accuse them of conspiracy, murdering two patients and poisoning eight men between July 18 and Aug. 16, 1975.

The original indictment, handed down last June 16, accused Narcisco and Perez of conspiracy, murdering five patients and poisoning 10 others.

As in the previous indictment, federal prosecutors alleged they murdered and poisoned patients by deliberately injecting Pavulon, a powerful muscle-relaxing drug, into the victims’ intravenous feeding tubes.

But the new indictment, which was apparently issued by the same 23-person grand jury that handed down the first one, greatly expands the “overt act” that makes up the alleged conspiracy.

Perez, 32, of Ann Arbor, and Narciso, 30, of Ypsilanti, were nurses in the Fuller Road hospital’s intensive care unit when a wave of mysterious patient breathing failures and deaths swept through the facility during the late summer of 1975.

Both women are natives of the Philippines who have lived in this country for more than five years. They have been free on $7,500 bail each which was raised by friends.

Early today it was unclear what affect the new indictment will have on the case.

U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pratt had set March 1 as the date for the trial to begin in the bizarre, complicated mass murder case.

Narciso and Perez were arraigned this morning by Pratt on the new charges.

Both maintained their innocence and stood mute to the new charges.

“Your honor,” Narciso said, “I am still innocent of these charges and, with advice of my counsel, I stand mute.”

Perez’s response was similar: “I stand here innocent of these charges, your honor, and on advice of my counsel, I stand mute.”

At the same time, arguments on two crucial pretrial defense motions resumed today before Pratt.

The two nurses’ attorneys hoped to persuade Pratt to suppress testimony of two key prosecution witnesses in the case.

Arguments on those motions were interrupted last month after Pratt ruled the prosecutor violated a court order by failing to give the defense lawyers information from important FBI documents.

Pratt’s ruling also prompted U.S. attorney Philip Van Dam to remove one of his senior assistants from the control of the case.

Van Dam, who has decided to take care of the case himself, refused to comment today on his reasons for asking the grand jury for the latest indictment.

The defense attorneys for the two accused nurses also declined to comment on what impact, if any, the new indictment may have on their preparations for trial.

“All I know is that the U.S. attorney apparently dismissed some charges from the indictment,” said Thomas O’Brien one of Narciso’s layers.

“It seems to me, though, that their only mistake was in not dismissing the case altogether,” he said.