VA Aide Says Pavulon No Longer Locked Up

VA Aide Says Pavulon No Longer Locked Up

By John Barton
POLICE REPORTER

DETROIT — Pavulon, the potentially lethal drug blamed for patient breathing failures and deaths, is no longer kept under lock and key at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital.

Gary Calhoun, assistant to the chief of staff at the hospital, testified in federal court here Tuesday that the drug is no longer as tightly controlled as it was up to seven months ago “because you have to have ready access to it.”

Late in 1975, hospital authorities had ordered Pavulon, a powerful drug that leaves muscles totally limp within seconds and can cause suffocation within minutes, placed under extremely close control.

At that time, the drug was linked to a mysterious series of patient breathing failures and deaths for which two former intensive care unit nurses, Leonora Perez and Filipina Narciso, are now on trial.

THE WOMEN’S defense team has said it plans to show that the easy accessibility of Pavulon combined with lax hospital security could have given any number of persons besides Perez and Narciso the opportunity and the means to poison and murder the hospitalized veterans.

Edward R. Stein of Ann Arbor, one of Perez’s lawyers, charged in his opening statement that the FBI’s probe of the strange mass murder case never went any further than the two nurses.

"They (FBI agents) solved it by charging the evening shift ICU nurses,” Stein said. “Now, that was neat, it’s tight and it doesn’t go any higher. But it’s wrong "

PEREZ, 32, lives In Ann Arbor with her husband and two young sons. Narciso, 30, is unmarried and lives in a rented home in Ypsilanti. Although both women are natives of the Philippines who came to this country in 1971, they never met until 1975 when they were thrown together in the hospital and became the focus of one of the most complex and highly publicized murder cases in recent memory.

They were arrested last June 16 under a grand jury indictment which has since been cut almost in half. As the indictment now stands, the women are accused of conspiracy, two counts each of murder and seven counts each of poisoning ill and helpless veterans.

The trial began Monday before U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pratt and a carefully selected jury of 10 women and six men which took 3 1/2 weeks to seat.

THE JURORS, have been given notebooks and pencils to keep track of the highly complex testimony of an anticipated 150 witnesses. Four of them will be drawn off at the of the trial because they are alternates, but no juror knows whether he or she will be eliminated from the panel before deliberations begin.

The trial is expected to last four to six months.

Calhoun was the first witness to take the stand. Cross-examination of his testimony concerning the organization and general operating procedures in the hospital was expected to continue through most of today's session.

In other matters relating to the trial, access to the courtroom is being closely controlled by U.S. Marshals, but during the past two days, over 100 persons, mostly reporters and supporters of the two nurses, have packed the courtroom.

UNDER JUDGE PRATT’S rigid timetable, a trial day begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 1 p.m. Pratt usually declares one recess in mid-morning. Should a spectator or newsman leave the courtroom, he will not be readmitted until a recess is ordered. The rule is strictly enforced.

During opening statements and for most of Calhoun’s testimony, Perez and Narciso have sat stiffly between their four lawyers. Their only signs of emotion have been brief smiles when they were introduced to the jury.

Throughout their 19-month ordeal, Perez and Narciso have insisted they are innocent. Their attorneys have said that the two women will testify in their own behalf during the trial.