VA Case Almost Ready For Jury

VA Case Almost Ready For Jury

By John Barton

STAFF REPORTER

DETROIT — Testimony ended here Thursday in the 12-week trial of two Filipino nurses accused of poisoning patients under their care at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital.

According to presiding judge Philip Pratt’s timetable, closing arguments are to begin Monday. Pratt said he intends to give the jury its final instructions about 1 p.m. Wednesday.

The jurors, who up to now have been free to go home after court sessions, will be sequestered during the length of their deliberations. When they are not deliberating, arrangements have been made for the jurors to stay in a downtown Detroit hotel where they will be guarded by U.S. Marshals.

THE PANEL will be kept behind locked doors until it reaches a verdict.

The prosecution rested its case against Leonora Perez and Filipina Narciso after losing a last-minute bid to call as a witness a Detroit area forensic psychiatrist and expert in criminal behavior.

In a sharply worded ruling, Pratt refused to allow the psychiatrist, Dr. Emanuel Tanay, to take the witness stand.  Pratt said Tanay's testimony would only “‘confuse and mislead” the jury.

“I rue the day when we would permit this kind of testimony in a courtroom,” Pratt told Asst. U.S. Atty. Richard Yanko.

“To allow this testimony,” Pratt added, “I think would be fully without the scope, concept and the tradition of the jury trial in the United States.”

Perez, 32, of Ann Arbor, and Narciso, 31, of Ypsilanti, are accused of using a muscle paralyzing drug, Pavulon, to poison a number of veterans hospitalized in the Fuller Road facility during the summer of 1975.

Perez and Narciso both are accused of poisoning one man.

IN ADDITION, Perez is charged with poisoning two more patients, while Narciso is accused of using Pavulon to murder one man and poison three others.

The two natives of the Philippines are also charged with conspiracy to murder and poison their patients.

If convicted on the conspiracy count, the women face five years in jail and a $10,000 fine. If convicted of murder or any of the poisoning counts, Perez and Narciso could be sent to prison for life. A conviction also could mean deportation to the Philippine Islands where their case has attracted massive publicity and daily front-page news coverage.

Both women took the witness stand during the trial and declared they are innocent of all charges against them.

In finishing its case, the prosecution also called to the witness stand Thursday two FBI agents who denied either woman was harassed or threatened during the investigation.

Daniel R. Russo, who has worked full time on the VA Hospital investigation since October, 1975, denied either he or his partner, FBI agent Richard A. Guttler, tried to force Perez to confess.

RUSSO ALSO DENIED Perez’s charge that she was intimidated and coerced during a five-hour interrogation session in Sept.,1975.

Russo said the interview was “intensive", and did fill 13 pages of official FBI report forms, but he testified the meeting lasted only 2 1/2 hours and when Perez left “she thanked us for the conduct of the interview.”

Perez also accused the FBI agents of threatening her when they served her with a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury In Detroit on Dec. 19, 1975. At the time, Perez was working at Chicago’s Lakeside VA Hospital where she was transferred shortly after the investigation began at the Ann Arbor Veterans Hospital.

Perez said Guttler tried to force her to confess and warned her she would never again see her son Christopher, then four years old.

Russo said the conversation never took place. Guttler, who has been present in the courtroom since the trial began, was not called to the stand to deny Perez’s charges.

Russo was followed by FBI Agent Patrick J. Mullaney to rebut Narciso’s charge she was harassed for over 6 hours in a Sept., 1975, FBI interrogation.

Narciso, a Catholic, also charged that one of the agehts told her to “go light a candle for yourself because you’re going to need it. ”

MULLANEY ADMITTED the interview at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital lasted over six hours, but, he insisted, the length was due to Narciso’s "wanting to continue until we’d finished our questioning. ”

Mullaney, an FBI psychologist and instructor at the agency’s academy in Quantico, Va., denied anyone tried to twist Narciso's religious beliefs and use them against her.  He also denied Narciso’s allegation that agents re fused to let her go back to work ever though she asked to leave the in review three times.

“I recall no occasion when she requested to leave,” Mullaney said, "and at the end of the interview she seemed somewhat relieved and in good spirits.”

The jury will be faced with a staggering amount of complex scientific and witness testimony which has accumulated during the past 12 weeks of trial. The transcript runs well over 6,000 pages.

Prosecutors called a total of 82 witnesses and presented some 200 hours of testimony which attempts to circumstancially link the two women to the attacks on the victims.

THE DEFENSE countered with 18 witnesses during a weeklong presentation.

The man both women are accused of poisoning, William Loesch of Ypsilanti, appeared as a defense witness and claimed the last person he saw before he was stricken was a man dressed in green.