U. S. Officials Silent On VA Case Motive

U.S. Officials Silent On VA Case Motive

BY JOHN BARTON
News Police Reporter

Federal authorities refused today to comment on reports that patients at the Ann Arbor Veteran’s Administration may have been poisoned and killed as a macabre protest of oppressive working conditions at the hospital.

At the same time, however, The Ann Arbor News has learned from sources close to the investigation that theory will be one of the cornerstones of the government’s attempt to show a motive for the crimes during the trial of two former intensive care unit nurses indicted this week by a federal grand jury.

Since the beginning of the FBI probe, the intensive care unit staff has doubled. There have been no unexplained or unexpected breathing failures at the hospital since Aug. 15, the day the FBI was called into the case.

Asst. U.S. Atty. Mitchell S. Cohen, who along with the chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Criminal Division, Richard L. Delonis, will prosecute the government’s case against the two nurses in court, refused today to discuss a possible motive in the case.

“Those are things that you will just have to quote me as having ‘no comment',’’ Cohen said. “I will say that we believe the crimes were committed for a reason, and during the course of the trial we hope to show the jury what we believe that reason was.”

Meanwhile, it was learned the two nurses arrested by the FBI on Wednesday under a 16-count federal indictment charging them with killing five patients and poisoning 10 others, have been placed in the Washtenaw County Jail to await trial.

The nurses, Filipina B. Narciso, 30, of Ypsilanti, and Leonora Perez, 31, formerly of Ann Arbor, were placed in the county jail on Friday.

Narciso had been held in the Kalamazoo County jail since her arrest and arraignment before a U.S. magistrate.

Perez, who is pregnant with her second child, was arrested at Lakeside VA Hospital in Chicago.

The transfer to the Washtenaw County jail was made, authorities said, as a concession to the two Philippine citizens’ defense attorney, Thomas C. O’Brien of Ann Arbor.

Friends of Narciso and Perez continue to react with shocked disbelief to their arrests.

“If there really was any kind of conspiracy at the hospital to kill people,” one nurse told The News, “those two certainly weren’t involved.”

The same nurse refused to discuss the so-called “protest motive” for the apparent murders and attempted murders at the hospital, but did concede that late last spring and early in the summer, working conditions at the hospital were “deplorable.”

A petition signed by 57 nurses from several hospital departments was given to the chief of nursing, but no action was ever taken until the FBI began their probe, the nurse said.

“Mainly,” the nurse said, “it was a petition that demanded the immediate hiring of more help. During that time there were only eight nurses assigned to the ICU (intensive care unit) for all four shifts, seven days a week. It was not uncommon for us to be working 14 days straight with no time off.” Meanwhile, United Press International reports Philippine Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo today directed the Philippine Embassy in Washington to. assist the nurses.

Romulo also instructed the embassy to conduct its own investigation of the case.

The Integrated Bar of the Philippines, an association of Filipino lawyers, and the Philippine Nurses Association announced they would both send aid to the two nurses.

Bar President Liliano B. Beri said the group would try to find a Filipino lawyer in the United States to handle the defense, and if not, one would be sent from the Philippines.

The Nurses Association Executive Director Mrs. Ligaya Dimicali said the two women were not members of the association but assistance would be provided because “The outcome of their case could affect the welfare of thousands of Filipina nurses working in America.”