VA Judge To Rule On Conflicting Testimony

VA Judge To Rule on Conflicting Testimony

By John Barton
POLICE REPORTER

DETROIT — A federal judge is to decide Monday if jurors will be allowed to hear a mother’s conflicting version of her son’s sudden breathing failure while he was a patient in the Ann Arbor VA Hospital.

The question was raised Friday as defense attorneys for two Filipina nurses accused of murdering and poisoning hospitalized veterans during the summer of 1975 began cross-examination of Christine Loesch’s testimony concerning her son William’s breathing failure on Aug. 15.

William Loesch was one of three intensive care unit (ICU) patients who mysteriously stopped breathing within 15 minutes.

TWO FORMER ICU nurses Leonora Perez of Ann Arbor and Filipina Narciso of Ypsilanti, are accused of causing the breathing failures by deliberately injecting the paralyzing drug Pavulon into the stricken men’s intravenous (IV) feeding tubes.

Their trial on charges of conspiracy, murdering two men and poisoning seven others ended its seventh week Friday before U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pratt and a 16-person jury.

At issue is Christine Loesch’s testimony that she left her son in the care of Perez and Narciso to make a phone call. Minutes after she said she left the two nurses alone at her son’s bedside, he suddenly stopped breathing.

She said she rushed back to her son’s room, but by the time she reached him, he could not speak and all he could move were his thumbs. Then, she testified, she was ordered out of the room while a hospital emergency crew revived her son.

BUT EDWARD R. STEIN, one of Perez's lawyers, began quoting to Mrs. Loesch a statement she gave FBI agents a week after the alleged attack on her son’s life.

In that statement, according to Stein, Mrs. Loesch declared she had a pantomime conversation with her son. Although he was unable to speak, Mrs. Loesch said her son was able to nod his head yes or no in response to her questions.

Prosecution objections to Stein’s pursuing his line of questioning caused Pratt to order the jury from the courtroom.

With the jury out of hearing, Stein related the following FBI account of Mrs. Loesch’s conversation to her son:

“Did someone give you a shot?”

“He nodded his head yes."

“Was it a nurse?”

“He shook his head no.”

“Was it a doctor?"

"No"

“Was it somebody you don’t know?”

“He nodded his head yes."

IN EARLIER testimony, Mrs. Loesch said she and her son knew Perez and Narciso.

After hearing brief arguments the on the admissibility of the contradictory statements, Pratt said he would take the matter under consideration and issue a ruling Monday.

In other testimony Friday, Federal Drug Administration (FDA) chemists testified they were able to find PavuIon in urine samples taken from Loesch and another man who mysteriously stopped breathing on Aug. 15, John H. McCrery.

The three chemists testified test results led them to believe “beyond any reasonable doubt, the drug pancuronium (the generic name for Pavulon) was present in the two urine samples.”

PAVULON, A potent muscle relaxant is normally used in hospital operating rooms or when a patient must be connected to a breathing machine.

The drug was never prescribed for treating either man’s illnesses, according to hospital records.

Loesch was hospitalized for a gunshot wound in the stomach.

McCrery, 49, of Coloma, Mich., was in the Fuller Road hospital for tests to determine whether his heart should be operated on.

McCrery did have open-heart surgery a few days after someone at the hospital apparently tried to kill him. McCrery survived the operation, but he died last year.

IN A RELATED development, Asst. U.S. Atty. Richard Yanko, the chief prosecutor in the complex case, confirmed Friday he will not call Loesch as a witness during the trial.

Loesch is one of only three surviving victims of the alleged hospital attacks. The other two men have appeared as prosecution witnesses, although neither was able to recall who or what may have caused them to stop breathing.

“Yes,” Yanko answered a reporter’s question, “we have several very good reasons for not calling Mr. Loesch as a witness. And I’m not going to discuss any of them with you.” At the same time, Thomas O’Brien of Ann Arbor, one of Narciso’s lawyers, said Loesch may “very well be” called as a defense witness.