No Motive Revealed in Missouri Nurse Murder Case

From: Otis Willie moderatingstaff@instruction.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 4:26 PM
Subject: [vetissues] No Motive Revealed in Missouri Nurse Murder Case, by REUTERS

No Motive Revealed in Missouri Nurse Murder Case, by REUTERS

(EXCERPT) Filed at 3:28 p.m. ET

COLUMBIA, Mo. (Reuters) - Prosecutors Tuesday refused to discuss what might have motivated a former Missouri veterans hospital nurse charged with killing 10 patients under his care in 1992, but said a motive was not vital for a conviction.

They said an investigation found that the nine men and one woman ranging in age from 58 to 85 all probably died the same way, from a drug that causes a quick paralysis followed by death in as little as seven minutes.

The drug was readily available to registered nurses at the Harry Truman Veterans Hospital in Columbia, Missouri, including the nurse charged on Monday with the deaths, Richard Williams, 36, investigators said.

Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Crane, speaking at a news conference, refused to discuss what might have led Williams to allegedly commit the crimes. He is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder.

Crane said information on a motive might emerge when Williams goes to trial but that proving a motive in court was not necessary to convict him. He said he had not decided whether to seek a death penalty in the case.

According to an affidavit filed by an inspector for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Williams was the only staff member on duty in ward 4-E when all 10 victims died there.

In all there were 67 deaths in the ward between Jan. 2 and Aug. 22, 1992, the affidavit said. When Williams was on duty in the ward, a patient was 20.8 times as likely to die as when the other 11 nurses who worked there were on duty, it added.

Richard Griffin, the VA's inspector general, told the briefing, ``We refused to give up on this in...

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