46:) that had possibly been used for the alleged killings had begun to be kept under lock and key. Three nurses were at the centre of the investigation and an apparent attempt to poison nurses' food. One of the nurses, Susan Nelles, was charged with four murders, but the prosecution was dismissed a year later on the grounds that she could not have been responsible for a death excluded from the indictment, which the judge deemed a murder.
98:, which discovered that another nurse, Phyllis Trayner, was the only person who had been on duty for all 29 cases of death being examined. A commission of inquiry listed eight of the baby deaths as murder, with another 13 as highly suspicious. Even after the commission had started its work, another death apparently by digoxin poisoning occurred. The commission decided not to take that into account.
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involved in a series of motiveless murders strained credulity. The exonerated nurse did not believe that there had been any murders, and in a 2011 interview, she reiterated that the 1985 inquiry report had been incorrect in stating that many deaths during a rise in mortality on the ward (from one a week to five) had been deliberate homicides. Data from the investigation was sent to the US
85:. There had been non-fatal unauthorized digoxin administration to other babies, and another death was, contrary to what the hospital had said at the time, caused by unauthorized administration of digoxin. In September 1981, the team leader nurse Phyllis Trayner (died 2011) found propranolol tablets in food that she was eating, and another nurse found the tablets in her soup.
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Metro
Toronto coroner Dr. Paul Tepperman said that he was first called to the hospital on March 12, 1981, because Kevin Garnett, the father of Kevin Pacsai, "was unusually upset" over the death of his three-week-old son that day. It was only on March 20, 1981, eight days later, that he was told about
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A conspiracy between multiple nurses was regarded by the judge as not credible. The lead detective resigned. An official government inquiry discounted claims by the hospital's own former chief of pediatrics that the deaths were not homicides and were not proven to be from digoxin. A second suspect
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Susan Nelles was arrested and charged with murder, but a judge acquitted her at the preliminary hearing stage and the case never went to trial, partly because she had not been on duty during one death for which the judge decided to be an additional murder, and for more than one nurse to have been
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Eight days later, he was told that an autopsy by the hospital had found 13 times the normal concentration of the same heart drug in another dead baby. The medication had not been subject to any security measures. Police were called in and began to search staff lockers when another baby died from
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began what was subsequently found to be a several-fold increase in mortality on June 30, 1980. Within two months, 20 patient deaths led to a group of nurses approaching the unit's cardiologists, but they kept investigation limited and in house to prevent a "morale problem." The excess deaths
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was not prosecuted. It has been later argued that a chemical compound, which can leach out of rubber tubing that was used in medical apparatus for feeding and delivery of medication and can be mistakenly identified by medical tests as digoxin, had been the cause of some of the deaths.
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continued, but it was not until March 1981 that a bereaved father's extreme distress led to the coroner being brought in and detecting suspiciously high levels of a heart regulating medication digoxin, a powerful form of digitalis, in a dead baby.
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digoxin poisoning on 22 March 1981. Examination of work logs and other nurses' subjective impression that a colleague had inappropriate reactions to the deaths led to the arrest and the charging with murder of a nurse, who was released on bail.
42:, Canada between July 1980 and March 1981. The deaths started after a cardiology ward had been divided into two new adjacent wards. The deaths ended after the police had been called in, and the digitalis-type medication (
159:— a convicted Canadian serial killer and registered nurse who confessed to murdering eight senior citizens and attempting to murder six others by injecting them with insulin
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Trayner, who denied any impropriety in her behaviour on the ward, was questioned in televised inquiry hearings and resigned after the inquiry's report was published.
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The deaths are still believed to be homicides by some, such as the epidemiologist
Alexandra M. Levitt, who devoted one chapter of a 2015 book to the case.
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an autopsy in
January on Janice Estrella, who had a digoxin level in her bloodstream that was the highest that he had ever heard of.
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In
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were a series of suspicious deaths that occurred in the
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because of the misidentification of digoxin poisoning.
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372:(2nd ed.). New York: Checkmark Books.
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220:"Progress slow in babies' hospital deaths"
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323:The New Encyclopedia of Serial Killers
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532:Unidentified Canadian serial killers
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218:Rockingham, Graham (27 July 1982).
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370:The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers
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89:Police investigation and inquiry
517:Medical controversies in Canada
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270:. March 6, 2011. Archived from
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325:. London, UK: Headline Books.
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258:"Dead babies remain a mystery"
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406:Levitt, Alexandra M. (2015).
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32:Toronto hospital baby deaths
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537:Unsolved murders in Canada
129:Ann Arbor Hospital Murders
63:Hospital for Sick Children
36:Hospital for Sick Children
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387:Hamilton, Gavin (2011).
368:Newton, Michael (2006).
163:List of unsolved murders
61:The Cardiac Ward of the
492:Canadian serial killers
389:The Nurses are Innocent
263:St. Catharines Standard
522:Medical serial killers
482:1981 murders in Canada
467:1980 murders in Canada
410:. New York: Skyhorse.
296:Wright, David (2016).
151:miscarriage of justice
391:. New York: Dundurn.
321:Lane, Brian (1992).
157:Elizabeth Wettlaufer
113:'s anthology series
432:Nelles case summary
354:, February 7, 1992.
187:, pp. 120–121.
27:Purported homicides
507:History of Toronto
351:The Globe and Mail
512:Hospital scandals
442:Hospital Phantoms
437:Nelles v. Ontario
379:978-0-73947-249-1
332:978-0-74725-361-7
307:978-1-44264-723-7
116:Scales of Justice
16:(Redirected from
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527:Murder in Canada
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487:1980s in Toronto
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79:epinephrine
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268:QMI Agency
169:References
135:Lucy Letby
502:Fugitives
346:Jay Scott
83:vitamin E
123:See also
44:digoxin
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105:Legacy
57:Deaths
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