No Indictment In Katrina Patient Deaths
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
NEW ORLEANS — A grand jury refused yesterday to indict a doctor accused of murdering four seriously ill hospital patients with drug injections during the desperate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, closing the books on the only mercy-killing case to emerge from the storm.
Dr. Anna Pou acknowledged administering medication to the patients but insisted she did so only to relieve pain. Dr. Pou (pronounced “Poh”) and two nurses were arrested last summer after Attorney General Charles Foti said they gave “lethal cocktails” to four patients at the flooded-out Memorial Medical Center after the August 2005 storm.
The decision was a defeat for Mr. Foti, who accused the doctor and the nurses, but it was the New Orleans district attorney who presented the case to the grand jury, asking it to bring murder and conspiracy charges.
