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Families of dead had suspicions

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 20, 2006

NEW ORLEANS - With a doctor and two nurses accused of killing four patients in the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina, there was anger among relatives but little surprise from some who have long considered the deaths of their loved ones suspicious.

"I consider the nurses murderers. They were in a bad situation, but they were murderers," Lou Ann Savoie Jacob said Wednesday.

Her 90-year-old mother, Rose Savoie, was among those prosecutors say were killed by Dr. Anna Pou and nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry at Memorial Medical Center, where patients and staff were stranded for days without running water or communications after the hurricane overwhelmed New Orleans' levees.

According to court documents released Tuesday by the Louisiana Attorney General's Office, Budo was seen injecting Savoie with something Sept. 1, three days after Katrina left four-fifths of the city under water.

The daughter of another patient in the case said that her mother, Ireatha Watson, had been very sick, with gangrene in both legs and dementia, but that she had been stable two days before Katrina hit.

"I found it strange that she passed away the way she did, and I couldn't get any information," said Paulette Harris, Watson's daughter.

The widow of another victim, 61-year-old Emmett Everett Sr., declined to comment Wednesday.

Pou, Budo and Landry, arrested late Monday, are accused of killing Savoie, Watson, Everett and one other severely ill patient with morphine and a sedative called Versed.

Attorneys for the three accused say their clients are innocent and cared for patients long after authorities stranded them with little aid.

[Last modified July 20, 2006, 00:45:20]