The Nation : Judge Acquits Nurse of Killing 3 Patients

A judge in Upper Marlboro, Md., acquitted a nurse accused of killing patients with potassium chloride, saying prosecutors failed to tie her to the deaths. Jane Bolding, 30, who claimed she had been forced into confessing to killing two of the patients during a marathon interrogation, faced three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of patients at the Prince George’s Hospital Center, about 30 miles from Washington. She also was charged with trying to kill two others. Prosecutors based their case on a federal Centers for Disease Control study that reported that intensive care patients suffered an unusually high number of heart attacks while Bolding was working. “A conviction cannot rest solely on a statistical study,” Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Joseph S. Casula said.