Step-Granddaughter Charged With Attempted Murder

A woman accused of trying to inject an overdose of Valium into her step-grandfather’s IV tube at Simi Valley Hospital in hope of hastening an inheritance must stand trial for attempted murder, poisoning and elder abuse, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Superior Court Judge Donald Coleman also agreed to a bail hike for Sindi Samantha Del Tour, from $250,000 to $500,000, after learning the Kern County woman reportedly threatened the life of another relative after the incident with her grandfather.

At Tuesday’s preliminary hearing, during which prosecutor Audry Rohn presented evidence against Del Tour, the 41-year-old personal trainer sat quietly as her step-grandfather’s doctors and nurses recounted the alleged poisoning.

Live-in nurse Maria Lopez testified she was hired in early December 1998 to care for Harley Hartung, 78.

Lopez said that shortly after a visit from Del Tour on Dec. 14, Hartung appeared to fall into a deep sleep while sitting on the living room couch of his Simi Valley home.

Del Tour cried out for Lopez to assist getting Hartung into bed. Neither woman was able to arouse the slumbering man.

Lopez said she then watched as Del Tour put a finger into Hartung’s mouth.

“She said she had given him an antacid earlier,” Lopez said. “She put her finger in his mouth to see if he had swallowed it.”

The next morning, Lopez found Hartung disoriented and unable to walk. She tried to assist him into the bathroom, but he was unbalanced and fell. Del Tour and Lopez took him to Simi Valley Hospital.

Maria Yerro, a registered nurse at the hospital, testified she cared for Hartung, who appeared to be suffering from pneumonia.

Del Tour kept close to her step-grandfather’s side, even hand feeding him his hospital dinner, Yerro said.

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During that evening’s visit, however, Yerro remembered Hartung had problems with his IV tube. After fixing the problem once, she said she left Hartung alone with his step-granddaughter while Yerro retrieved some medicine. On her return, Yerro walked in to find the alarm for the IV beeping.

“[Del Tour] looked very startled,” Yerro said. “She even jumped and hit her arm on the side rail.”

It was then that Yerro noticed some bluish-tinged fluid in Hartung’s IV tube.

“I asked her, ‘What is this?’ ” Yerro said. “She said, ‘I don’t know, what is it?’ ”

Yerro turned off the IV pump, told Del Tour not to touch it and went to get a doctor. Upon returning again, the pump had been turned back on, Yerro said.

“I asked her if she turned it back on, and she said, ‘Yes, I turned it on,’ ” Yerro said. She gave no further explanation, the nurse said.

In the hours after the incident, Hartung’s pulse rate and oxygen level plummeted. He remained unstable until about 11 p.m. but later made a full recovery.

An analysis of Hartung’s IV showed the blue liquid was benzodiazepines, a derivative of Valium. Yerro and other hospital employees said Hartung had never been administered Valium during his stay.

During a later interview at the Oildale home she shares with her husband, Del Tour told Simi Valley Det. William Daniels it was she, not the nurse, who first noticed the blue liquid.

Del Tour also denied owning a syringe, Daniels testified, then recanted, saying she had been given a syringe and a Novocain prescription after recent lip surgery, Daniels said. Daniels added that Del Tour said she was unaware Hartung’s estate was worth an estimated $600,000.

“She said she did not know and that it was none of her business,” Daniels said.

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During a search of Del Tour’s home in Oildale, near Bakersfield, Daniels said detectives found a life insurance policy in Hartung’s name listing Del Tour as beneficiary, a copy of a page from Hartung’s will, several syringes and prescriptions for Valium.

In addition, detectives found an insurance policy for Del Tour’s grandmother, taken out in December 1997, that listed Del Tour as beneficiary, Daniels testified. Juanita Hartung died March 1998. Letters from the insurance company that denied Del Tour’s claims on the policy were also seized.

The insurance policies totaled nearly $200,000, Daniels said.

Harley Hartung’s conservator, Sarah Hardcastle, also testified Tuesday that if Hartung were to die, Del Tour would benefit financially. A trust established by Hartung originally named Del Tour as sole beneficiary. That trust was modified last year to designate Del Tour and two other relatives as beneficiaries, a move Del Tour knew nothing about, Hardcastle said.

Del Tour was arrested Jan. 27 and charged with attempted murder, poisoning and elder abuse. An additional charge of credit card fraud was added Tuesday for her allegedly charging $369 to Harley Hartung’s Mobil credit card.

Del Tour’s next court appearance in Ventura is scheduled March 16.

She also faces a misdemeanor charge in Kern County of making annoying phone calls. She allegedly left a threatening message on the answering machine of Gene Brown, whom she is related to through marriage.

In that case, Del Tour called Brown on Christmas Eve and said, “I put a bomb in your house and you’ll never find it,” a police report said.

The threat, authorities say, was prompted because Del Tour was angry over losing a conservatorship battle with her half-siblings in 1997. Eventually, conservatorship was given to Hardcastle, a professional conservator.

The telephone harassment case is pending.