Jury acquits owners of nursing home

The owners of a nursing home where 35 patients died after Hurricane Katrina were acquitted of negligent homicide and cruelty charges for not evacuating the facility as the storm approached.

The jury took about four hours to acquit Salvador and Mabel Mangano, the husband-and-wife owners of St. Rita’s Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, just outside New Orleans.

“I can’t tell you how good this feels, how good those people are,” Mabel Mangano said outside the courthouse in St. Francisville, the town where the trial was moved. “This has been a very rough road.”