A doctor and two nurses who worked through the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina were arrested overnight Monday on suspicion of murder, accused of giving four patients stranded at their flooded hospital lethal doses of morphine and a sedative.

"This is not euthanasia. This is homicide," Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti said.

After a long investigation, the Louisiana Attorney General's Office said the three healthcare workers were arrested in connection with the deaths of patients at a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina.





The three suspects are Dr. Anna Pou, 50, and nurses Cheri Landry, 49, and Laura Budo, 43. Orleans Parish Sheriff's Chief William Hunter said each was booked on four counts of "principal to second-degree murder." Foti said more arrests are possible.

The three were booked on four counts each after their arrests late Monday but are not yet formally charged, officials said.

"We're not calling this euthanasia. We're not calling this mercy killings. This is second-degree murder," said Kris Wartelle, a spokeswoman for Foti's office.

The arrest warrant for the doctor said lethal doses of morphine were administered. According to the arrest warrants, the trio also used large doses of a sedative to kill four patients at Memorial Medical Center.

The hospital -- Memorial Medical Center -- was cut off by floodwater after the storm hit. Power went out, and the temperature inside rose past 100 degrees, as patients waited four days to be evacuated.

During that time, at least 34 patients died there. Ten were patients of the hospital's owner, and the others were in a facility run by a separate company.

CNN reported that the staff are accused of killing some of the patients so that the nurses and doctors could evacuate more quickly -- meaning the alleged slayings were not mercy killings at all.

The arrest warrants said Pou and the two nurses intentionally killed four patients "by administering or causing to be administered lethal doses of morphine sulphate (morphine) and midazolam (Versed)."

In an accompanying affidavit, an agent for the Louisiana Justice Department wrote that Pou told a nurse executive three days after the hurricane hit that "lethal doses" would be administered to those patients who could not be evacuated.

Pou said the patients remaining at the hospital would likely not survive and that a "decision had been made to administer lethal doses" to them, the affidavit said.

"'Lethal doses of what?"' the nurse executive asked, according to the affidvit. It said Pou answered: "morphine and ativan."


Pou's lawyer said his client is innocent. He also objected to her being handcuffed at her house late Monday night. He accused authorities of wanting to "present her scalp to the media."

Shortly after Katrina, Foti issued subpoenas for 73 employees who were in Memorial Medical Center during and after the storm. The subpoenas came after continuing rumors of mercy killings -- workers killing patients they thought would not make it and were suffering.



A coroner said several months ago that samples were taken from dozens of patients who died at various hospitals and nursing homes, to test for potentially lethal doses of drugs such as morphine. After the bodies were recovered, Orleans Parish coroner Frank Minyard said they were so decomposed the deaths could only be listed as "Katrina-related."


Previously, Minyard told CNN that investigators told him they think some medical staff killed patients. "They thought someone was going around injecting people with some sort of lethal medication," Minyard said.

A nursing manager said that none of the hospital staff knew when rescuers would arrive and that the conditions at the hospital were miserable.


"It was battle conditions," nurse Fran Butler told CNN. "It was as bad as being out in the field."

She said the staff was desperate.


"My nurses wanted to know what was the plan. Did they say to put people out of their misery? Yes. ... They wanted to know how to get them out of their misery," she said to CNN.


Butler also told CNN that a doctor discussed the subject of euthanizing patients, saying that she “was totally against it and wouldn't do it."


Dr. Bryant King, who was working at Memorial during Katrina, told CNN that although he didn’t personally witness any killings, "most people know something happened that shouldn't have happened."



AP Image
Military guard at Memorial Medical Center where more than 40 bodies were recovered after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, La.


King said that one of the doctors who opposed euthanasia told him that a third doctor said she would be willing to "do it."


He said then, the floor where he was working was cleared of everyone except patients, a hospital administrator and two doctors -- doctors he said had first raised the issue of "mercy killing."


After a prayer, one of the doctors then produced a handful of syringes, King told CNN.


"I don't know what's in the syringes. ... The only thing I heard the physician say was, 'I'm going to give you something to make you feel better,'" King said.



"I don't know what the physician was going to give them, but we hadn't been given medications like that, to make people feel better, or any sort of palliative care," he said. "We hadn't been doing that up to this point."


After deciding he did not want to take part in what he thought was going to happen, King said he grabbed his bag, boarded a boat and left a hospital. He said he doesn’t know what happened after he left.

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