Nun ‘may have murdered 30’

Press, 23 February 1978, Page 9

Nun ‘may have murdered 30’

NZPA Ghent (Belgium)l A Belgian nursing nun in i charge of a hospital ward i for the elderly may have 11 been responsible for the deaths of as many as 30 I patients, a doctor at the hospital has said. ( The nun, Cecile Bombeke, ' aged 44, known as Sister : Godfrida of the Apostolic Sisters of St Joseph, was r fficially charged last Thursday with killing three people aged 79 to 87 with insulin injections. She had been head nurse on the elderly ward for the Public Assistance Hospital in nearby Wetteren.

Dr Jean-Paul de Corte,| who works at the hospital, [said: “Sister Godfrida’s victims could total as many as [30.” At a news conference with three nurses who worked on the same ward with Sister Godfrida, Dr de Corte charged that “the facts about her became evident to some people as far as seven years ago” but were ignored by the hospital’s board. The nun at first w r as charged with forging medical prescriptions and drug abuse after surgery she underwent for a brain tumor in 1976. She later admitted killing

three elderly people because they “were seriously ill and became unbearable during the night,” police sources quoted the nurse as saying.

The doctor said the nurses had informed the hospital’s board of the nun’s possible drug addiction but “the Public Assistance Board did not take its responsibilities,” the doctor said.

“Her frequently dazed behaviour had been signalled as long as seven years ago,” well before she underwent treatment for the brain tumor, the doctor said. “The board has been informed by some nurses more than a year ago about her

erratic behaviour and about the fact that several elderly people seemed to have died without apparent clinical reason,” he said. He said there had been several cases of death in the past few years which had seemed suspect but which were never investigated.

The doctor said the Public Assistance Board had “unanimously warned him not to exaggerate” the affair unless he wanted to lose his job. He said he reported the facts he had learned from several nurses to the board, who cautioned him not to inform the police.