‘Mercy-killer’ confesses

Press, 24 June 1981, Page 21

‘Mercy-killer’ confesses

Almost every day for the past three months a 44-year-old, slightly-built and retiring man has been .driven from jail in Trondheim to the village of Orkdal. There, under police interrogations, he has been recalling in detail events surrounding the deaths of elderly patients at Orkdal’s State-run home for the sick and aged from up to four years ago.

Arnfinri Nesset, one-time male nurse and anaesthetist assistant, was the home's manager.

A pillar of society and a Salvation Army officer who : took part in.street rallies,-he campaigned as “a good Christian” against abortion and told certain villagers that he was God's messenger. His religious ideals have apparently motivated his belief in euthanasia, for he took the lives of suffering patients bound to die within minutes or.a few weeks. Nesset, who applied the drug curacit intravenously, has already confessed to 19 mercy-killings. Curacit is derived from the South American Indian arrow-poison curare, and is used bv western surgeons as a muscle relaxant during operations. After forging prescriptions, Nesset gained his supplies from the village chemist. “Despite the misgivings of a doctor at the home in 1977, the affair was not exposed until Nesset asked a nurse to get some curacit because he wanted to destroy his dog,” said an Orkdal policeman ... “But he didn’t own, a dog!’* ,' The setting for these murders, in a modern and cosy old peoples’ home, is a valley moving down to the Trond heim fiord, glistening white and cold in winter but idyllic in summer. '

Noted as a close-knit farming community, both the Viking, Harald the Finehair, and King Olav (later a national saint); had meetings with Orkdal -farmers 1000 years ago to gain their support,and allegiance.

Orkdal is in South Troendelag county, and its people are Troenders, known over the rest of Norway for their endurance, resourcefulness, good humour, and regional pride. It seemed that-the placidity of their village could never be disturbed by any-

thing resembling a scandal. As the number of deaths mount, and the popular press demands that its readers become engrossed in the sensation, most Norwegians still treat the affair with controlled surprise. > . About 900' people have been interviewed or con-

tacted in connection with the case, many to throw light on deaths that occurred 20 years ago when Nesset worked in the surgical department of a Trondheim hospital. Even .with Nesset’s confessions, police will probably have to exhume bodies in.the local' 'graveyard, because-

Norwegian law demands proof to substantiate a murder charge. Norwegian forensic experts are uncertain about how much curacit a corpse can retain, and whether enough will be discovered for sufficient proof of Nesset’s -guilt. - •-

Meanwhile, Troenders in other parts of Norway are tiring of good-natured jokes about them dosing coffee cups of their workmates with curacit; while ' their reputa-

tion as “dangerous people” has been boosted by the recollection of another Troender who was a macabre slayer.

This was Belle Gunnes, who migrated to the United States around 1900 and 30 years later w'sa suspected of having axed to death about 50 husbands.

Like Arnfinn Nesset, she was of strong religious principles, went to church every Sunday, gave generously to the Methodists, and avoided police and press suspicion because of her good reputation.

Every so often she placed an advertisment in a paper seeking a rich, potential spouse. After a brief fraternisation she swung her axe and dug the corpse into the earth on her Indiana property. Finally, another Norwegian migrant believed that she had taken the life of. his brother.

Belle Gunnes acted swiftly, and brutally. She killed two of her children and another woman, set fire to her house, left town, changed her name and avoided the State police. However, she died in a California goal, probably sentenced for another criminal act.

Today in Norway, Arnfinn Nesset’s advocate claims that his client is a mental wreck. But a Trondheim police inspector emphasises that he considers Nesset calm and normal, and adds that there will be a court case, but not before next yean

By that time the imperturbable Troender could be charged with 30 murders.

From

ROSS BROWN

in Oslo