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Show Wbr/d&Nation Wednesday, March 18, 2009 Page // Air Force nurse charged in 3 patients' drug deaths SAN ANTONIO (AP) - An Air Force nurse has been charged with murder for allegedly giving lethal amounts of medication to three terminally ill patients in his care over one month last summer, military officials said Tuesday. Capt. Michael Fontana, 35, was formally charged Monday by the Air Force with deliberately giving three Wilford Hall Medical Center patients lethal amounts of medication, and with conduct unbecoming an officer for allegedly changing a medical record for one of the patients. The Air Force began investigating after another staff member at the San Antonio hospital discovered irregularities in Fontana's administration of medications that may have resulted in the death of a terminally ill patient. Air Force spokesman David Smith said. The investigation, which began in August, revealed that two other patients in Fontana's care in July may have received lethal amounts of medication. Fontana, an intensive care unit nurse, was removed from duty as soon as the irregularity was reported. Fontana continues to work in the hospital but is not allowed contact with patients or records, Smith said Tuesday. "He has been deemed not a flight risk and has been at work every day" since being relieved of duty, he said. Wilford Hall, at Lackland Air Force Base, is the Air Force's largest hospital. It primarily serves military personnel and retirees but provides emergency and trauma care to some civilians. The facility has 26 ICU beds. Relatives of Fontana's alleged victims were notified of the investigation. Smith said. He declined to provide any details about them, saying only that they were "end-of-life terminally ill patients" and not believed to be veterans of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Smith declined to speculate on a motive but said that to his knowledge, the patients had not requested assistance to end their lives. An Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent to a grand jury proceeding, will be conducted in the next few weeks, and the hospital commander will decide whether the case goes to court martial. A call to Fontana's home was not immediately returned Tuesday. Smith said the case is the first in at least 10 years in which an Air Force medical personnel member is accused of deliberately killing a patient. Fontana, who previously worked as an EMT nurse in Austin, has been in the Air Force since 2006 and served a tour at the military hospital in Balad, Iraq, from August to December 2007. Smith said. Investigators reviewed his work there and found no irregularities, he said. The Texas Board of Nursing lists Fontana as a registered nurse since 2000 and has no current disciplinary action against him. As part of Congress' latest round of base closures and realignments, Wilford will become an outpatient surgical center in 2011. Brooke Army Medical Center, across town at Fort Sam Houston, will expand and take in Wilford's other cases. Kenya police try to clean up Nairobi streets A P Y R E O F W E A P O N S B U R N , Tuesday, March 17 as they are destroyed in Nairobi, Kenya. The Kenyan police on Tuesday destroyed more than 4,000 weapons that were used in crimes and were confiscated by the police since 2007. AP photo New England pastor houses child killer, riles town CHICHESTER. N.H. (AP) - A pastor in this quiet, picturesque New England town thought he was doing the Christian thing when he took in a convicted child killer who had served his time but had nowhere to go. But some neighbors of the Rev. David Pinckney vehemently disagree, one even threatening to burn his house down after officials could find no one else willing to take 60-year-old Raymond Guay. "Politicians think they can dump their trash in our small town," said one neighbor, Jon Morales, whose girlfriend and two children live across an unpaved road from Pinckney s home. Chichester, a town of about 2,200 residents in south-central New Hampshire, has been in an uproar since the weekend, when police announced that Guay would spend two months with Pinckney s family. About 40 angry residents protested outside the home Saturday, Merrimack County Sheriff Scott Hilliard said. One protester blustered that he wanted to set it on fire, he said. Town leaders were expected Tuesday night to ask state and federal officials to remove Guay from town. Guay already had a criminal record when he was charged in 1973, at age 25, with abducting and murdering a 12-yearold boy in Nashua. Authorities said he planned to sexually assault the boy, whose body was clad only in socks and undershorts. Guay pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to up to 25 years. He kidnapped a Concord couple after briefly escaping from the nearby state prison in 1982 and was sent to a federal prison in California, where he stabbed an inmate in 1991, court records show. After 35 years behind bars, he was released in September and ordered to serve his parole in New Hampshire. Guay's release followed a failed attempt by state officials to keep him incarcerated as a dangerous sexual predator under federal law. Guay went instead to a halfway house in Connecticut but was returned to New Hampshire last week. Residents of Concord, where Pinckney leads a nondenominational congregation, loudly protested plans to put him there. A Concord prison chaplain contacted Pinckney, who agreed to take Guay in after meeting him and clearing it with his wife and four children, ages 13 to 18. Guay is staying there while he looks for a job and place to live. Pinckney did not return calls or answer the door when a reporter visited his house, but he assured the town in an open letter published Tuesday that Guay poses no threat. "We would not be doing this if we thought we were endangering our town, neighbors or children," he wrote. Though Guay "has committed some horrendous crimes in his past," he has been on "a very different course" since a religious transformation in 1993, Pinckney said. Pinckney has told Guay he may only leave the house in a car with another adult and can live with the family for no more than two months. Town resident Christine Swain, who has children ages 6 and 16, isn't reassured. "There's so many kids in this community, and you just fear for them," she said. "You always do what's best for your children." Another resident said Monday that she felt Guay deserved a second chance, but she spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared reprisals from neighbors. Some outsiders are more forthcoming. Conrad Mandsager of Nottingham worked for Prison Fellowship-a faithbased group that helps parolees find jobs - i n the 1980s, Mandsager said he took in a violent criminal to live with his family of five in 1988.Sentenced for attempted murder and kept in solitary confinement for his role in a prison riot, the man turned his life around while living with Mandsager and working at a job through the Prison Fellowship, Mandsager said. He disagrees with Chichester officials who say Guay would do better in a city with more jobs and other resources. "You create more opportunities for problems by putting (convicts) in a larger city where there's no accountability," Mandsager said. He expects better results in a home like Pinckney s, "where there's accountability and care and love for the guy." Former 1970s radical released from California prison CHOWCHILLA, Calif. (AP) - A former 1970s radical associated with the group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst finished her California prison sentence Tuesday, ending a legal drama that harkened back to a violent era of social unrest. Sara Jane Olson, 62, was freed from the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla shortly after midnight and was allowed to serve her yearlong parole in Minnesota, the state she adopted during her 24 years as a fugitive. Olson served seven years - half her sentence - after pleading guilty to helping place pipe bombs under Los Angeles Police Department patrol cars and participating in the deadly 1975 robbery of a bank in a Sacramento suburb. The crimes took place while she was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a relatively short-lived but violent group that sought to overthrow the government while engaging in killings, robberies and gun battles with police. Then she was Kathleen Soliah; she changed her name after fleeing to Minnesota. Among the group's victims was 42-yearold Myrna Opsahl, a mother of four who was gunned down during the bank robbery. "I'm just glad that the former SLA members were finally held accountable for the murder of my mom," Jon Opsahl. who is now living in Southern California, said Tuesday after hearing of Olson's release. Olson was released by mistake a year ago after California corrections officials miscalculated her parole date; she was rearrested after spending five days with her family. Authorities now say she has served the proper seven-year sentence. SHADE CLOTHING Friday from 12 pm - 6 pm and Saturday from 9 am - 3 pm LOCATED AT THE USU TIPPETTS GALLERY IN THE CHASE FINE ARTS CENTER Shade is bringing you thousands of our discontinued and overstocked long layering tees, tanks and modest fashion tops, they are alf just $5 each. Shade Clothing, the first in modest fashion. Visit ShadeClothing.com for details shade |