A nurse was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison Wednesday for killing four patients by injecting them with a powerful muscle relaxant in a scheme to later revive them and play the hero.
Richard Angelo, 27, of Lindenhurst, was convicted Dec. 14 of two counts of murder and one each of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the 1987 deaths at Good Samaritan Hospital. He received the maximum sentence."You had no right to usurp God's function," said Judge Alfred Tisch. "Each of those patients had a right to enjoy, in their own way, every day that was available to them."
Angelo told police he injected patients so that he could revive them. At his trial the prosecutor called him a "monster in nurse's whites."
The most dramatic testimony against Angelo came from one of his victims who survived an injection, 75-year-old Gerolamo Kucich. The Yugoslavian immigrant told the jury that Angelo gave him an injection, saying it would "make me feel better." Minutes later, Kucich testified, he was fighting for his breath.
Officials exhumed the bodies of 33 patients who died suspiciously at Good Samaritan while Angelo worked there. Traces of the muscle relaxant Pavulon were found in six of the bodies.
A Pavulon-laced syringe was found in Angelo's apartment the day before his arrest.
Angelo was also convicted of five counts of assault - against the four who died and Kucich.