FARMINGTON -- Five people are dead.
This morning, the journey began to find whether they died at the hands of a Utah psychiatrist who was charged with their care or whether they succumbed to natural causes.Opening arguments in the trial of Robert Allen Weitzel began in 2nd District Court today before Judge Thomas Kay and a 12-member jury. The eight men and four women -- eight jurors and four alternates -- face the task of determining whether Weitzel murdered patients under his care, as the state alleges. The trial is scheduled to last six weeks.
During the first hour of opening arguments, prosecutor Charlene Barlow from the Utah Attorney General's Office said Weitzel's case was not about providing comfort care to terminally ill patients.
"In a hospice situation, you're giving medication to comfort them (patients), to alleviate their pain. But this was not intended as a place to keep the dying comforted," Barlow said. "This was never intended to be long-term. Most patients were expected to spend only two to three weeks."
Barlow conceded that the alleged victims suffered various forms of dementia and various physical ailments but, she said, "None of these people were terminal. Like I said, this was not a hospice."
Barlow emphasized the state is not required to provide a motive for the alleged murders. Still, she said, jurors will likely ask themselves why Weitzel allegedly committed the crimes. Barlow said during the next six weeks she believes jurors will concur with the state's conclusion.
"It was not sympathy," Barlow said. "I think you'll see the reason is that he (Weitzel) didn't like these people. They were old and they didn't have much use anymore. There was not any sympathy for them -- send them on."
Weitzel, 44, faces five counts of murder, a first-degree felony. Prosecutors allege he ordered or administered lethal doses of morphine to five patients at the Davis Hospital and Medical Center in Layton: Ennis Alldredge, 83; Ellen Anderson, 91; Mary R. Crane, 72; Judith Larsen, 93; and Lydia M. Smith, 90. All died within a 16-day period in December 1995 and January 1996. At the time of their deaths, Weitzel was serving as the head of the hospital's Geriatric-Psychiatric Unit, to which the patients had been transferred after they reportedly exhibited disruptive behavior at other long-term-care facilities.
During Weitzel's January preliminary hearing, prosecution witnesses said the patients' charts indicated they were injected with morphine in potentially lethal doses.
But Weitzel's attorneys argue the psychiatrist was providing "comfort care" for the alleged victims, who they say died from other causes. All five bodies were exhumed prior to the trial, and state medical examiners are expected to testify morphine traces were detected in only one.
Weitzel also faces a related civil lawsuit filed Alldredge's family members.
The lawsuit, filed June 1 in 3rd District Court, alleges Weitzel and his employer were negligent in caring for Alldredge. The suit claims that when Alldredge was admitted to the Davis County facility, he was "not suffering from any imminent life-threatening conditions." In January 1996, the lawsuit claims, Weitzel told Alldredge's wife that Alldredge had suffered a massive stroke, was blind and "not going to make it."
Alldredge was administered morphine, the suit claims, and died about 24 hours later. The suit says that an autopsy performed later showed no evidence that Alldredge had suffered a stroke.
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