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Indonesia | 14 years on death row: Timeline of Mary Jane Veloso’s ordeal and fight for justice

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MANILA, Philippines — The case of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking, has spanned over a decade and remains one of the most high-profile legal battles involving an overseas Filipino worker. Veloso was arrested on April 25, 2010, at Adisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, after she was found in possession of more than 2.6 kilograms of heroin. She was sentenced to death in October – just six months after her arrest. Indonesia’s Supreme Court upheld the penalty in May 2011.

Texas | Ex-nurse sentenced to death for killing patients

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TYLER, Texas (AP) — A jury sentenced a former Texas nurse to death Wednesday for killing four patients by injecting air into their arteries after heart surgery.

The Smith County jury deliberated about two hours before condemning William George Davis to death.

The 37-year-old Hallsville man’s sentence will be automatically appealed.

The sentence came a week after the same jury found Davis guilty of capital murder.


Jurors agreed with prosecutors that Davis killed four patients at a Tyler hospital in 2017 and 2018. 

John Lafferty, Ronald Clark, Christopher Greenway and Joseph Kalina suffered unexplained neurological problems and died while recovering from their heart surgeries at Christus Mother Frances Hospital.

During the trial’s sentencing phase, prosecutors played for the jury recordings of telephone calls Davis made from jail shortly after the Oct. 19 guilty verdict. 

In a call to his ex-wife, Davis — a nurse in the hospital’s cardiac intensive care unit — said he would find ways to prolong patients’ ICU stays so he could wore mork overtime and make more money.

Prosecution experts testified that all four victims showed signs of air in their brains that caused irreversible damage. 

After the fourth death, security video showed Davis was the last person to see the victim before the man’s condition deteriorated.

Source: The Associated Press, Staff, October 27, 2021


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Texas, USA
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