Per Newsday, all of Richard Angelo’s victims were men above the age of 50, and four were over 70. That the patients were all middle-aged or older — each suffering from a different ailment and some from serious medical conditions — became part of Judge Alfred Tisch’s commentary ahead of sentencing. “Was your conduct any less horrible merely because your patients were elderly?” he asked Angelo rhetorically (per Newsday). “No. You had no right to usurp God’s function.”
By his own confession and by the testimony of one surviving victim, Angelo would enter the rooms of his victims in his capacity as a nurse (per Newsday and The New York Times). He would then inject them with paralyzing drugs. He used Anectine and, primarily, Pavulon, both skeletal muscle relaxants used to help in inserting a tracheal tube. Administration requires trained professionals and tools for artificial respiration in case of a reaction, and the drugs can induce anaphylaxis.
Read Related Also: Police chief turned yoga instructor insists Ashli Babbitt is not dead before Jan. 6 judge locks him up for more than a decade
Pavulon was the drug the authorities searched for when exhuming bodies in the Angelo case, and it was Pavulon the common link among those he was accused of assaulting or killing. Gerolamo Kuchich, the man who survived his attack, testified that he leaped out of bed after Angelo had injected him. Struggling to breathe, he called out to his family, fearing that they would think him a victim of a heart attack.
