Colin Norris: Fresh doubt over killer nurse conviction

[Northerner]

Four elderly patients of a nurse jailed for at least 30 years for their murders may have died from natural causes, scientific evidence suggests.

"Angel of death" Colin Norris, 37, of Glasgow, was found guilty in 2008 of injecting the four with a fatal dose of insulin, and trying to murder a fifth old woman, at two hospitals in Leeds.

A blood test from one of them had suggested high levels of insulin.

But a BBC Panorama investigation has now thrown this result into question.

Bridget Bourke, Irene Crookes, Ethel Hall and Doris Ludlam, died after hypoglycaemic episodes - when the blood sugar drops to dangerously low levels.

Vera Wilby recovered from a similar hypoglycaemic episode but died later from an unconnected illness.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30448325

A LITRE of insulin? 😱 That would kill an elephant! 😱 Couldn't they check for C-peptide? There's no C-peptide in synthetic insulin, so its presence in high quantities would surely show it wasn't injected - or couldn't they do the test back then?

 

[KookyCat]

They did test for c-peptide but they did it after the hypoglycemia has been rectified so she had high insulin, low c peptide and normal blood sugar. The experts says that doesn't prove anything because there is a condition called insulin autoimmune which would cause hypoglycemia of that sort and interrupt c peptide production. It all seemed a bit confusing so I'm going to look up insulin autoimmune later!

 

[Northerner]

They did test for c-peptide but they did it after the hypoglycemia has been rectified so she had high insulin, low c peptide and normal blood sugar. The experts says that doesn't prove anything because there is a condition called insulin autoimmune which would cause hypoglycemia of that sort and interrupt c peptide production. It all seemed a bit confusing so I'm going to look up insulin autoimmune later!

I don't really understand that The beta cells produce proinsulin, which splits into insulin and C-peptide, so both are produced in equal quantities. How then could insulin be high and c-peptide low if it was the pancreas that produced it? Obviously, sketchy detail from journalist's reports may not be helpful!

 

[Redkite]

A litre of insulin would be 100,000 units!!!! Surely they have that wrong?

I hope they get to the bottom of this, as it would be absolutely terrible if he'd been wrongly convicted, but equally wrong if the patients had been murdered and nobody held responsible....

 

[Northerner]

A litre of insulin would be 100,000 units!!!! Surely they have that wrong?

I hope they get to the bottom of this, as it would be absolutely terrible if he'd been wrongly convicted, but equally wrong if the patients had been murdered and nobody held responsible....

I saw the 'expert' demonstrating it with a syringe that he said would have required huge numbers of injections to get it all into the body. I find it hard to believe that a pancreas could produce 100,000 units in a relatively short space of time, given that (I was told) a healthy pancreas produces about 20 units in a day 😱 I'd love to know how he calculated it!

 

[Pumper_Sue]

As insulin comes in 10 ml vials, what I want to know is where did he hide all the vials after depositing a 1 ltr of insulin into someone?

 

[KookyCat]

Well I'm none the wiser after looking up insulin autoimmune. Apparently you have an immune reaction to insulin which blocks the insulin, then the blood sugar rises and the pancreas which is functioning normally shoots out even more insulin in response to the rapidly elevated blood sugar. That's where it gets sketchy to me because then something happens (I think it's an andrenal system process but not sure) and the body uses all the insulin and you get dangerously low blood sugar. It seems they don't actually know much about it in reality, but there are more reported cases now they know it exists. I still don't understand why the test they did for c peptide wasn't valid. Unless the autoimmune destroys the c peptide? My understanding is you have a+b+c to make pro insulin and then c detaches and a+b live together and make insulin. Hence the presence of c peptide can be used diagnostically to decide whether you're type 1 or 2 because type 1 would be low and type 2 potentially very high....or maybe c peptide has a short duration before it's broken down?

 

[trophywench]

There was a news item last night and I didn't see it all but saw the chap with a horse syringe talking, then Pete was telling me that he said a litre - ?Que? we both said, and he asked me what's in a vial, 10ml, - so that's 100 vials?

However, I do believe that hospitals actually have access to 500u/ml insulin instead of 100u/ml that we use - but that's still 20 empty vials if they are still 3ml.

And how could you possibly inject a whole litre of any stuff into a person?

I 'did' my knee once on holiday in Majorca, well basically I'd landed v heavy on it and bust a blood vessel, so the A & E doc cheerfully syringed all the blood out of it with a horse syringe which he emptied into a huge plastic measuring jug behind him then when he'd finished stuck it in front of my face to show me it was a litre and a half, then lowered it to just under my nose so I could see - and then said several times 'Sangre !' Well yes, dear, I think I'd already guessed that !

Anyway my point here is that my knee was like a ruddy football and the leg either side of it was like a tree trunk it was so swollen - so why weren't the dead people swollen if he'd done that to them ?

I've never thought it would take that much just to kill someone anyway - I don't know of course though I have often wondered, but even though I've wondered, deliberately haven't Googled it or asked eg my DSN - what if I did, then eg Pete suddenly dropped dead just after and they investigated me?

 

[Pumper_Sue]

There was a news item last night and I didn't see it all but saw the chap with a horse syringe talking, then Pete was telling me that he said a litre - ?Que? we both said, and he asked me what's in a vial, 10ml, - so that's 100 vials?

However, I do believe that hospitals actually have access to 500u/ml insulin instead of 100u/ml that we use - but that's still 20 empty vials if they are still 3ml.

And how could you possibly inject a whole litre of any stuff into a person?

u500 is on a named patient bases only. So not kept in hospitals.