Nurse suspected of poisoning daughter for insurance money

Nurse suspected of poisoning daughter for insurance money
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

Tokyo, July 17: A Japanese nurse tried to murder her 15-year-old daughter with poisoned tea to collect $278,000 in life insurance, police alleged today.

The 43-year-old non-certified nurse had already collected more than $180,000 in insurance over the deaths in 1997 of her nine-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son, police said.

Their deaths were now also under investigation in Tenri, southwestern Japan, and the nurse was arrested yesterday.

"The mother is suspected of giving the eldest daughter tea laced with an asthma drug, salbutamol sulfate, on May 10 and 16 when the daughter was hospitalised," said a regional police spokesman.

The 15-year-old girl was admitted to hospital three times with a rapid heartbeat and trembling hands, once in March, then in May and finally from June until Sunday.

Salbutamol sulfate, which expands the bronchial air passages, was detected in the remains of the tea and in the girl's urine after police were alerted by suspicious hospital staff, police said.

"Investigators suspect the mother administered the drug to the eldest daughter even at home and places other than the hospital," the spokesman for regional Nara police said.