"Angel of Death" Robert Diaz is Arrested for Murder (November 25, 1981)

Описание: Voiceover: Suspect Robert Diaz planned 12 murders in hospitals and supposedly carried out 1; he denies his involvement; evidence suggests otherwise.
Footage of Diaz being escorted from car in handcuffs into a building by men in civil clothes.
Reporter: Winsor, Bob (ABC News).

Robert Rubane DIAZ

















Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Poisoner - Coronary care nurse
Number of victims: 12
Date of murders: March-April 1981
Date of arrest: November 24, 1981
Date of birth: 1938
Victims profile: Men and women ranging in age from 52 to 89 (hospital patients)
Method of murder: Poisoning (overdoses of the drug Lidocaine)
Location: Riverside County, California, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on April 11, 1984. Died in prison on August 9, 2010






Robert Diaz had always proclaimed to want to be a doctor. He eventually settled for nursing. This apparently wasn't a powerful enough position for Diaz. In April of 1981 an anonymous call was placed to the San Bernadino County coroner claiming that Diaz had possibly killed as many as 19 persons at a hospital in Perris, California. An investigation was immediately begun and it wasn't long before it was obvious that Diaz was responsible for the deaths.

Diaz had been the nurse on duty when all the patients died, which was only a 12 day period. He repeatedly predicted the time that some patients would die, almost precisely. He was even witnessed giving some of the same patients injections prior to their death. Medical records of some of the intensive care patients were missing, and Diaz had access to these records. He worked just one night at San Gregorio Pass Hospital but a patient had died there that night under the same circumstances as the victims in the Perris Community Hospital.

Diaz was arrested in November of 1981 and charged with the deaths of twelve patients. His trial did not take place until March 1984. Samples taken from exhumed bodies showed overdoses of the drug Lidocaine, which was also found in Diaz' home along with syringes and quantities of morphine. He was easily convicted on March 29, 1984 and sentenced to die.

U.S. NEWS AUG. 12, 2010 / 4:33 PM
Nurse dies after 26 years on death row

SAN QUENTIN, Calif., Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Robert Diaz, the "Angel of Death" convicted of killing patients he nursed at two Southern California hospitals, has died after 26 years on death row.

Corrections officials said Diaz, 72, succumbed to natural causes at a hospital near San Quentin Prison, The Riverside Press-Enterprise reported.

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Patrick Magers, a retired judge who prosecuted Diaz, said the investigation began with a cluster of patient deaths at Community Hospital of the Valley in Perris. Bodies were exhumed and tissues tested, and investigators concluded Diaz killed a dozen patients by giving them massive overdoses of lidocaine, which relaxes the muscles of the heart.

Diaz was convicted by a judge of the murder of 12 patients at Community Hospital and another patient at a hospital in Bunning and sentenced to death. During the trial and his years on death row, Diaz insisted he was innocent.

The Department of Corrections released no information on survivors. Diaz's son, Matthew, a lawyer and lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, was sentenced to six months in prison for leaking the names of detainees at Guantanamo.

California now has more than 700 people awaiting execution. Since 1978, the state has put 13 people to death, while more than 50 have died of natural causes and 17 have taken their own lives.