Frederick LaGois, 60, died on October 9, 1987, at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip while hospitalized and awaiting surgery for a prostate condition. Initial appearances suggested a sudden medical crisis, but a fellow patient reported seeing a bearded nurse inject an intravenous line and then go into respiratory distress. Autopsy and toxicology detected Pavulon, a powerful paralytic, and Suffolk County Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch concluded the death was caused by Pavulon poisoning and ruled it a homicide.

Investigators focused on a Lindenhurst nurse, Richard Angelo, who was linked by indictments to LaGois’s death and to a pattern of similar emergencies in which the same nurse repeatedly led resuscitations. Authorities exhumed dozens of bodies from patients who died while Angelo worked at the hospital to test for the drug. At trial Angelo did not deny giving injections but sought to explain his actions through expert testimony about mental illness; prosecutors argued the injections were deliberate and deadly. Courts later recorded convictions for homicide and assault connected to these hospital injections and imposed a lengthy prison sentence.