Kenneth Lancelot Silvera was 82 when he died at Community Hospital of the Valleys in Perris, California, during the early morning hours of April 14, 1981. He had been admitted with chest pain, palpitations, congestive heart failure and pulmonary edema and was treated in the intensive-care unit. Around 1:00 a.m. a nurse gave 100 milligrams of lidocaine and additional lidocaine was administered later; Silvera suffered violent seizures that morning and stopped breathing at about 7:15 a.m., with resuscitation briefly restoring him before he died at about 7:32 a.m.

Toxicologists reported tissue concentrations they considered much higher than therapeutic levels and estimated he received roughly 1,000 milligrams of lidocaine shortly before death. A prosecution pathologist attributed the death to lidocaine poisoning associated with hypertensive heart failure; defense experts cited severe underlying heart and respiratory disease as alternative explanations and pointed to inconsistent witness memories and sparse nursing documentation. The trial judge found the prosecution evidence credible and later the California Supreme Court ruled there was substantial evidence supporting the conviction of the nurse involved in a series of hospital deaths.

Did anyone have contact with Mr Silvera at the hospital that night or recall unusual activity in the intensive-care unit?