Bertha Mae Boyce was 75 when she died in the intensive care unit at Community Hospital of the Valleys in Perris during the early morning of April 23, 1981. Admitted with congestive heart failure and chronic pulmonary disease, she deteriorated during the night shift that began April 22. Around 3:00 a.m. nurse Robert Rubane Diaz called her physician for permission to give lidocaine for premature ventricular contractions; the physician arrived about 4:00 a.m. and stepped away briefly. On return, Boyce was no longer breathing and then suffered a violent seizure; she died roughly three hours later.

Two preloaded syringes labeled with her name and dated 4-22-81 were recovered and later tested as containing about 22.6 percent and 20.9 percent lidocaine. Prosecution specialists concluded she received a massive lidocaine overdose and that the overdose, together with arteriosclerotic heart disease, caused her death. The death became part of a larger investigation into a cluster of similar ICU deaths during Diaz’s night shifts.

Was anyone at the hospital able to account for the handling of Boyce’s medications that night or for who accessed her syringe tray?