On September 24, 2006, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a segment called “Was It Murder?” in which Dr. Anna Pou, a New Orleans head and neck surgeon, spoke publicly for the first time about the second-degree murder charges filed against her over patient deaths at Memorial Medical Center after Hurricane Katrina. Her line to correspondent Morley Safer became the defining moment of the broadcast: “I am not a murderer, that we are not murderers.”1CBS News. Was It Murder? Ten months later, a grand jury declined to indict her.
What Pou Said on 60 Minutes
The segment aired while criminal charges were still pending. Pou described Memorial during the storm as “suffocating” and “pitch black,” with interior temperatures around 110 degrees, and told Safer she did not believe in euthanasia. “What I do believe in is comfort care, and that means that we ensure that they do not suffer pain,” she said.1CBS News. Was It Murder?
Nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo, who had been arrested alongside Pou, appeared with her and called the hospital a “hellhole.” Because of pending civil lawsuits, their attorneys barred all three from discussing specifics of what they had done inside Memorial.1CBS News. Was It Murder?
Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti also appeared. He repeated his allegation that four patients had died from a “lethal cocktail” of morphine and the sedative midazolam, and said as many as nine patients may have been killed.1CBS News. Was It Murder? Much of the medical community rallied to Pou’s defense after the broadcast, and the segment shaped public perception of the case for years.
The Charges Against Pou
Foti announced the arrests on July 18, 2006. Pou, Landry, and Budo were charged with second-degree murder in the deaths of four patients ranging in age from 61 to 90.2NPR. New Orleans Doctor, Nurses Charged With Murder Foti called the killings “plain and simple homicide” and said the accused were “people that were maybe pretending they were God.”3Journal of Ethics, American Medical Association. Accusation of Murder in New Orleans and the Media Response
Investigators focused on events of Thursday, September 1, 2005, the fourth day of the crisis inside the flooded hospital. Power had failed, backup generators had given out, running water was gone, and staff had been told rescue was not coming.1CBS News. Was It Murder? Doctors had sorted patients into three categories, with the sickest and those with Do Not Resuscitate orders — many of them on the seventh-floor LifeCare unit — designated to be evacuated last. Toxicology and autopsy reviews later identified at least 17 patients with morphine, midazolam, or both in their systems at death.4ProPublica. The Deadly Choices at Memorial A forensic pathologist hired by the attorney general’s office reviewed four cases and concluded the deaths were homicides caused by human intervention.5Journal of Ethics, American Medical Association. The Case of Dr. Anna Pou: Physician Liability in Emergency Situations
One case became central. Emmett Everett was a 61-year-old paraplegic LifeCare patient weighing 380 pounds who was awake, alert, and had fed himself breakfast that morning, asking staff, “So are we ready to rock and roll?” He died later the same day.6ProPublica. On the Frontlines at Memorial Medical Center
Pou has acknowledged administering medications to some Category 3 patients but denied any intent to kill. In a 2007 Newsweek interview she said her goal was to “help the patients that were having pain and sedate the patients who were anxious.”4ProPublica. The Deadly Choices at Memorial She later added: “If in doing so it hastened their deaths, then that’s what happened. But, this was not, ‘I’m going to go to the seventh floor and murder some people.'” A separate physician present at Memorial, Dr. John Thiele, described the situation differently: “The goal was death; our goal was to let these people die.”7Sheri Fink. Dr. Anna Pou
The Grand Jury and Why the Case Collapsed
Foti’s public commentary drew criticism from legal observers who said his statements risked prejudicing potential jurors and violated rules of professional conduct. Foti was running for re-election at the time.3Journal of Ethics, American Medical Association. Accusation of Murder in New Orleans and the Media Response In October 2007 he became the first Louisiana attorney general in more than 35 years to lose a primary, finishing last in a three-way race.8ABC News. Attorney General Foti Loses Primary
The prosecution also ran into a coroner who would not classify the deaths as homicides. In January 2007, Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard cited inconclusive toxicology and the deteriorated state of bodies not recovered until weeks after the storm.9Reuters. Murder Charges Dropped Against Katrina Doctor10NBC News. Doctor: I Got Rid of Patient After Katrina11Courthouse News Service. Coroner Clears New Orleans Doctor Again Cook was never charged.
In June 2007, Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan dropped charges against Landry and Budo in exchange for grand jury testimony given under conditions that prevented its use against them.9Reuters. Murder Charges Dropped Against Katrina Doctor On July 24, 2007, the grand jury declined to indict Pou, and Jordan declared the criminal investigation closed. Foti objected, saying Jordan had failed to present all available evidence, including five experts who had concluded the deaths were homicides.12NPR. New Orleans Doctor Not Indicted for Mercy Killings
Because Pou was never tried, she was neither convicted nor formally exonerated. Under Louisiana law there is no statute of limitations on murder. In 2010, then-Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro testified in a related civil proceeding that he believed “human beings were killed as a result of actions by doctors,” but took no further criminal action.7Sheri Fink. Dr. Anna Pou
Civil Cases and the Tenet Settlement
The criminal case ended, but civil claims did not. As of 2008, three wrongful-death lawsuits were pending against Pou, and she cited that litigation as her reason for not discussing specifics publicly.13New England Journal of Medicine. After Katrina: New Orleans Physicians Reflect Pou eventually settled those claims. According to people familiar with the agreements, the settlements included confidentiality clauses that barred families from speaking publicly about what they believed happened to their relatives.7Sheri Fink. Dr. Anna Pou Carrie Everett, Emmett Everett’s widow, had filed wrongful-death suits against Tenet, LifeCare, Pou, and the two nurses.6ProPublica. On the Frontlines at Memorial Medical Center
A separate class action targeted Tenet Healthcare over emergency unpreparedness. Plaintiffs alleged Tenet had ignored a 2004 Army Corps of Engineers warning that Memorial could be surrounded by 12 to 15 feet of water and had declined to move critical electrical equipment above the ground floor.14ProPublica. Trial to Open in Lawsuit Connected to Hospital Deaths After Katrina Tenet settled the class action in July 2011 for $25 million while denying the allegations.15Fierce Healthcare. Tenet Settles Katrina Lawsuit for $25M LifeCare, which had run the seventh-floor unit, reached separate confidential settlements with nearly all plaintiffs.
Louisiana’s Disaster Immunity Laws
After her arrest, Pou helped draft and pass three Louisiana laws that grant healthcare professionals immunity from most civil lawsuits for actions taken during declared disasters, absent evidence of “willful misconduct.” The laws also encourage prosecutors to wait for findings from a medical review panel before charging medical professionals in disaster situations. Pou testified before the Louisiana Legislature in support of the bills and has since advised state and national medical organizations on disaster preparedness, arguing that standards like informed consent cannot hold during catastrophes.4ProPublica. The Deadly Choices at Memorial
The American Medical Association backed her throughout the case. Board chairman Edward Langston called the physicians involved “bright lights during New Orleans’ darkest hour.”5Journal of Ethics, American Medical Association. The Case of Dr. Anna Pou: Physician Liability in Emergency Situations
Where Things Stand
As of 2022, Pou was still practicing as a head and neck oncologic surgeon in Louisiana and continued her advocacy for legal protections for healthcare workers in emergencies. The families of the patients who died at Memorial, bound by confidentiality clauses, have largely been unable to tell their own accounts publicly.7Sheri Fink. Dr. Anna Pou Forty-five bodies were recovered from the hospital after the storm.5Journal of Ethics, American Medical Association. The Case of Dr. Anna Pou: Physician Liability in Emergency Situations What happened on the seventh floor of Memorial Medical Center on September 1, 2005 has never been resolved in a courtroom.