Kristen Gilbert Trial: 2000-01

In the end, the judge and the appeals court handed down a series of rulings that finally allowed the trial to begin on October 16, 2000, at the federal courthouse in Springfield, Massachusetts. The selection of a jury was complicated because it was a capital case that would almost certainly go on for several months, which meant that large numbers of potential jurors would be excused. After an exhaustive process, which included having hundreds of potential jurors fill out a 17-page questionnaire, a jury of 12 and six alternates was seated on November 17. The proceedings then began on November 20.

In its opening statement, the government claimed that Gilbert had injected epinephrine in order to induce medical crises in these patients so that she could then appear instantly at their bedside to participate in attempts to save these men. Her motive for doing so? To "show off in front of her new boyfriend, James Perrault, a policeman on the staff at the VA Hospital who, in line with hospital policy, was required to be present during such an emergency. The defense said it would establish that there was simply not enough proof that these men had died from the epinephrine injections, and that in any case, there was not enough proof that Gilbert had been the one to inject them with it.

Anticipating that it was going to be a long trial, Judge Michael A. Ponsor had advised all the lawyers involved to exercise regularly: "It's a marathon, not a sprint." His premonition proved correct. Week after week the government called its witnesses to the stand as it tried to build up a "compelling wall of guilt," as the chief prosecutor called it, one that would hold up against reasonable doubt. Doctors testified that the alleged victims had not shown indications of being in risk of dying. Medical specialists testified to the effects of epinephrine. Nurses testified to their growing suspicions about Gilbert's actions, particularly about the empty epinephrine vials at the bedside of dead patients after she had been present.

But the prosecution's case took a dramatic turn on January 5, 2001, when the government admitted that the results of tests from a toxicology laboratory, which had analyzed the amounts of epinephrine in the alleged victims, were in error. The results did not, after all, establish the presence of the high levels on which the charges were based. The government agreed that it would no longer use these results as the basis of their case. Once the prosecution admitted this, the defense moved to stop certain witnesses from giving any testimony, but Judge Ponsor, although admitting it was an "extremely disturbing development," chose instead to advise the jurors that the now discredited toxicology evidence was being withdrawn. Further complicating the prosecution's case was the fact that two of the alleged victims had been given epinephrine during the unsuccessful efforts to resuscitate them.

Most of the prosecution's case was based on rather technical testimony, but some of the more human testimony came from relatives of the dead veterans who described how suddenly and inexplicably their loved ones had died. Two of the more dramatic witnesses were Gilbert's ex-husband and James Perrault, the policeman with whom she was having an affair at the time of the incidents. Glenn Gilbert claimed that on two occasions she had confessed to the murders; Perrault told a similar story, that she had told him she "killed all those guys."

There were few light moments in such a trial, but one came when Dr. Michael Baden, a nationally recognized forensic pathologist, was correcting a mistake he had made in referring to the condition of one of the alleged victim's heart. He said the mistake was merely a "senile moment"—he had meant to say "senior moment." The defense inevitably jumped on this second misstatement to challenge Baden's testimony.

After 10 weeks of the prosecution's case, the defense took over. In crossexaminations, they had already attacked the motives of various witnesses for the prosecution, charging for instance, that Perrault hoped to get a promotion by testifying on behalf of the hospital's authorities. Now the defense offered their own witnesses who testified to Gilbert's reputation as a competent, caring nurse; they tried to turn the prosecution's case inside out, claiming that her frequent presence at the side of patients with cardiac arrest demonstrated her expertise.

Gilbert herself did not take the stand. But the defense called on various medical specialists who cast doubt on whether these men had in fact died from epinephrine—even claiming that the records showed they had died of natural causes. Under cross-examination by the prosecution, however, the chief medical expert for the defense conceded that, although the deaths were most likely natural, "anything is possible."