Joan Wood Barnes, 53, is accused of cutting the feeding tubes of patients at the Philadelphia Nursing Home on Sept. 22. She was later arrested by police in Toccoa, Ga., at the home of her mother-in-law, and returned to Philadelphia earlier this month.
``Look, I did it. I just don't want to be on the news,'' Barnes allegedly told police the day after the tubes were cut.
Detective Thad Wolkiewicz, who questioned Barnes for hours on Sept. 23, asked her repeatedly whether she had cut the tubes.
After allegedly admitting that she cut the tubes, ``She said she was (denying it) so she could go home and pray overnight,'' Wolkiewicz wrote in the affidavit, which was made public Monday.
At one point, the detective wrote Barnes began to cry and ``stated that she did cut the tubes and that she had been under pressure lately because her husband died in January of this year while having a heart transplant operation.''
Barnes eventually was allowed to go home on the condition that she return the next morning. Instead, she fled to Georgia, where her husband, Thomas, was with her when she was arrested, authorities said.
She was working one of her final shifts at the Philadelphia Nursing Home when the patients' tubes were cut, officials with the home said. The alleged act of sabotage did no harm to the victims. The leaks were discovered almost immediately and the tubes were surgically reattached.
Barnes is charged with six counts each of simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and possession of an instrument of crime. She is being held on $500,000 bail in the city's women's prison.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/10/149379