Nurse facing murder trial commits suicide on eve of hearing

<p>A nurse charged with murdering her husband with an insulin injection jumped to her death from an Atlanta hotel window on the eve of a court hearing.</p><p>A passer-by discovered the body of Leona Mattson, 56, of Taunton, in the driveway of The Georgian Terrace Hotel on Peachtree Street on Tuesday morning.</p><p>Atlanta police Sgt. John Quigley said Mattson jumped.</p><p>"Everything points toward a suicide," he said.</p><p>Mattson was charged with murdering Alfred Mattson, 53, her husband of more than 30 years, by injecting him with insulin in May 2001. Alfred Mattson fell into a coma and died 12 days later. Leona Mattson was charged with murder and had a pretrial hearing scheduled for Wednesday.</p><p>Mattson had two sons and a daughter and served on the board of the Brockton Visiting Nurses Association.</p><p>Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh, in a statement, said Leona Mattson's death results in an "unfinished quest for truth and justice."</p><p>Colleagues said that Mattson was innocent</p><p>"We know that she was innocent, and it would have been proven that she was innocent," said Ellen Marlette, a spokeswoman for the Brockton Visiting Nurse Association.</p><p>Marlette said Mattson was "beloved by everyone, ... a mentor to younger nurses."</p><p>Mattson's attorney, Kevin Reddington, called his client a "very, very nice woman."</p><p>"It's a very sad case, a very sad situation. I just feel bad for everybody," he told The Associated Press.</p>

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