Weitzel

Weitzel's patients' photos on Web

Relatives, others angry over maneuver Commentary on this article>>

Fri, June 21, 2002 What the state released, versus the hospital version>>

By LORETTA PARK
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau

Carolyn Buhman is hurt and angry that psychiatrist Robert Allen Weitzel has posted pictures of her mother, now deceased, on his Web site.

"None of us have those pictures. This is all a smoke screen. He's good at putting things on his Web site so all the bleeding hearts will give him money," Buhman said.

Weitzel is accused of manslaughter and negligent homicide in the deaths of five patients, including Lydia Smith, Buhman's mother. The deaths occurred at Davis Hospital and Medical Center's geriatric-psychiatric unit during a 16-day span that began in December 1995.

Weitzel said the pictures, which he said were taken at the time the patients were admitted to the hospital, show that the elderly patients "were very close to death."

Weitzel is scheduled for a pretrial hearing in 2nd District Court today and his attorneys plan to submit the photos as evidence.

Wally Bugden, Weitzel's private attorney, said the photographs of the three patients (two of the patients' files did not contain photographs) show them in poor health, unlike the photographs used by the prosecutors in the first trial.

In 2000, a jury found Weitzel guilty of two counts of second-degree manslaughter and three misdemeanor counts of negligent homicide. But that conviction was overturned in January 2001, when Judge Thomas Kay, later removed from the case, ruled that the prosecutors had withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.

Bugden said in the first trial, prosecutors used photos of the patients when they were in good health. "In many instances," Bugden said, "(the photographs) were taken years before and do not show an accurate picture."

Patients or a family member signed consent forms at the hospital for the photographs to be taken for identification purposes only. The hospital consent form states that the photos may not be released without written authorization and also if the patient does not remove the photographs at the time of discharge, they become "part of the permanent medical record and treated as confidential."

In a written statement, Mike Jensen, the corporate executive officer of Davis Hospital and Medical Center, said the hospital goes to "great lengths to maintain its patients" privacy and confidentiality.

"In connection with pending litigation, medical records were subpoenaed by and provided in accordance with Utah law to attorneys for Dr. Weitzel. We empathize with our patients" families if others beyond our control have published such records without appropriate consent. We cannot express strongly enough how much we disagree with unauthorized use of such personal medical information."

Under normal circumstances, Weitzel said, he never would have released the photographs. "But I've been charged with murder of my patients, and I've been forced into a position of getting the truth out there."

Buhman said the photographs are not in the copies of the medical records she paid to get from the hospital.

"I really want to know where those pictures came from and why they are not part of my medical records. I've looked through them (the files) several times and cannot find them," she said.

She also said she is not surprised that Weitzel has posted the photographs and contacted the media shortly before his pending court appearance.

"He does something different every time before he goes to court," she said.

Weitzel said he posted the pictures because he wants "the world to see what these prosecutors are willing to do to connive and avoid the truth."

Weitzel and Bugden said they believe the prosecutors withheld the photos from the defense team during the first trial. They said the photos were not in the first defense team's records.

"They were not produced either by the prosecutors or the state. We subpoenaed all of the hospital records this time instead of relying on the government to produce the files," Bugden said.

Weitzel's public defender, Glen Cella, said, "The photographs were obtained from the hospital through a subpoena I personally sent. Who had them before, I have no personal knowledge."

Prosecutor Steve Major said the photographs are included in the medical records obtained by his office and that Weitzel's attorneys in his first trial were aware of them.

He said he and Peter Stirba, Weitzel's attorney during the first trial, went through the records along with a member of the hospital staff. The hospital employee signed an affidavit stating that everything the court had was also in the original files of the patients.

"She (the hospital employee) went back and compared them page by page," Major said.

Davis County Attorney Mel Wilson said he finds posting the photographs on the Web site "offensive."

"What's the purpose?" Wilson said.

"They are not there to shock anybody," Weitzel said. "I just want the truth out there."

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