Death Without Dignity: The Story of the First Nursing Home Corporation Indicted for Murder

The six-month, nationally publicized trial in 1985 of five executives of a corporate chain of Texas nursing homes for the murder of an 87-year-old woman and deaths caused to other inmates through abuse and neglect, serves as a warning of the dangers of a system not equipped to care for an increasingly aging population, stresses Long, a Texas journalist. In this exposition of a major social problem inadequately funded by Social Security, the author credits a Galveston assistant district attorney for uncovering patient abuses, described here in harrowing detail, and doggedly pursuing the case despite political pressure from the powerful nursing home lobby and his own superiors. The courtroom drama and its participantspatients, their families, medical staff, corporate and legal figuresare vividly portrayed. Considered the most expensive criminal trial in Texas history, the case was ended by the granting of a defense motion for a mistrial. Photos not seen by PW. (April)