FRANCE: French police released four drifters and a former psychiatric patient yesterday after questioning them about the gruesome killing of two hospital nurses, one beheaded and one stabbed to death, officials said.
Hospital workers arriving for the Saturday morning shift found the two bodies in the geriatric psychiatry ward of the main hospital in the southwestern town of Pau. The head of the decapitated woman had been left on a television set. Slice wounds on the corpses indicated the killer probably used a sword or machete, police sources said.
Pau local prosecutor Mr Eric Maurel said he would launch a judicial inquiry into the double murder in a few days but gave no other information about any suspects.
In Paris, health minister Mr Philippe Douste-Blazy held an emergency meeting to review security in hospitals. Pau hospital complained to him during his visit on Saturday of a mounting lack of security there, due partly to staff cuts. "The people who have been questioned seem to belong to a marginal milieu and be addicted to alcohol," Mr Maurel said while the five were still being questioned.
Sources close to the investigation said four of the men, taken in for questioning after an anonymous call to the police, were local drifters in their 30s known to law enforcement authorities.
The fifth was a former patient with violent tendencies who left the hospital only last Monday. "He has nothing to do with the others," the source said. "The hospital staff brought him to the attention of the police."
"We are not ruling out any theories, we're checking everything," Mr Maurel said on Saturday.