Jane Bolding was employed as a nurse at Prince George's Hospital, in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., for nine years before authorities became suspicious of her conduct on the job. For much of that time, she worked the intensive care unit, tending patients in the direst extreme. Death is a daily fact of life in ICU, but during 1984 and early 1985, Jane Bolding's patients died like flies, a startling number suffering from cardiac arrest. On March 9, 1985, she was relieved of duty pending an internal probe of what administrators called "a pattern of unsubstantiated but suspicious information relating to incidents in the intensive care unit."

The investigation yielded grim results. According to statistical analysis, performed by the Federal Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, Bolding had been the attending nurse in 40 percent of all ICU deaths between January 1984 and March 1985. In concrete terms, she had witnessed the deaths of 57 patients; her closest competitor on staff had lost only five patients in the same period, and none of the hospital's remaining 93 nurses had lost more than four. Additionally, Bolding was the Prince George's nurse attending 65 percent of all the patients who experienced a cardiac arrest in ICU during the night shift.

On March 20, 1985, Bolding was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Elinor Dickerson, age 70, who died in ICU at 12:05 a.m., September 29, 1984. According to police, their suspect confessed to injecting the patient with potassium, inducing cardiac arrest in the name of "mercy." While Bolding was released on bond to stay with relatives, authorities announced that they were checking into other recent deaths. It was suggested that the final body-count might run as high as seventeen.

Dismissed from her job on March 26, Bolding was encouraged when the prosecution's case appeared to crumble two days later. The state's attorney for Prince George's County scolded police for arresting the nurse against his wishes, branding her confession insufficient to support a case in court. Bolding's charges were dropped in mid-May, but detectives returned to the search with a vengeance, seizing 200 boxes of hospital records on May 31, scouring the files for information on twenty-two "suspicious" deaths.

On December 16, 1986, a Maryland grand jury indicted Jane Bolding on three counts of murder and seven counts of assault with intent to kill. Elinor Dickerson was back on the list as a victim , joined by patients Isadore Scheiber and Martha Moore. Scheiber allegedly survived two potassium injections, on October 2 and 11, 1984, before a third injection killed him on October 12. Martha Moore was less hardy, surviving only one attack -- on October 27 -- before a second injection finished him off the next day. Patient Mary Morbeto survived a single injection, in March 1984, while Gary Dodson weathered three consecutive attacks a year later, in the week before Bolding's suspension from duty.

After various delays, Jane Bolding's murder trial began in May of 1988, with prosecutors dubbing her a "killing angel." Bolding waived her right to trial by jury, placing her fate in the hands of a judge who promptly declared her confession -- obtained after 33 hours of grilling without an attorney -- inadmissible as evidence . Deprived of the confession, lacking any witnesses, the prosecution had no case. On June 20, 1988, Bolding was acquitted on all counts. At this writing, the Maryland hospital murders remain unsolved.