Doctor Demented: Brazilian Doctor Possibly Responsible For 300 Deaths

A doctor in Brazil is being investigated for the killing of seven terminally ill patients in a hospital, but it may be as many as 300 deaths.

The doctor in question, Virginia Helena Soares de Souza, a 56-year-old widow, as well as seven other physicians are suspected of injecting patients with lethal "drug cocktails" and also messing around with their respirators, said the Brazilian Ministry of Health.

Souza was arrested last month but pending further investigation into the matter, was released on bail last week.

A source inside the Health Ministry said they are reviewing the medical records of 300 additional patients that were treated by Souza.

An investigator said that Souza is possibly responsible for the deaths hundreds more in an interview with Reuters this week.

According to reports, the doctor wanted to provide more hospital beds for other patients. The information was obtained from wiretaps of her phone conversations.

"I want to clear the intensive care unit. It's making me itch," she said in one, according to Reuters. "Unfortunately, our mission is to be go-betweens on the springboard to the next life," she added.

The lead investigator for the Ministry on the matter of the additional 300 deaths, Dr. Mario Lobato, said that "we already have more than 20 cases established, and there are nearly 300 more that we are looking into."

Souza's lawyer, Elias Mattar Assad, has said his client was not guilty of the murders.

"We will soon prove that everything that happened in that ICU was justified by medical procedure," he said in an interview with the Guardian.