Victims from Michigan in the nationwide meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people and sickened 700 others in 2012 are speaking out after the pharmacy's co-founder was acquitted on Monday.
They do not believe justice was served. They wanted co-founder of the New England Compounding Center, Barry Cadden, found guilty of murder because they are among the 700 people who suffered with serious fungal Meningitis going back five years. Michigan, Indiana and Tennessee were the hardest hit states.
A jury acquitted Cadden on 25 counts of Second Degree Murder after five days of deliberations.
Rhonda Hall says she cried when she heard the verdicts because Cadden avoided the most serious convictions. “He deserves life and I think he needs to go to prison for murdering people” Hall told 7 Investigator Jim Kiertzner.
Sally Smith says she had to live with hallucinations and a tube in her stomach.
J. R. Mazure says he’s half the man he used to be and had to sell his country home near Jackson, Michigan because of medical bills.
Hall and Smith took the settlement offer but only get about half after attorney fees and medical insurance getting paid back.
Mazure opted out of the settlement and continues a lawsuit on his own. The company has gone bankrupt. Mazure also wants to speak in court in Boston in June at sentencing. The judge limited the number of victims who would testify at trial.
