The trial of a Newcastle nursing home employee charged with murdering two elderly residents and attempting to murder a third has been told he had the ability and opportunity to commit the crimes. Garry Steven Davis, 29, is accused of injecting the residents with large doses of insulin at the SummitCare facility in Wallsend, over a two-day period in October 2013. Gwen Fowler, 83, and Ryan Kelly, 80, died as a result of the injections, while Audrey Manuel, 91, recovered but has since died from unrelated causes. Davis was a team leader at the nursing home. On the opening day of his trial in the NSW Supreme Court in Newcastle, Crown Prosecutor Lee Carr said none of the victims required the drug. “All three … were non-insulin dependent residents,” he said. Mrs Fowler had type 2 diabetes but it was being managed without insulin. After being found in her room unresponsive on October 18, 2013 she was taken to John Hunter Hospital and later returned to the nursing home for palliative care She died the next day and initially, her death raised no suspicions. On October 19 Mrs Manuel also displayed symptoms of being hypoglycaemic and hypothermic. Later that day Mr Kelly became similarly unwell. He died 10 days later. A doctor who noted the similarities between what happened to Mrs Manuel and Mr Kelly became suspicious. Mr Carr said test results showed “large levels of insulin in the blood that was not naturally occurring”. The court heard that from January 2013 a new policy came into effect preventing team leaders at SummitCare from administering drugs such as insulin. All three residents were said to have been in relatively good health before the incidents. Prosecutor Lee Carr said they were “well liked, a pleasure to deal with”. The evidence against Davis includes text messages sent to colleagues, in which he predicted two of the nursing home’s residents would die.
