Nurse suspect in care home deaths

A REGISTERED nurse and her husband were arrested yesterday on suspicion of murdering five elderly residents at a care home in south-west England, police said.

Rachel and Leigh Baker were originally questioned on suspicion of administering a noxious substance after the death of a 97-year-old woman at the home in Butleigh, near Glastonbury, on January 1.

The investigation led to the exhumation of the remains of three other former residents to establish if they had been poisoned.

Another three residents at the now-defunct care home, whose deaths were being treated as suspicious, had already been cremated.

The Bakers, aged 45 and 48, were detained when they returned to answer their bail, Avon and Somerset police said in a statement.

They are being questioned on suspicion of having murdered four women and one man.

They are also suspected of theft, unlawful possession of prescribed drugs and attempting to pervert the course of justice.