A former nurse in the American state of Indiana has appeared in court charged with killing six elderly patients.

Police believe that up to 100 mysterious deaths at the hospital where the accused, Orville Majors, worked may ultimately be linked to him.

Majors, was on duty at the Vermillion County Hospital when 130 patients died in mysterious circumstances in a two-year period from 1993.

Majors first aroused the suspicions of his colleagues in 1994 when the number of deaths at Vermillion County Hospital's intensive care unit began to rise alarmingly.

Most of the patients were elderly and many of them were under Major's care or were in his presence when their conditions suddenly took a turn for the worse.

Hospital staff alerted police when they realised that Majors had been present at all but 17 of the deaths.

A lengthy police investigation revealed the statistic that when Majors was on duty a patient died on average every 23 hours.

The bodies of several patients were exhumed and three of them were found to have signs of injections of potassium chloride which can kill by causing heart problems.

Corporal David Edwards of the local police force said: "Approximately March of '95 we were notified of the concern at the hospital head of an unusal large amount of deaths that was occuring there.

"Once they did a little investigation it was found that one specific person seemed to be on duty each time that the deaths were occurring."

Majors denies causing any of the deaths and has given several interviews saying he was as puzzled as anyone by the high rate of deaths at the hospital.

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