SUSPECTED FLORIDA MUNCHAUSEN TRIAL
				July 20 Update (Opening Statements) July 21 Update July 22 Update Aug. 3 Update Aug. 26 Update Sept. 29 Update Oct. 5 Update Oct. 6 Update Oct. 7 (The Verdict)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Court TV) — Several nurses who cared for Jennifer Bush during her numerous hospital visits suggested Tuesday that Bush's mother tampered with her IV tubes and medication. But none of the witnesses saw Kathy Bush actually harm her child.

These witnesses are trying to help Florida prosecutors prove that Kathy Bush has Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, an illness that causes parents to harm or fabricate illnesses in their children in order to get attention for themselves. Bush is on trial for aggravated child abuse for allegedly making her daughter Jennifer chronically sick over a two-year period. She could face 15 years in prison if convicted.

The testimony of Tuesday's witnesses was intended to help prosecutors provide a foundation to introduce evidence about Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy. Presiding Judge Victor Tobin ruled before trial that prosecutors cannot specifically mention Bush's alleged Munchausen disorder until they introduce evidence about it.

Prosecutors have told jurors that Jennifer's several hospital trips made doctors and nurses suspicious of child abuse as early as mid-1990. According to prosecutor Dennis Nicewander, officials at Coral Springs Medical Center in Florida reported the defendant to the state child welfare agency at that time, but investigators did not take action until a report was filed by another hospital in 1995.

Laurie Bulman, a nurse who treated Jennifer Bush at Coral Springs, testified Tuesday that she submitted samples of Jennifer's vomit for testing because she and other nurses suspected Kathy Bush of giving her prohibited anti-seizure medication. Jennifer's doctors, Bulman said, had ordered Bush to stop giving Jennifer the medication. Test results revealed that Jennifer's vomit contained the ant-seizure medication.

But Bush's attorney, Robert Buschel, noted that Bulman submitted the sample without receiving treating doctors' permission and suggested that she had committed a crime. Buschel suggested that Bulman was only interested in furthering the prosecution's theory of child abuse.

Robin Neubert, a nurse who cared for Jennifer at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Fla., told jurors how the alleged victim's feeding pump suddenly speeded up on April 15, 1995. After leaving Bush alone with her daughter, Neubert said, the IV machine's pumping speed increased to more than seven times the rate at which she had set it. Neubert also claimed that the amount of liquid increased then decreased while mother and daughter were alone.

But on cross-examination, Neubert admitted that she never checked to see if the machine malfunctioned. She also conceded that, for a time, the Bushes were not alone in the hospital room — another patient and her father were also present. Neubert also said that the contents of Jennifer's intravenous food bag were tested and contained only food and no suspicious chemicals.

Between August 1993 and April 1995, Bush took her now 12-year-old daughter Jennifer to the hospital on 130 separate occasions. Jennifer Bush underwent approximately 40 surgeries for chronic illnesses such as immune system deficiency disorder, gastrointestinal problems, and seizure disorders.

Bush denies suffering from a mental disorder and claims that she never purposely harmed her daughter. She insists that Jennifer was critically ill and has a genetic gastrointestinal illness and an immune system deficiency disorder.

—Bryan Robinson