Police in Arizona are launching a search warrant Tuesday to get DNA from all male employees at the nursing facility where a woman who has been in a vegetative state for nearly a decade gave birth last month.
The woman, who gave birth to a boy on December 29, is a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe and has long been in a vegetative state, her name would not be released by police in order to protect her privacy.
Male staff members at a Hacienda Healthcare center in Phoenix, Arizona, were asked to give DNA samples as part of an investigation into how the patient got pregnant.
In a statement, board member Gary Orman said Hacienda “will accept nothing less than a full accounting of this absolutely horrifying situation”.
“We will do everything in our power to ensure the safety of every single one of our patients and our employees,” Orman said.
The facility’s CEO, Bill Timmons, resigned earlier in this week. A vice president for the board, which unanimously approved Timmons’s resignation, released a statement vowing to “accept nothing less than a full accounting of this absolutely horrifying situation, an unprecedented case that has devastated everyone involved, from the victim and her family to Hacienda staff at every level of our organization.”
Arizona Department of Health Services says it will conduct an inspection of the nursing facility and detectives in Phoenix have already opened a sexual assault investigation.
