Care home couple questioned over suspicious deaths

A couple are being questioned by police in connection with the deaths of five people at a residential care home in Somerset.

They have been held since Monday on suspicion of the murder of four women and one man at former Parkfields residential care home in Butleigh, near Glastonbury, theft and unlawful possession of controlled prescribed drugs and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The police are questioning the woman until tonight, and the man until tomorrow, Avon and Somerset police said today.

Rachel Caroline Baker, 45, the manager of Parkfields Residential Care Home, and her husband, Leigh Baker, 48, were initially interviewed by the police in January after a series of suspicious deaths at the care home.

The Commission for Social Care Inspection alerted the police about Parkfields residential care home in January because it had “serious concerns about the standards of care” after the death of an elderly woman on New Year’s Day.

In an unannounced inspection on 24 January, CSCI found “standards had deteriorated significantly since the previous inspection in June 2006” and shut the home on 15 March after moving residents.

More information

CSCI
Avon and Somerset Police

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