TWO MEN HAVE been charged with second-degree murder in Las Vegas over the death of a woman they injected with oxygen during a fraudulent “naturopathic” treatment.
Cody Stoneking (50) and Karl Bachman (56) were arrested on Tuesday, having been tracked down in Phoenix Arizona, where they fled following the death of Kim Wang Liu (74) last August.
Liu, accompanied by her daughter, had paid $100 for a treatment the men called “Octozone”, which involved oxygen injections they fraudulently claimed would kill pathogens in the blood stream, local TV station KLAS reports.
Both women underwent two rounds of the treatment, but the elder Liu subsequently began having seizures, went unconscious and later died in hospital of an air embolism, according to Fox 5 TV.
Her daughter Lily tried unsuccessfully to contact Stoneking and Bachman, who had already vacated the apartment where the lived and administered the “Octozone” procedure.
Police in Arizona caught up with the suspects two months later, but they denied causing the elderly woman’s death, and claimed their “Octozone” treatment was for water purification.
It was only when a witness later came forward, also claiming she had undergone the intravenous “Octozone” procedure at the hands of Stoneking and Bachman, that police in Las Vegas arrested them.
In Nevada, second-degree murder involves killing someone unintentionally, but with knowledge that death was a foreseeable outcome.
If convicted, the pair could face a minimum 25-year prison sentence.
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