Cadden ‘gets to get away with murder’
Decision breaks daughter’s heart
The last months of Carol Wetton’s life were “pure hell.”
The Kentucky great-grandmother had gotten a steroid shot to ease her back pain in September 2012 — and seven months later, she was dead.
The injection was among the contaminated drugs recklessly made at Barry Cadden’s mold-ridden New England Compounding Center in Framingham. The millionaire’s tainted injections caused a nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis that killed 64 people and infected more than 750 others.
Yesterday, a federal jury found Cadden guilty of racketeering, conspiracy and mail fraud — but acquitted him of 25 second-degree murder charges.
Wetton, age 71, was among those 25.
“I’m mad that he gets to get away with murder,” her heartbroken daughter, Diana Cottrell, told me yesterday. “He might as well have just been a terrorist and pulled out a gun. This family lost a lot. We lost our backbone.”
Before the injection, Diana’s mother had just traveled to London with her husband and was looking forward to camping in their RV. They had just bought a new mobile home.
Carol Wetton had undergone back surgery a year before but she needed another one. She relished Christmas, and loved making fudge and sugar cookies for the kids to decorate, so she decided to wait until after the holidays to undergo surgery, her daughter said.
Shortly after the injection, Wetton had trouble walking. She thought the injection may have hit a nerve. She spent most of the last months of her life hospitalized. She couldn’t walk, stand or sit up. Her kidneys were failing.
“It was pure hell,” recalled her daughter, who lives in Tennessee, just 40 minutes from her late mother’s home. “She had pain every day.”
Wetton was eventually put on life support, and when her family made the agonizing decision to take her off it, she lived for another two days.
“That was the two worst days of my life,” Cottrell said.
After learning of the verdict yesterday, anger, sadness and bitterness washed over Cottrell. She recalled how her churchgoing mother used to make little Christmas trees for nursing home patients who didn’t have families. She cooked Sunday dinners and hosted holidays. Had she lived, she would have turned 75 this week.
“She was always giving,” her daughter said.
Cottrell misses her terribly. While her mother and countless others suffered horribly and died, Cadden lived a life of luxury.
“When it comes down to it, it’s all about money,” said Cottrell. “I can’t even understand why he doesn’t have a conscience. How do you look at yourself in the mirror knowing your profit was more important than people’s lives?