Public opinion was against prosecution of the nurses on the basis that they could have had only the most trivial of possible motives for conspiring to commit such extremely serious crimes, and the case was dropped after a retrial had been ordered.
[1][2] The case against Narciso and Perez was considered by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Richard Delonis to be "highly circumstantial", but the defense lawyers felt that it was strong enough that they had to put their clients on the stand, where they appeared evasive.
One man, originally slated to be the lead witness for the prosecution, referred to Perez and Narciso as "slant-eyed bitches" and asserted that there was a nationwide conspiracy of Filipino nurses to murder veterans.
[1][6] The significance of the evidence that the defendants had been in the room shortly before was that the injections of Pavulon, according to the prosecution's experts, must have been administered only minutes before the victims had suffered paralysis and stopped breathing.
The prosecution of Narciso and Perez for the murders became a focal point for many protest groups and Filipinos, who united in their condemnation of the handling of the case and expressed support for both nurses.