SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — Two emergency workers in Springfield, Illinois, were charged with first-degree murder after a patient they transported in an ambulance died.
Peggy Finley and Peter Cadigan were charged in connection to the death of 35-year-old Earl Moore Jr, Sangamon County State’s Attorney Dan Wright announced Tuesday.
Both Finley and work for Lifestar, a private ambulance company.
Springfield Police said in December 2022, Earl Moore Jr. called 911 because he saw multiple people with guns. Officers then met someone outside who claimed Moore Jr. was experiencing a hallucinatory episode and needed medical assistance.
Finley and Cadigan were called by Springfield Police to transport Moore Jr. to the hospital. The state’s attorney said the EMS workers put him on the stretcher face-down.
Coroner Jim Allmon classified his death as a “homicide” from asphyxiation “due to prone face-down restraint on a paramedic transportation cot/stretcher by tightened straps across the back.”
“Knowing based upon their training, experience, and the surrounding circumstances that such acts would create bodily harm and/or death, in violation of the Criminal Code of the state of Illinois, potential penalties faced by both defendants include a range of 20 to 60 years in the Department of Corrections,” Wright said.
One of the EMS workers, Peter Cadigan, was previously investigated for a death when an ambulance he was driving hit and killed a child. The family filed a wrongful death suit; however, a judge ruled Cadigan was not culpable for failing to stop in time.
