AIDS-Infected Prostitute Refused to Quit

BOSTON--A heroin-addicted prostitute who claimed she would continue selling sex to earn drug money, despite her belief she has AIDS, will receive methadone treatments to keep her off the streets, Mayor Raymond L. Flynn said after seeing the woman at a hospital.

"She's very happy with that and she indicated to us and the medical people that she would not go back out to the Combat Zone as a prostitute," Flynn said yesterday in reference to Boston's red-light district.

The mayor visited Patricia Murray at Boston City Hospital one day after she told reporters that her $250-a-day drug habit made selling sex necessary.

Murray's plight gained notoriety after she was arrested on a prostitution charge Feb. 15, and although she told police she thought she had AIDS, was released on $120 bail.

An outcry followed when she failed to appear for a court date last week, prompting Flynn to announce a new policy allowing police to indefinitely detain prostitutes and drug users who, through illegal activities, could spread AIDS.

Murray, 29, checked into BCH on Friday for treatment of painful leg ulcers and a skin infection called cellulitis, both believed to be related to her drug use rather than acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

The eighth-grade parochial school dropout from South Boston said Saturday she had been addicted to heroin for eight years and was rejected three times previously for long-term methadone treatment.

Murray said she based her belief that she has AIDS on her past sharing of needles with drug users who later contracted the disease, weight loss and other symptoms.

Repeated attempts to reach Murray on yesterday were unsuccessful.

However, her mother, also named Patricia Murray, said the family likely would reveal results today of an AIDS test her daughter took several weeks ago at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Mrs. Murray also said she hoped her daughter would be left alone to heal in peace. "It's time for her to get some rest. I think she's had enough."

Neil Sullivan, Flynn's policy director, defended the mayor's decision to put Murray ahead of others on a methadone program waiting list despite the absence of evidence she has AIDS.

"What you have is a situation that was highly traumatic for her, but also highly traumatic for people in general," Sullivan said.

He said he believed it was unlikely she claimed she had the disease to gain admission to a program she had been rejected by in the past.

"I don't think she's somebody capable of that level of manipulation," Sullivan said. "She was obviously a person in distress, a woman in obvious pain."

Accompanying Flynn to his meeting with Murray were Ann Maguire, liason to the gay and lesbian communities; Larry Kessler, director of the AIDS Action Committee; and Lew Pollack, commissioner of BCH, Sullivan said.