A nursing assistant murdered seven elderly veterans with insulin Now

Melanie Proctor doesn’t know how to put into words the devastation wrought by the nursing assistant who murdered her father and a half-dozen other elderly veterans at a hospital in West Virginia. She writes a few thoughts, takes time to think, and writes a few more as she prepares to face the serial killer and deliver a victim impact statement during a sentencing hearing in federal court Tuesday.“At this point, what do you say?” Proctor said in an interview. "I want to see her spend the rest of her life in jail and no chance of her ever seeing the light of day."Still, she said, "I want to say something so people realize that this isn’t about her; this is about her victims.”Reta Mays, 46, pleaded guilty last year to seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of assault with intent to commit murder for a string of killings from mid-2017 through June 2018 at the U. S. Veterans Affairs hospital in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Mays admitted to giving the veterans, aged 81 to 96, lethal doses of insulin, according to court records. She could receive seven life sentences plus an additional 20 years in prison. One of her lawyers, public defender Brian Kornbrath, said last week they plan to ask for a shorter sentence. He declined to say what mitigating factors they might present and wouldn't comment on Mays’ case. The Clarksburg VA draws patients from across the region, serving about 70,000 veterans in north-central West Virginia and nearby Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Mays, hired by the VA in 2015, was assigned to work the night shift in Ward 3A. As a nursing assistant, she checked vital signs and sugar levels and acted as a one-on-one sitter for patients requiring close observation. She was not allowed to administer medication, including insulin, according to her plea agreement. A USA TODAY investigation in 2019 found that a string of oversights at the hospital may have cost veterans’ lives. Insulin wasn’t adequately tracked, and there were no surveillance cameras on the ward where Mays worked. Staff didn’t conduct key tests to figure out why patients were experiencing severe episodes of low blood sugar. Nor did they file reports that could have triggered investigations. By the time a doctor alerted hospital leaders to the deaths in June 2018, at least eight patients had died under the same suspicious circumstances on the same ward. Three deaths occurred within three days. When a doctor checked on him shortly before 2 a.m., his pupils were pinpoints, he was struggling to breathe, he was foaming at the mouth and his blood sugar had dropped so dangerously low he never recovered, medical records show. McDermott is "Count Six" in a court filing outlining the charges against Mays.“I don't even want to ask her why, because whatever comes out of her mouth is going to be a lie,” Proctor said last week.


All data is taken from the source: http://usatoday.com
Article Link: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/05/09/va-serial-killer-reta-mays-sentenced-tuesday-seven-deaths/4978545001/


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