Former Pennsylvania nurse linked to 17 nursing home deaths

A former Pennsylvania nurse accused of killing two patients with lethal doses of insulin is facing more murder charges and has confessed to trying to kill another 19 people at several locations, authorities said Thursday.

In May, Heather Pressdee, 41, admitted to authorities that she planned to kill three patients in her care with insulin doses, resulting in her arrest for two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.

Now the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office says Ms. Pressdee has admitted to trying to kill 19 other insulin patients at five different rehabilitation centers across the state as early as 2020 and as recently as this year. In total, authorities say 17 patients died under Ms Pressdee’s care.

The new charges announced Thursday include two additional murders, 17 attempted murders and 19 counts of neglect of a dependent.

Ms. Pressdee was arraigned on Thursday, but it was unclear what plea she had entered. A message left with her attorney, Phillip P. DiLucente, was not immediately returned.

“The allegations against Ms. Pressdee are disturbing,” Attorney General Michelle Henry said in a statement press release. “It is difficult to understand how a nurse, who has the confidence to care for her patients, could choose to deliberately and systematically harm them.”

According to the attorney general’s office, first-degree murder charges were only filed against Ms. Pressdee in cases where “physical evidence” was available. The seventeen attempted murder charges were filed in cases where “the victims either survived the excessive insulin dose or the cause of death could not be determined.”

She is accused of assaulting a total of 22 patients, ranging in age from 43 to 104 years old.

One of the victims was Marianne Bower, 68, who died under Ms Pressdee’s care at Belair Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Lower Burrell in September 2021.

For two years, relatives believed Mrs. Bower had died of respiratory problems. Then, in September, investigators told them that Ms. Pressdee had admitted to killing Ms. Bower, who was not diabetic, with insulin, according to Rob Peirce, a lawyer representing Ms. Bower’s estate in a separate wrongful death lawsuit against the rehabilitation. Centre.

“This is one of the worst cases we’ve seen where someone in health care went from facility to facility and unfortunately admitted to killing multiple people,” Mr. Peirce said in a telephone interview.

Ms Bower’s family want to know how Ms Pressdee was able to work at 11 rehabilitation centers for five years since 2018, Mr Peirce said.

Belair Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the lawsuit, center employees began noticing that Ms. Pressdee was exhibiting “disturbing behavior” and that the health of patients in her care would “deteriorate unexpectedly.”

Several staff members, the lawsuit states, began calling her the Killer Nurse.

That same year, the state health department investigated the center after discovering a pattern in which residents showed signs of acute diabetes complications, the lawsuit said.

Ms. Pressdee told Health Ministry investigators that she had not called the hospital’s doctor to treat such a patient, which was against the center’s policy. The health department listed the rehabilitation center in August 2021 and deemed its residents to be in “imminent danger,” according to the lawsuit.

Yet the lawsuit continued and the center failed to investigate Ms Pressdee further.

The criminal complaint The statement filed by the attorney general on Thursday outlines a history of troubling statements made by Ms. Pressdee over several years, both on social media and in conversations with colleagues at rehabilitation centers.

Witnesses told investigators, according to the complaint, that Ms. Pressdee denigrated people in her care and made comments such as, “When is she going to die already?”

Prosecutors said in the news release that Ms. Pressdee had typically administered the insulin doses “during night shifts, when staffing levels were low and the emergencies would not result in immediate hospitalization.”

If Ms. Pressdee felt a victim was “going to pull through,” she would take additional steps to kill the person by “either administering a second dose of insulin or using an air embolism to ensure death,” according to the complaint .

Ms Bower’s relatives were “sickened” earlier this year when they heard of Ms Pressdee’s confession, Mr Peirce said.

“Today’s indictment does not ease that pain,” he said. “But they are optimistic that this is the next step toward justice in this case, not just for their family, but for all the other families involved.”