20 years after Missouri hospital deaths, ex-worker now charged with murder

20 years after Missouri hospital deaths, ex-worker now charged with murder

A real-life Annie Wilkes, I don't know what it is but I find this type of sociopath almost as terrible as the run of the mill killer, this is one you can easily cross paths with, and its not readily known their are even victims for awhile.

Being a nurse can be stressful as hell and no doubt it wigs some people out after a while. I been in enough hospitals over the years for extended periods of time, I am amazed it doesn't happen more often honestly.

www.kmov.com...

In the five months that Jennifer Anne Hall was a respiratory therapist at Hedrick Medical Center, the rural Missouri hospital experienced 18 “code blue” incidents — an alarming increase in sudden cardiac arrest events for a hospital that historically averaged one of them a year, according to police.

Nine of those patients died, and nine recovered. Twenty years later, Hall was charged this month with first-degree murder in one of the deaths — that of 75-year-old Fern Franco.

Livingston County Prosecuting Attorney Adam Warren, who launched an investigation 10 years ago, said Franco died of lethal doses of succinylcholine — a relaxant that paralyzes the respiratory muscles — and the pain reliever morphine. The prosecutor did not disclose a possible motive or say why the investigation took a decade.

Hospital officials were alerted to the concerns about Hall but “did everything in the world to cover it up” to avoid bad publicity, said Scott Lindley, the county coroner. No criminal investigation was launched at the time.