Genene Jones, a former San Antonio nurse convicted in 1984 of killing a child and labeled the “Angel of Death” for suspicions she killed dozens of other infants and children, now faces a second new murder charge.
Jones, who is in state prison serving a 99-year-term for murder, was indicted Wednesday by a Bexar County grand jury in connection with the the September 1981 death of Rosemary Vega, a 2-year-old girl.
The same grand jury had issued a murder indictment in late May, accusing her of killing 11-month-old Joshua Sawyer in December 1981. Bail was set at $1 million for each new murder charge.
In a case dating back more than three decades, the latest indictment alleges that Jones injected Vega with “a substance unknown.”
Vega’s mother told journalist Peter Elkind that she recalled watching Jones “push a drug into her daughter’s IV line shortly before she went into cardiac arrest,” according to an article this week published by Texas Monthly and ProPublica.
Now 66, Jones was suspected of killing dozens of infants in the pediatric intensive care unit at what was then called Medical Center Hospital in San Antonio, now University Hospital, in 1981 and 1982.
The 34 babies who died while she was on duty in that time caused the hospital’s infant death rate to increase 178 percent, the New England Journal of Medicine noted in 1985.
“Suspicions about Jones had been so widespread that other nurses had begun calling her hours on duty ‘the Death Shift,’” but after a secret internal probe, the hospital replaced Jones and six other licensed vocational nurses in the ICU with registered nurses in 1982 as a pretext for removing her — but gave Jones a good letter of recommendation, Elkind wrote.
After she was convicted for killing a child in Kerrville and given the 99-year term, it was widely thought Jones would never leave prison, but a Texas law designed to reduce prison overcrowding, in effect for only about a decade, entitled Jones to be released on March 1, 2018.
When this became known to Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood, he vowed to develop new charges to keep Jones in prison, calling her “pure evil,” according to a news release issued by his office when the May indictment was handed down.
“Justice warrants that she be held accountable for the crimes she committed. Our Office will attempt to account for every child whose life was stolen by the actions of Jones,” he said according to the release.
At a news conference Wednesday, LaHood said his office’s investigation was continuing, with the goal of securing more indictments. A member of his staff directed a San Antonio Express-News reporter to wait in a side room and did not allow him to attend the conference or ask questions. Jennifer Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for LaHood, also did not return calls.
Jones has always maintained her innocence, but has not spoken on the record about any specific baby deaths. She has not yet received a court-appointed lawyer.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten