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Reta Mays Gets Seven Life Terms for Killing Veterans with Insulin at Clarksburg VA

A federal judge called the former nursing assistant "the monster that no one sees coming" and sentenced her to seven consecutive life terms plus 20 years.

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Illustration: a small vial in a sealed evidence bag on a laboratory bench

"You're the monster that no one sees coming," U.S. District Judge Thomas Kleeh told Reta Mays in a Clarksburg, West Virginia, courtroom on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. Then he sentenced the former nursing assistant to seven consecutive life terms, one for each elderly veteran she had killed with insulin at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center, and an additional 20 years for an eighth patient.

Mays, 46, of Harrison County, had pleaded guilty in July 2020 to seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of assault with intent to commit murder. She worked the night shift at the veterans' hospital, sitting one-on-one with patients, during the period when the men in her care died of hypoglycemia in 2017 and 2018. Nursing assistants there were not qualified or authorized to give any medication, including insulin. She admitted giving it to several patients intending to cause their deaths.

The murder counts covered Army veterans Robert Lee Kozul Sr., 89, and Archie D. Edgell, 84, and a 96-year-old Army veteran identified in court papers only by the initials W.A.H.; Navy veteran Robert Edge Sr., 82; Air Force veteran George Nelson Shaw Sr., 81; Army and Air Force veteran Raymond Golden, 88; and retired Army Sgt. Felix McDermott. The assault count involved the death of Navy veteran Russell R. Posey Sr., 92.

Kleeh said the evidence showed that while the deaths were piling up on her overnight shifts, Mays searched the internet for female serial killers and watched the Netflix series "Nurses Who Kill." She had denied any involvement to investigators three times. "You knew what you were doing," he told her.

Mays cried and apologized before the sentence was announced. "I don't ask for forgiveness because I don't think I could forgive anyone for doing what I did," she said. Her lawyer, Jay McCamic, described a long history of depression, anxiety and other medical problems and said the question of why could not be answered. "Reta doesn't know why," he said. The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jarod Douglas, called her actions "predatory and planned, not reactionary." "These men were not in need of mercy by the defendant," he said.

The investigation began in June 2018 and, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, involved more than 300 interviews, thousands of pages of medical records, consultations with forensic experts and endocrinologists, and the exhumation of some of the victims. Mays was ordered to pay $172,624.96 in restitution to the families, the hospital, Medicare and insurers. "Mays will now spend every minute of the rest of her life where she belongs, in prison," said Randolph J. Bernard, the acting U.S. attorney.

The same day, the VA's Office of Inspector General released its report on the hospital. Inspector General Michael J. Missal said it found "serious and pervasive clinical and administrative failures" that allowed the killings to go undetected. In an interview included in the report, Mays said she had given insulin to patients she believed were suffering so they could pass "gently," and that her actions gave her a sense of control during a period of stress and chaos in her life.

What the record does and does not say. Mays was convicted of seven murders and one assault with intent to commit murder; those are the only counts. The former U.S. attorney, Bill Powell, had said there had been about 20 suspicious deaths at the hospital while Mays worked there, but charges were brought only where prosecutors believed the evidence was sufficient, and no other death has been attributed to her by a court. Her own account of her motive, given in the inspector general's interview, was disputed by the prosecution.

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