In June 2018 the director of the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, West Virginia, called the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General. Nine patients on the hospital's Ward 3A had died after episodes of profound hypoglycemia, dangerously low blood sugar. The call started a criminal investigation that took two years and ended with a former nursing assistant, Reta Mays, admitting in federal court that she had killed seven of the men in her care by injecting them with insulin, and had tried to kill an eighth.
Mays lived in Harrison County, West Virginia; CBS News gave her hometown as Reynoldsville. She had served in the West Virginia Army National Guard. WV MetroNews reported that she deployed to Iraq in 2003 as a chemical equipment repairer with the Guard's 1092nd Engineer Battalion; CBS News described her service as a noncombat role in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military.com reported that before the hospital she worked as a corrections officer at the North Central Regional Jail in Greenwood, where she was investigated over excessive force.
She started at the Clarksburg hospital in June 2015. Her shift ran from 7:30 p.m. to 8 a.m. Her duties were to take vital signs, test blood sugar and sit one-on-one with patients who needed to be watched through the night. She was not licensed to give medication, and nursing assistants at the hospital were not authorized to give any, insulin included. In 2017 she received an award for exemplary performance.
Ward 3A took fragile patients, men who were not well enough to go home but did not need intensive care. The men who died there had come in for treatment of conditions from which they were expected to recover. None was being treated for diabetes. In 2017 and 2018, during Mays's overnight shifts, several of them suffered sudden drops in blood sugar and died.
According to the prosecution, Mays sometimes took part in the hospital's efforts to save patients after she had caused the emergencies. Prosecutor Jarod Douglas said at sentencing that she appeared to get a sense of control or self-worth from them.
The seven murder counts named these veterans:
Robert Edge Sr., 82, served in the Navy from 1952 to 1956. His son, Robert Edge Jr., called him "my hero."
Robert Lee Kozul Sr., 89, served in the Army from 1951 to 1953.
Archie D. Edgell, 84, served in the Army from 1953 to 1955.
George Nelson Shaw Sr., 81, served in the Air Force from 1951 to 1982. He had been married to his wife, Norma, for almost 59 years.
Felix Kirk McDermott, 82, served in the Army from 1962 to 1968.
Raymond Golden, 88, served in the Army from 1951 to 1953 and in the Air Force from 1955 to 1973.
William Holloway, 96, served in the Army from 1942 to 1945. Court papers identified him only by his initials, W.A.H.
The eighth count, assault with intent to commit murder, concerned Russell R. Posey Sr., 92, a Navy veteran who was not diabetic. He lived for some time after Mays injected him, and the exact cause of his death could not be established, so the charge was not murder.
Investigators from the VA Office of Inspector General and the FBI led the case, with the West Virginia State Police and the Greater Harrison Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, they conducted more than 300 interviews, went through thousands of pages of medical records and Mays's phone, social media and computer records, consulted forensic experts and endocrinologists, reviewed staff and visitor records and exhumed some of the men. Autopsies on the exhumed bodies pointed to insulin injections the patients had not needed.
Mays was removed from her job in July 2018. When investigators questioned her, she denied any involvement three times.
On July 14, 2020, Mays, then 46, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Thomas S. Kleeh in Clarksburg to seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of assault with intent to commit murder. She admitted giving insulin to several patients intending to cause their deaths. Each murder count carried up to life in prison.
The families brought claims against the federal government. In March 2021, WV MetroNews reported that settlements for seven families were nearly complete; the families' lawyer, Tony O'Dell, said they provided "some closure."
Mays was sentenced on May 11, 2021, in a hearing attended in person by more than 30 relatives of the men. Some spoke. Robert Edge Jr., in a recorded statement, said she had "murdered my father without cause or reason." Melanie Proctor, Felix McDermott's youngest daughter, said Mays had "preyed on them when they were at their weakest" and called her a coward. Norma Shaw said Mays had taken her life away from her.
Douglas called the killings "predatory and planned, not reactionary," and said the men "were not in need of mercy." Her lawyer, Jay McCamic, described a long history of depression, anxiety and other medical problems, and said she had post-traumatic stress disorder related to a sexual assault during her service in Iraq. He said the question of why could not be answered. "Reta doesn't know why," he said.
Mays wept and apologized. "I'm sorry for the pain I caused the families and my family," she said. She said she did not ask for forgiveness, because she did not think she could forgive anyone for doing what she had done.
Kleeh said the evidence showed that while the deaths were occurring, Mays searched for female serial killers on her work computer and watched the Netflix series "Nurses Who Kill." "You knew what you were doing," he told her. He sentenced her to seven consecutive life terms, one for each murder, plus 20 years for the assault on Posey, and ordered her to pay $172,624.96 to the families, the hospital, Medicare and insurers.
The same day, the VA Office of Inspector General published its inspection of the hospital. Inspector General Michael J. Missal said it had found "serious and pervasive clinical and administrative failures" that contributed to the deaths going undetected.
The report found that the hospital had not properly vetted Mays when it hired her. A federal background investigation had flagged potentially actionable issues, but no one reviewed her earlier employment or contacted her previous employers. On her ward, the entire staff had full access to the medication room, and medication carts were often unlocked. Providers did not order diagnostic tests for seven of the eight patients and ordered the wrong test for the eighth. A cluster of hypoglycemic events within a few weeks was not discussed or reported as a patient safety issue. The report made 15 recommendations.
In an interview with inspectors after her plea, Mays said she had given insulin to patients she believed were suffering, so that they could pass "gently," and that the acts gave her a sense of control at a time of stress and chaos in her life. The prosecution rejected the idea that it was mercy.
Former U.S. Attorney Bill Powell said that about 20 deaths during Mays's time at the hospital were suspicious, but that charges were brought only where prosecutors believed the evidence was sufficient. No court has attributed any death to her beyond the eight counts.
In October 2021 the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency gave the investigative team an award for excellence. Mays is serving her sentence in federal custody, and no appeal or change to the sentence has been reported.