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On December 29, 1997, police arrested and charged Orville Lynn Majors, a 36-year-old former male nurse, with lethally injecting six patients at an Indiana hospital. No stranger to deadly nursing care, Orville lost his nurse's license in 1995 after 130 of 147 elderly patients died in his care. While working at Vermillion County Hospital, now known as West Central Community Hospital, a death occurred every 23.1 hours when he was on duty. When he was off duty, a death occurred every 551.6 hours.
More than 160 suspicious deaths happened during Orville's watch at the Terre Haute hospital between 1993 and 1995. The rate of death at the hospital reached "epidemic" proportions from July to December of 1994, during which Majors was "uniquely and very strongly associated with that mortality." Of the 67 people who died in the intensive care unit, Majors was working on 63 of those instances. Morbidly, fellow nurses on the night shift made bets as to what patients would die the next day when Majors was working.
The suspected angel of death -- who is being held without a bond -- denied any wrongdoing. After a 30-month investigation costing more than $1.5 million authorities searched his van and former home finding, potassium chloride, a variety of other drugs, syringes and needles. Before filing charges, the bodies of 15 patients were exhumed -- including the six the chubby nurse is charged with killing -- and post mortem examinations on three produced evidence of potassium chloride injections
In at least one case, investigators say they have an eyewitness, Paula Holdaway, who said she was in the room when Majors came in and gave her mother, Dorothea Hixon, an unauthorized injection. "Majors kissed her on the forehead, brushed her hair back and said 'It's all right punkin, everything's going to be all right now.' Within 60 seconds after that, Hixon rolled her eyes back and died."
In court documents, some relatives say they saw Majors give their loved ones shots before they died. And a team of doctors assembled by the Indiana State Police to review medical charts will testify the seven deaths are consistent with patients being injected with potassium chloride or epinephrine. Police say vials containing traces of those drugs and syringes, which were found at Majors' home and in his van, were traced to shipments from medical suppliers to Vermillion County Hospital.
I. Marshall Pinkus, the court-appointed attorney who leads Majors' defense, says there is no evidence his client did anything wrong. Pinkus says jurors won't find it unusual that nurses give patients shots or that sick, elderly patients die in intensive care units. Some patients and co-workers at the hospital considered Majors a hardworking and sympathetic nurse, Pinkus said.
On December 29, 1997, police arrested and charged Orville Lynn Majors, a 36-year-old former male nurse, with lethally injecting six patients at an Indiana hospital. No stranger to deadly nursing care, Orville lost his nurse's license in 1995 after 130 of 147 elderly patients died in his care. While working at Vermillion County Hospital, now known as West Central Community Hospital, a death occurred every 23.1 hours when he was on duty. When he was off duty, a death occurred every 551.6 hours.
More than 160 suspicious deaths happened during Orville's watch at the Terre Haute hospital between 1993 and 1995. The rate of death at the hospital reached "epidemic" proportions from July to December of 1994, during which Majors was "uniquely and very strongly associated with that mortality." Of the 67 people who died in the intensive care unit, Majors was working on 63 of those instances. Morbidly, fellow nurses on the night shift made bets as to what patients would die the next day when Majors was working.
The suspected angel of death -- who is being held without a bond -- denied any wrongdoing. After a 30-month investigation costing more than $1.5 million authorities searched his van and former home finding, potassium chloride, a variety of other drugs, syringes and needles. Before filing charges, the bodies of 15 patients were exhumed -- including the six the chubby nurse is charged with killing -- and post mortem examinations on three produced evidence of potassium chloride injections
In at least one case, investigators say they have an eyewitness, Paula Holdaway, who said she was in the room when Majors came in and gave her mother, Dorothea Hixon, an unauthorized injection. "Majors kissed her on the forehead, brushed her hair back and said 'It's all right punkin, everything's going to be all right now.' Within 60 seconds after that, Hixon rolled her eyes back and died."
In court documents, some relatives say they saw Majors give their loved ones shots before they died. And a team of doctors assembled by the Indiana State Police to review medical charts will testify the seven deaths are consistent with patients being injected with potassium chloride or epinephrine. Police say vials containing traces of those drugs and syringes, which were found at Majors' home and in his van, were traced to shipments from medical suppliers to Vermillion County Hospital.
I. Marshall Pinkus, the court-appointed attorney who leads Majors' defense, says there is no evidence his client did anything wrong. Pinkus says jurors won't find it unusual that nurses give patients shots or that sick, elderly patients die in intensive care units. Some patients and co-workers at the hospital considered Majors a hardworking and sympathetic nurse, Pinkus said. |
