A US nurse who attempted to kill multiple patients by giving them lethal insulin doses over a three-year period was sentenced to 380–760 years in prison on Saturday. The court was informed that she was the cause of at least 17 patient deaths in five medical facilities between 2020 and 2023.
The 41-year-old Pennsylvanian nurse Heather Pressdee was given a life sentence after entering a guilty plea to three counts of murder and nineteen counts of attempted murder.
Pressdee was charged with giving excessive amounts of insulin to 22 patients, including some who weren’t diabetic during overnight shifts when few people were working. Most of the patients died soon after receiving the dose, or sometime later. Her victims were aged 43 to 104 years.
An insulin overdose can lead to hypoglycemia, raise your heartbeat and even lead to heart attacks.
She was initially charged in May last year for killing two patients and the police investigation that followed led to multiple other charges against her.
Victims’ families told the court the killer nurse “tried to play God” with her ill and elderly patients who were not ready to die. In the past, coworkers had flagged her conduct, saying she displayed hate for her patients and would often make derogatory comments about them.
In text messages to her mother, Pressdee discussed her unhappiness with patients, colleagues and even people she met at restaurants. She often spoke about wanting to harm them.
In court, she pressed to please guilty. When one of her lawyers asked her why she was pleading guilty, Pressdee replied, “Because I am guilty.”
“She is not sick. She is not insane. She is evil personified. I looked into the face of Satan myself the morning she killed my father,” one of the victims’ family members told the court.
She was reprimanded for her actions, but she continued to work in nursing homes until her license was suspended in 2023 following the initial charges.
Pressdee is one of many medical professionals who have been found guilty of murdering their patients. Charles Cullen used lethal insulin dosages to murder at least 29 residents of nursing homes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Following heart surgery, four patients had air injected into their arteries by Texas nurse William Davis.
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