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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them. Gasey Bundy Dahmer The Nightstalker DTK. Every week,
Speaker 2: another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host
Speaker 2: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 6: Good Evening. She was hired to nurse them back to health. Instead,
Speaker 6: she took their lives for months to Davida Dealysis Center
Speaker 6: in Lufkin, Texas, had been baffled by the rising number
Speaker 6: of deaths and injuries occurring in their clinic. In April alone,
Speaker 6: they'd rushed thirty four patients to the hospital, but no
Speaker 6: one expected such a horrific cause to be behind it all.
Speaker 6: Kimberly Clark's Signs was a well liked licensed vocational nurse
Speaker 6: at the center. The East Texas nurse was a mother
Speaker 6: of two and known for her smiles and the story
Speaker 6: she told to help patients past the time. But in
Speaker 6: April twenty eight, two thousand and eight, witnesses came forward
Speaker 6: to say that instead of life saving medication, they'd seen
Speaker 6: Signs adding toxic bleach to IV ports. Turns out it
Speaker 6: wasn't the first time. Once caught the shocking story of Signs,
Speaker 6: murderous practices began to unravel. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 6: this evening is Killer Nurse with my special guest, journalist
Speaker 6: and author John Fox. John. Welcome to the program and
Speaker 6: thank you for the agreement interview John Fox John.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, Dan, I appreciate you asking me.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much. Incredible story, a real wild ride.
Speaker 6: Congratulations on the book. Now you are a former I
Speaker 6: found it very interesting you're a former Vietnam VET airborne
Speaker 6: ranger and retired teacher. But I think the most interesting aspect,
Speaker 6: maybe you can tell us you're a former detective. Tell
Speaker 6: us what type of detective you were, and tell us
Speaker 6: just a little bit about the about your past would
Speaker 6: probably very important to this story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was. I was in law enforcement for ten years.
Speaker 4: I was a patrolman for a while. The last four
Speaker 4: years I was a homicide detective, and I actually investigated
Speaker 4: over three hundred homicides. Wow.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's quite the career in four years. That's pretty condensed.
Speaker 4: I never knew what I wanted to do when I
Speaker 4: grew up, so I just kept doing other things.
Speaker 6: That's great. Great way to approach things now, without giving
Speaker 6: anything away, without why did you choose this particular case,
Speaker 6: this particular story to write killer nurse tell us why?
Speaker 4: Okay, as you know, I write, I write, I write
Speaker 4: fiction to you, I write crime fiction. And actually a
Speaker 4: lot of my fiction has done really well. I have
Speaker 4: three best sellers. But when this came along, there was
Speaker 4: a case from a couple of years before this one.
Speaker 4: It was a cold case murder trial, and I set
Speaker 4: to the court proceedings and everything thinking about writing a
Speaker 4: true crime moment. I did all the paperwork and everything
Speaker 4: all the trial, but in the end, I just didn't
Speaker 4: think the case was I guess I I don't wanna
Speaker 4: say glorious enough, but I just didn't think anybody would
Speaker 4: really wanna read about it, right. And the place where
Speaker 4: I live here is is real small, and opportunity don't
Speaker 4: come around very often. And when this hit the news,
Speaker 4: I recognized right off, cause I had been a homicide detective.
Speaker 4: I recognized how unique this it. This was, This is
Speaker 4: the most and I say this, but it's true. It's
Speaker 4: the most unique crime in history. Nobody's there been accused,
Speaker 4: charged and convicted and murdering people using bleach. And I
Speaker 4: set back, and I looked at the news and everything,
Speaker 4: and and I got some of the information, but it
Speaker 4: was very sketchy at the time when it first broke.
Speaker 4: Now looked and I said, you know, this is not
Speaker 4: something I would wanna investigate. I recognized right off how
Speaker 4: tough this was going to be. But if they were
Speaker 4: able to and I knew this first broke as aggravated assaults,
Speaker 4: not murders, it didn't turn to murders later on, as
Speaker 4: far as the public knew. I have friends on the
Speaker 4: left and police uparments, though, and I knew this was
Speaker 4: going to turn into a murder investigation.
Speaker 6: I see, I see.
Speaker 4: And I knew right then that this was something that
Speaker 4: I had to write just because of the uniqueness of it.
Speaker 4: But it's right here in my backyard right exactly. Of course,
Speaker 4: I didn't know anything about writing true crime either, but
Speaker 4: I didn't stop me.
Speaker 6: Well, you have the discipline of being a writer anyway,
Speaker 6: and a successful writer, and so you already had that.
Speaker 6: So that's a little bit more than some people have.
Speaker 6: So you're certainly not a novice. Now let's get to
Speaker 6: this story here before we talk about Luffkin, and you
Speaker 6: can describe this sort of somewhat small town place and
Speaker 6: the corporation of the Vita corporation and this dallasis Center
Speaker 6: and what goes on at this dialysis center. Before we
Speaker 6: get to that, let's go back and talk about Kimberly
Speaker 6: Clark Science. Who she was born as, and in what
Speaker 6: circumstances she grew up. What was the background, as much
Speaker 6: as could possibly have been found, Paint a portrait of
Speaker 6: the early early life, on the conditions under which Kimberly
Speaker 6: Clark grew up, so we can see if there is
Speaker 6: any semblance of sense of this story and the inevitable outcome.
Speaker 6: But tell us a little bit about the very beginnings
Speaker 6: of Kimberly Clark Science.
Speaker 4: Okay. First to do that, I need to tell you
Speaker 4: where she's from, because that really has a a lot
Speaker 4: of bearing on what we know about Kimberly Clark Signs.
Speaker 4: She was born and raised in an unincorporated community called
Speaker 4: uh Pollock outside of Lufkin. Real small place, a really
Speaker 4: close place, and not only a closed place, but she
Speaker 4: comes from a family who has really closed up. What
Speaker 4: do you bear? I mean, nobody knows a lot about them.
Speaker 4: They keep to themselves. Their life really reviolves around a
Speaker 4: church there in Pollock and the church people and everything.
Speaker 4: They're kind of closed up and nobody to be honest
Speaker 4: with you. Before she was for this broken the news.
Speaker 4: Very few people knew who Kimery Clark science was matter
Speaker 4: of fact, very few people still no. They know the name,
Speaker 4: but very few people know who she is except for family,
Speaker 4: and a lot of them don't talk, will not talk.
Speaker 6: So it was.
Speaker 4: Really it was really difficult finding a lot of information
Speaker 4: on it. I'm going, I'm getting into it. She Uh,
Speaker 4: she was raised there. She went to school in Pollack,
Speaker 4: a school district called Central. She had she had her
Speaker 4: older brother who was three years older than her. Her
Speaker 4: mother works for Walmart and her father works for a
Speaker 4: trucking company. And uh, they're not they're not poor. They
Speaker 4: I would call them probably middle class or lower middle class.
Speaker 4: They live in they live on land that their parents
Speaker 4: had and they just kept just handed down. And she
Speaker 4: went to school to the to the eleventh grade in Central,
Speaker 4: which is in Pollock. Then she got pregnant and quit
Speaker 4: school and had a baby and got married and uh,
Speaker 4: she was married I think three years, got a divorce
Speaker 4: and went to work for a uh trucking company in Lufkin.
Speaker 4: And so far after that point in her life, you
Speaker 4: can't find anything bad, not a single thing except getting
Speaker 4: pregnant and dropping out of high school, which in this
Speaker 4: day and time is not considered bad. Uh. She met
Speaker 4: a guy by the name of the Kevin Sins at
Speaker 4: the trucking company, and she got pregnant again and they
Speaker 4: got married. And from that point on, and I think
Speaker 4: I am said something about it in the book, it
Speaker 4: was almost like her life was in a vortex. Somebody
Speaker 4: was flushing the toilet and down it went, and she
Speaker 4: was in an accident. Uh. I guess about three or
Speaker 4: four years before all this really started. And it was
Speaker 4: a serious accident, and she became addicted to pain medication.
Speaker 6: What kind of accent the car accident?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 6: And how serious was How serious was the accident?
Speaker 4: It was pretty serious. But she wasn't debilitated anything. But
Speaker 4: she ended up she was okay physically okay, except for
Speaker 4: the pain medication.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 4: That is probably where her biggest downfalls start.
Speaker 6: Okay. H What I was gonna ask is because the
Speaker 6: church is very important in the support of the church,
Speaker 6: and and really, if you really get a window of
Speaker 6: the friends that they have made in this pollock, is
Speaker 6: these people from this church? Now, what kind of church
Speaker 6: is this is evangelical product? What type of religion is
Speaker 6: practiced there? What? What is the church there? What is it?
Speaker 4: I am not sure. I think it's one of the
Speaker 4: South branch of the Pentecostal.
Speaker 6: Okay, would you consider that these very fervent church as
Speaker 6: opposed to may say more very yes and okay? So
Speaker 6: a deeply religious family, notwithstanding, would say religious yes, okay
Speaker 6: and conservative okay.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 6: Now tell us before we well continue with Kimberly, you
Speaker 6: say that she becomes addicted to painkillers. Tell us now
Speaker 6: about this the Vita dialysis center. And the Vita is
Speaker 6: a corporation, so tell us a little bit about that corporation.
Speaker 6: We're talking about a small business or a big business,
Speaker 6: because that plays a vase a little bit too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Vida is a fourteen five hundred company. They
Speaker 4: have something like thirteen hundred dialysis centers across the country,
Speaker 4: and they're humongous and they have a huge revenue.
Speaker 6: Now at what age, obviously, Kimberly, you say, went to
Speaker 6: grade eleven, How does she become how does she come
Speaker 6: to be employed at this dialysis center? What is the
Speaker 6: sort of reading process for letting people in? And before
Speaker 6: we go any further because we're kind of just jumping ahead.
Speaker 6: Was there any she had any kind of odd behavior
Speaker 6: reported then, or if somebody in retrospect or? Was there
Speaker 6: any visits with a psychologist a psychiatrist. Was there anything
Speaker 6: of note like that at all that you could find?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a few things. I need to talk about.
Speaker 4: Her job here story really tell you about this. She
Speaker 4: there in luck and there's a community college called Angelina College,
Speaker 4: and they basically are a most people probably not what
Speaker 4: a community college junior college is, but they have a
Speaker 4: nursing program there and there's a two year program and
Speaker 4: she went through that program. That's how she got in.
Speaker 4: She couldn't have got into a regular college without a
Speaker 4: high school diploma, but you cam with a junior college
Speaker 4: and she she got her LVN, which is the lowest
Speaker 4: ranking of a nursing in Texas. And her first job
Speaker 4: out of college was with Memorial Hospital here in Lufkin.
Speaker 4: And don't know what happened there. She was there for
Speaker 4: two months and she left and I have no reason,
Speaker 4: no idea why, and matter of fact, the police didn't
Speaker 4: know either, because I think there was something happened to
Speaker 4: her record. I'm not sure but nobody knew why she
Speaker 4: left Memorial. But she went from Memorial to Woodland Heights
Speaker 4: Hospital in Lufkin. And this is where the problems really
Speaker 4: come in at she was there for about a month
Speaker 4: in half. She got fired and she was fired for
Speaker 4: stealing demrong and forgiven patients in jack pain medication who
Speaker 4: didn't need it. Yeah, that was that should have been
Speaker 4: a huge flag right there.
Speaker 6: Well, so why so she was fired at that time?
Speaker 4: She was fired as a matter of fact, when she
Speaker 4: hired them too di Vita. She had been fired from
Speaker 4: five places, five nursing jobs and a year and a half.
Speaker 6: Now, why don't these You would think the healthcare industry
Speaker 6: would I would at least be able to pass that
Speaker 6: information onto another business. I mean, there would be no
Speaker 6: reason for them not to.
Speaker 4: Would for federal law says they can't.
Speaker 6: Oh okay, they cannot.
Speaker 4: The only yeah, the only by federal law. The only
Speaker 4: thing they can tell another employer is if they would
Speaker 4: hire those people back or not.
Speaker 6: And that's it was she recommended each How does she
Speaker 6: get five more jobs?
Speaker 4: She has five no no rehires on her record when
Speaker 4: Divida hired her, And that's a huge I believe that's
Speaker 4: a huge problem. But that's not even the biggest one.
Speaker 4: That's not even the biggest one in this mess. But
Speaker 4: uh uh. Woodland Heights contacted the Texas Boarder Nursing about
Speaker 4: her being fired by her stealing the demaros, which she
Speaker 4: confessed to giving shows the patience who didn't need it.
Speaker 6: She confessed to that's even worse.
Speaker 4: Yeah, here's the problem with this. It doesn't go on
Speaker 4: a record until the Texas Board and Nursing investigates these charges.
Speaker 6: And what would you tell them to do that?
Speaker 4: Well, when I get around to it. When I eventually
Speaker 4: ended up investigating the charges against her from Woodland Hides,
Speaker 4: she had just been fired from the Veda for killing patients.
Speaker 6: Jesus, Now with the vita, I mean with lawsuits, I
Speaker 6: mean everybody's afraid.
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Speaker 6: A lawsuit in America, I mean, including these guys, they
Speaker 6: don't have a screening policy that can kind of put
Speaker 6: two and two together. Sure, there's no information to say
Speaker 6: they did this, they did this, but if you're gone
Speaker 6: and you only lasted a few months, either allows the
Speaker 6: employee or if they have to get an explanation from
Speaker 6: the employee why they left. Or I mean, wouldn't it
Speaker 6: be easy to put two and two together. How desperate
Speaker 6: is the Vita Well Texas.
Speaker 4: Medical facilities in Texas are desperate nurses. They made them desperately.
Speaker 4: It's one of the huge UH positions that really is
Speaker 4: in demand. But and I have no evidence of this,
Speaker 4: mind you, none what I'm about to say, But I
Speaker 4: know she did this before. After Signs was arrested, after
Speaker 4: the j grand jury UH indicted her and she was charged,
Speaker 4: she was let out on bail. But one of the
Speaker 4: stipulations that she of her bail is she couldnt be
Speaker 4: employed at any healthcare facility, right, and she went r
Speaker 4: She went and got a job at a health care
Speaker 4: for children home. And this is how she did it.
Speaker 4: She put on her application, isn't she was a nurse,
Speaker 4: but she's been working for a roofing company. And she
Speaker 4: gave on a phone number to check her reference to.
Speaker 4: As it happens, a phone number was her husband's cell
Speaker 4: phone number. So I don't know what she did with
Speaker 4: d vida, but she did do that.
Speaker 6: Now, let's let's go backwards a little bit, because we
Speaker 6: haven't even talked about the crimes itself. We haven't. She hasn't,
Speaker 6: like I said, We've just talked about her getting hired.
Speaker 6: Now at the Woodland Hospital and the other health facility
Speaker 6: that she worked at in her position as the l VN,
Speaker 6: that's her nurse status. What what did her duties until.
Speaker 4: At the VIDA, she was mostly a care tech care technicians,
Speaker 4: care person. They took care of patients. They they gave up,
Speaker 4: they checked their vitals, they hooked them up to the
Speaker 4: dialaceis UH they kept checking them and all this throughout
Speaker 4: the dialasi's process. UH. The VITA had a had three
Speaker 4: tiers of employees who took care patients. The rians, which
Speaker 4: are registered nurses and they're higher than LVNs. They usually
Speaker 4: were the med nurses or the supervisors over this, then
Speaker 4: had the LVNs. Then they had p PCT's patient care technicians.
Speaker 4: And the patient care technicians were not nurses, but they
Speaker 4: could do everything the LVNs could do, accept gift shots
Speaker 4: and for the most part as a patient care catonician,
Speaker 4: she just take care of patience. Now there's times, of course,
Speaker 4: people's don't leaves say things like that she was the
Speaker 4: mad nurse. That meant she gave the mads. That's all
Speaker 4: she did and that's all she wanted today because she
Speaker 4: did not want to take care of patience. She hated it.
Speaker 6: Oh really okay, yeah.
Speaker 4: She hated taking care of patients.
Speaker 6: Now we've also kind of jumped over this a little bit.
Speaker 6: What is the sort of general number one, let's give
Speaker 6: it for the audience that's kind of pining for. What
Speaker 6: does this person look like? You can just in a
Speaker 6: second describe, you know, or Hiji five foot four, about
Speaker 6: one hundred and seventy you said, But tell us a
Speaker 6: little bit about her appearance and how she comes across.
Speaker 6: But tell us to the extent, what would people characterize
Speaker 6: her most by? What did she turn into? What kind
Speaker 6: of person? Overall? Sort of disposition? What kind of person
Speaker 6: was she likable? What did she look like first? And
Speaker 6: was she what was her disposition at.
Speaker 4: The time of trial? She was short and really heavy,
Speaker 4: she bad actne I wasn't I wouldn't say that she
Speaker 4: was attractive. Uh, I wouldn't say she's attractive now. Uh.
Speaker 4: During the trial and laden up to the trial, and
Speaker 4: during the trial, she was really happy and I think
Speaker 4: I even described as an And it wasn't just me
Speaker 4: because other people saw this too, but she really really
Speaker 4: enjoyed the attention. She just seemed to relish the attention,
Speaker 4: even the pre trial meetings and things like that, when
Speaker 4: they went in before the judge and everything to get
Speaker 4: things hashed out. She just seemed to have a good time.
Speaker 6: She was the center of attention.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she was. She was enjoying herself. She really was. Uh.
Speaker 4: I spoke to every one of the jurors. As a
Speaker 4: matter of fact, I sat down with all twelve jurors
Speaker 4: at one time and we talked for about eight hours
Speaker 4: over wine and pizza about everything involved with the trial.
Speaker 4: And one of the things the prosecutor worried about going
Speaker 4: in was, nobody knows what a serial killer looks like.
Speaker 4: But if you was gonna take a picture and say
Speaker 4: this is a serial killer, you wouldn't take her picture.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: You know, she's a mother too, she's married. She doesn't
Speaker 4: look like a serial killer. Of course, nobody knows what
Speaker 4: one looks like. But during the trial, and the prosecutor
Speaker 4: worried about that. But during the trial afterwards, the jurors
Speaker 4: told me they didn't know what a serial killer looked like,
Speaker 4: but watching her, they knew what one acted like.
Speaker 6: M Yeah, the psychopathic tendencies, yes, definitely.
Speaker 4: She Uh. During the trial, she would taunt the families
Speaker 4: of the victims. Yeah, she would turn and smile at 'em,
Speaker 4: just mm and yuh. They were about the bust that guy.
Speaker 4: I really were.
Speaker 6: Now let's just go back, because we've got to make
Speaker 6: sure that people understand the gravity of this crime and
Speaker 6: how she was able to do this at all. And
Speaker 6: before reading your book, I had no idea really the
Speaker 6: importance and significance of Bleach in her work and in
Speaker 6: the hospital in general. And I had no idea what
Speaker 6: they actually would use, why she would have access to it.
Speaker 6: So I thought it odd. So tell us a little
Speaker 6: bit more. And I don't really know the dialysis process.
Speaker 6: I may have an inclination, but tell us about the
Speaker 6: dialysis center in terms of what exactly patients were in
Speaker 6: there for. And before we start too, one thing you
Speaker 6: mentioned too that this is a very very unique crime
Speaker 6: in that there have been people in the hospital setting
Speaker 6: that have killed patients, but for the vast majority, they've
Speaker 6: been people that were going to die anyway, and they
Speaker 6: were like an avenging angel or putting people out of
Speaker 6: their misery just a little bit before, completely completely different
Speaker 6: than this this person. So tell us first what the
Speaker 6: significance is of Bleach and why she had access to
Speaker 6: it Before we get into the actual crime.
Speaker 4: Right, A bleach is predominant in all dialysis center, not
Speaker 4: just a vita. They use it. They they use it
Speaker 4: to clean blood, wipe the seats, but they also use
Speaker 4: it to wash out the machines, rents out the machines
Speaker 4: because blood goes into there, so it's prevalent in there.
Speaker 4: When you walk into the center, you can get you
Speaker 4: can get a little tinge of it, the smell of bleach,
Speaker 4: because that's how prevalent it is in there.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: But they use it to clean the tables, they use
Speaker 4: it to clean the chairs. They have a they use
Speaker 4: bleach solution. Don't get me wrong, I'm not pure bleach.
Speaker 4: They're supposed to pour the bleach into a container there
Speaker 4: and mix it with water and just wipe the seats
Speaker 4: off and things like that and dilysis. And when I
Speaker 4: started this process, I didn't know anything about dollasis either,
Speaker 4: and I had to go through three years of education
Speaker 4: on dialasis and everything, just learn it. But the blood
Speaker 4: the kidneys are very important for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 4: But one of the main reasons is that filters everything
Speaker 4: out of the filters, impurities out of blood and everything.
Speaker 4: And when people have kidney disease and their kidney stop functioning,
Speaker 4: they have to have dilysis, which means usually they go
Speaker 4: in for three or four hours a day, three days
Speaker 4: a week, and all their blood is taken out of
Speaker 4: their body through a filtering system machine and then it's
Speaker 4: it's put back in. Now it's not all taken out
Speaker 4: at wants Mine. There's each patient has a different flow,
Speaker 4: right that it goes out and it goes back in.
Speaker 4: But it basically clanes are kidding the blood and blood
Speaker 4: and without it, the patients die, right and if the
Speaker 4: kidneys do a lot of different things. But I can't
Speaker 4: go into everything right now now.
Speaker 6: One of the it becomes important a little bit later
Speaker 6: and we'll we'll get back to this. But was there
Speaker 6: any reason to use the bleach, to have the bleach
Speaker 6: in and other than what you just said, the instructions
Speaker 6: were to dilute it, to use it to as a
Speaker 6: solution to clean. It's involved in the dialysis machine, dialysis
Speaker 6: machine itself, and I think the instrument cleaning as well,
Speaker 6: if I'm not correct. And but the thing is, was
Speaker 6: there any reason, because this becomes important later, was there
Speaker 6: any reason for say Kimberly Clark or any other LVN
Speaker 6: or anyone to be measuring out the bleach for any
Speaker 6: reason in any form, but measuring actually, well I need
Speaker 6: this much for this. Was there any real reason to
Speaker 6: be measuring bleeding?
Speaker 4: No, there wasn't. What happens is the pacts come in
Speaker 4: in the morning and h dollarsis station has two little
Speaker 4: small pails, and in the morning the pact is measured
Speaker 4: it out and it's so much per h pail has
Speaker 4: a different measurement. So one has ten millimeters a blaze
Speaker 4: to one hundred millimeters and the other one has one
Speaker 4: hundred millimeters to a thousand and one of them, one
Speaker 4: of the little pails, I use it just to wipe
Speaker 4: the seats off after the patients get out patients. And
Speaker 4: the other one that he is that if blood is spelt,
Speaker 4: the wife of the blood but actually then have to
Speaker 4: dialish the station. There's no need for anybody to be
Speaker 4: mixing bleachs there. It's all done beforehand, and they have
Speaker 4: enough that they don't run out. Okay, and that was.
Speaker 6: Important, Okay, So and so set the scene for this
Speaker 6: very dastardly few weeks, and that she carried out this
Speaker 6: evil plot. Tell us if there was anything that in
Speaker 6: retrospect that she had been going through that would like
Speaker 6: equivalent of as a homicide detective, you know, something that
Speaker 6: would be considered a trigger, any I guess outside circumstance
Speaker 6: or something that would affect her. Possibly we'll say that
Speaker 6: something nothing can account for this, but anything that might
Speaker 6: have contributed to it. Let's put it that way, and
Speaker 6: then tell us about what starts to happen and that
Speaker 6: few weeks of how on earth she had access to
Speaker 6: these patients and this death toll and injury tool was
Speaker 6: racking up. Talk talk to us about our audience about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she she had spent some time, a little bit
Speaker 4: of time in a mental institution for severe depression. As
Speaker 4: a matter of fact, she beat her husband up twice.
Speaker 4: He took out two restraints in orders against her. Uh.
Speaker 4: She was just really, really miserable. But I would like
Speaker 4: to say all this started at the VIDA, but I
Speaker 4: really don't think it did. I think this is just
Speaker 4: a culmination. I think this started at Woodland Heights was
Speaker 4: because she was given shots to patiency from medicine who
Speaker 4: didn't need it, right, And I think it is just
Speaker 4: kind of built up.
Speaker 6: That's wouldn't have been for a completely different reason though.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, the only other the thing that
Speaker 6: it might be important that she wanted to get attention,
Speaker 6: But the other one was sort of, I want to
Speaker 6: give you a shot of medicine for a feel good effect.
Speaker 6: She was she was doctor field good, wasn't She administered
Speaker 6: that people really needed.
Speaker 4: Maybe, But that's the first time I know that she
Speaker 4: stepped out of bounds as a nurse, right, That's what
Speaker 4: I mean. And later you you know, she really steps
Speaker 4: out of bounds. I mean, when you start killing patience,
Speaker 4: you can't get any flood out of bounds and that.
Speaker 6: But you said she didn't want to be the care
Speaker 6: she didn't want to be the lowly care worker. But
Speaker 6: what was her relationships? Okay, but what was her relationship
Speaker 6: with the patients? Some people depicted her as a friendly,
Speaker 6: likable person, but what was her relationship with the actual patients.
Speaker 4: Most of the patients she got along real well with,
Speaker 4: real well. With the employee. She did.
Speaker 6: She didn't, she knows she did not.
Speaker 4: She was constantly complaining.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: Matter of fact, several of them thought she was just
Speaker 4: gonna quit. She didn't like the job. She was constantly
Speaker 4: complaining she wanted to be. She just want to be
Speaker 4: a mad nurse. And I think that had a lot
Speaker 4: to do with her addiction of pain matication.
Speaker 6: Just wanted to have access to drugs herself. That, right,
Speaker 6: that would be the only way to be That'd be
Speaker 6: the only way to really skim some meds for herself.
Speaker 4: Right now, this everything you know. Two witnesses saw her
Speaker 4: do this, sew her inject patience with bleached on April
Speaker 4: twenty eighth, right, But that's not really where this story starts.
Speaker 4: This story starts on April the first, it is. And
Speaker 4: to explain this, I need to tell the audience that
Speaker 4: the odds of someone dining while on a dialysis machine
Speaker 4: is one in seven hundred thousands. It doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 4: They're in a medical facility. They have nurses there, they
Speaker 4: have doctors there. They constantly monitor the vitals, they monitor
Speaker 4: their they checked their vitals before they even start dollasis.
Speaker 4: They're checked several times during, during, and even and they
Speaker 4: check it afterwards. Dillas's patients die that because they're old
Speaker 4: and they're sick for the most part, some of them,
Speaker 4: but they usually don't do it while they undergo into
Speaker 4: dialasis process. And like I said this, the odds are
Speaker 4: dying on the machine is one in somewhere thousands. On
Speaker 4: April the first, two thousand and eight, two patients died
Speaker 4: on the machine and Dialasis and Davida Lufkin five minutes apart.
Speaker 4: And you can't even calculate those odds.
Speaker 6: So what what was the the hospitals and their staff's
Speaker 6: response to this unlikely event? What was the was there
Speaker 6: an investigation? What was their conclusion? What did they do?
Speaker 4: They new something was wrong, but they didn't know what.
Speaker 4: So they sent in a team of basically what they
Speaker 4: call monitors, but they were the investigators. They were led
Speaker 4: by an rim who was the regional director to come
Speaker 4: in and they were gonna look at everything involved in
Speaker 4: the diocist process there. And they were there at the
Speaker 4: facility on April second, two thousand and eight. That morning,
Speaker 4: April second, they were there and that date is probably
Speaker 4: the biggest Kimberly sign did something on that morning. It
Speaker 4: was probably the biggest thing that got her convicted. But
Speaker 4: I'll I'll go back to that if we have time.
Speaker 6: But okay, we'll leave. We'll leave that okay, mkay.
Speaker 4: They start. They started looking at everything and they couldn't
Speaker 4: find anything. They knew something was wrong that they couldn't
Speaker 4: find it. They looked at everything, the water, the procedures,
Speaker 4: everything except employees, and nobody believed that employee would be
Speaker 4: doing this. As a matter of fact, several patients, uh
Speaker 4: three patients ended up dying in between that day and
Speaker 4: April twenty eighth. There was gonna be four others that
Speaker 4: was gonna suffer serious injuries and stuff. But on April
Speaker 4: twenty second, April, not April twenty second, April twenty eighth.
Speaker 4: The morning April twenty eighth, Kimberly Signs was supposed to
Speaker 4: be the med nurse that morning and one of the
Speaker 4: one of the Oriente well, one of the texts called
Speaker 4: in sick and they had to call somebody in. But
Speaker 4: the only thing they could find was an r N.
Speaker 4: So they brought an r N in and the r
Speaker 4: N became a med nurse because that's what ri n do,
Speaker 4: And they shifted Kimberly's Signs to patient care and she fit.
Speaker 4: They she went out started smoking. They literally had to
Speaker 4: go out and talk her and coming back to work
Speaker 4: in some ways that may have been a huge mistake.
Speaker 4: But she came back into work and a little later
Speaker 4: on two patients and let me let me explain this one.
Speaker 4: Let me explain this how Davida operated. Davida operated in teams.
Speaker 4: UH one PCT or one l d N took care
Speaker 4: of four patients and they worked in teams, and when
Speaker 4: one went on break, the other one watched the other's
Speaker 4: patients for him. Okay, And that morning, UH Kimberly Simes
Speaker 4: was working with a PCT by the name of Andrew
Speaker 4: rod Reggaez, which is not important, But Angie went on
Speaker 4: break and when she did, two of kimberly Signs patients
Speaker 4: saw her go over to angieh rod Regguez's patients and
Speaker 4: inject him with bleach. And it literally scared the two
Speaker 4: patients to death. Literally, they didn't know what to do.
Speaker 4: They had just seen her do it. They knew she
Speaker 4: did it, and this was their nurse. This wasn't the
Speaker 4: other people's nurse. This was their nurse. So what they
Speaker 4: did what they Finally, I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: No, I was gonna ask what did they do?
Speaker 4: They called some and told them what they saw, and
Speaker 4: they really didn't believe her. But they went to the
Speaker 4: person who came in to investigate everything, and they told
Speaker 4: her what they saw. But not only did they tell
Speaker 4: her what they saw, they told her things like what
Speaker 4: Kimberly Science had done with the syringes when she got
Speaker 4: through with them, she'd dropped them in two different sharp
Speaker 4: containers right there by the station, and they told them
Speaker 4: exactly what sharp containers she'd drop them in. So Amy Clinton,
Speaker 4: who was the one conducting all this going on, she
Speaker 4: had two really really scared patients and they had to
Speaker 4: finish the dialasis with them. You know, once it starts,
Speaker 4: you can't. So she figured the best thing to day
Speaker 4: to diffuse everything for the moment was tell Kimberly Science
Speaker 4: to go home. And Sion didn't like it, but she
Speaker 4: wouldn't have went home, and they were able to go
Speaker 4: ahead and get the patients, get them, get the dollars
Speaker 4: as complete. And the two patients that they saw, her
Speaker 4: and Jack had adverse conditions and they had to take
Speaker 4: care of them. Yeah, and they had to take care
Speaker 4: of them. Fortunately.
Speaker 6: How bad was there how bad was their injuries? And
Speaker 6: what did they do? Like, was there anything they could
Speaker 6: do to if they thought it was bleached? Was what
Speaker 6: was the reaction in terms of medicallymatically.
Speaker 4: They didn't know what to do. They and at that
Speaker 4: point they still wasn't really sure if they wanted to
Speaker 4: believe the patients.
Speaker 6: I see, you know what.
Speaker 4: I'm saying, because this just sounded so far fetched. It's
Speaker 4: never happened ever, and it just sounded so far fetched.
Speaker 4: And after a time, the two patients that was supposedly
Speaker 4: injected got better. And you know, she killed five patients,
Speaker 4: Well I think you killed nineteen, but you know, she
Speaker 4: was charged for killing five, But there were five others
Speaker 4: who were injected that didn't buy and probably several others
Speaker 4: that that they just don't know about. But it all
Speaker 4: depends on how much bleachs they got and also what
Speaker 4: condition they're in what and did That's a guess work too,
Speaker 4: because nobody really knows that because nobody had ever studied
Speaker 4: the affects of bleach.
Speaker 6: Really, what was the reaction by the hospital itself, and
Speaker 6: how did they conduct to any kind of investigation at all?
Speaker 6: What did they do?
Speaker 4: Well, the first thing they did they sent her home
Speaker 4: and they called the director of the facility there, and
Speaker 4: they opened up the two sharps containers and you know
Speaker 4: they have these little measuring sticks. I guess like you
Speaker 4: you measure. Uh. They checked the spa and stuff, and
Speaker 4: they took they open these sharps containers up and they
Speaker 4: start they looked at the syringes that were on top,
Speaker 4: and they checked him for bleach, and they found some
Speaker 4: that tested positive for bleach. Yes, And at that point
Speaker 4: they were just at a loss and they probably I
Speaker 4: don't really know what went on there. I'm sure the
Speaker 4: vida's the vision. Uh Fortune five hundred company. I guarantee you.
Speaker 4: I don't know what, but I guarantee you. I got
Speaker 4: their attorneys, you know, when they got the hires up,
Speaker 4: and they started trying to say what they were going
Speaker 4: to do about this, and eventually they got around to
Speaker 4: call on the police. They there was about a four
Speaker 4: hour delay that before they call the police. Okay, and
Speaker 4: and so now here.
Speaker 6: So they so they believe that the bleach has have
Speaker 6: been confirmed. The story seems plausible. They have these you
Speaker 6: know that they've had some fatalities and these people were injured.
Speaker 6: They are a Fortune five hundred company. They would like
Speaker 6: to diminish how many deaths or injuries can be attributed
Speaker 6: to their nurse. But still they have to contact the police.
Speaker 6: They know that, how did police, how did police proceed
Speaker 6: and how long is it before they arrest Kimberly Clark.
Speaker 4: Uh the police got out there, I think it was
Speaker 4: about four or five in the afternoon, and the one
Speaker 4: they gave this te uh mind you when when the
Speaker 4: police got it, all they knew was a p thus,
Speaker 4: possible tamper on Madison or something. They had no idea
Speaker 4: what was going on, and they sent out the detective
Speaker 4: sergeant over uh uh, I'm not gonna say homicide over
Speaker 4: the detectives because Lufkin doesn't have specialized detectives right all
Speaker 4: the detective to everything. But they sent the detective sergeant
Speaker 4: out and he was and he didn't wanna go by himself,
Speaker 4: so he started going around looking for somebody to take
Speaker 4: with him, and he really couldn't find anybody, and finally
Speaker 4: found the corporal of the detectives who had just got
Speaker 4: back from swat training and and he was even still
Speaker 4: in his swat gear. So if they drive out to
Speaker 4: de Vita, they don't have a clothe what's going on.
Speaker 4: And they start hearing this what hearing this story, and
Speaker 4: they didn't believe the witnesses either really didn't. Matter of fact,
Speaker 4: very few people are gonna believe these witnesses at first.
Speaker 6: Why do you think that was what was the reason
Speaker 6: for the police not believing these people?
Speaker 4: The police, the police sell them, believe witnesses sell them. Uh,
Speaker 4: you know, you can have a white man in the
Speaker 4: middle of Times Square shooting people, and you have a
Speaker 4: hundred witnesses, and you're gonna have ninety different descriptions, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, ninety different people may tell you a different race.
Speaker 4: So you as a policeman and you learn to be
Speaker 4: really leary about what witnesses tell you. And besides that,
Speaker 4: it was just far fetched and just say'm really far fetched.
Speaker 6: What wasn't there the confirmation from the hospital already or
Speaker 6: did they did not divulge that information that the syringes
Speaker 6: tested for bleach, which again, as I we've established, there'd
Speaker 6: be no reason for a bleach to be in any syringe,
Speaker 6: would there.
Speaker 4: Be none, none, whatsoever? But that really that was a
Speaker 4: couple of de Vita employees who tested the surrenders. That
Speaker 4: wasn't a lab right, And you can't as an investigator,
Speaker 4: you can't just say the employee is a right.
Speaker 6: Okay, within, but they couldn't do any independent testing because
Speaker 6: that was not probably too late to do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not right then they could do it, but I
Speaker 4: guess then it laughs, But they couldn't do it right then.
Speaker 4: This is going to take time. No, initial initially they
Speaker 4: just didn't believe it.
Speaker 6: But good, Now do they have the wherewithal or the
Speaker 6: initiative to go and interview Kimberly clerk sayings and talk
Speaker 6: to her? And under if they do, what's the conditions
Speaker 6: that in which she does speak to them? Does she
Speaker 6: get an attorney? How does she tell us about this?
Speaker 4: Initially she did not get an attorney. This happened on
Speaker 4: the twenty eighth. They can't The police actually came out
Speaker 4: to Devita probably around four or five on the twenty eighth,
Speaker 4: and they didn't get food there with all the crime
Speaker 4: scene stuff and everything and interviewing people at Davida until
Speaker 4: about ten or eleven. At nine and the next morning,
Speaker 4: both detectives Corporal Shirley and Sergeant Abbot went out to
Speaker 4: uh Signs home and got her and brought her in
Speaker 4: just to talk to her, and she they asked her,
Speaker 4: do you wanna drive your car? Do you wanna go
Speaker 4: with us, and she told him she would go with us,
Speaker 4: but just give her a second to make a couple
Speaker 4: of calls. And they went out and waited far and
Speaker 4: Sergeant Abbott later told me that that was one of
Speaker 4: the worst decisions he made because she was in there
Speaker 4: too long. But she came out, got in the car,
Speaker 4: and they took us to the Lefting Police department. They
Speaker 4: started talking to her, and they probably talked to her
Speaker 4: about twenty five minutes then, and they showed the tape
Speaker 4: in court and you could just see it all of us.
Speaker 4: It just all of a sudden, she became drunk. She
Speaker 4: couldn't speak coherently, she couldn't think. She just she was drunk.
Speaker 4: It was just they're sitting there and it was just
Speaker 4: like they just pick up a drunk person. And the
Speaker 4: only thing they could sigured that when they went out
Speaker 4: to waiting the car, she took something and it took
Speaker 4: time to kick in sure, and they eventually after about
Speaker 4: ten minutes of this, and her cell phone would ring,
Speaker 4: and she didn't even know how to answer their cell phone.
Speaker 4: She was just sitting there and finally they had to
Speaker 4: say we got in the interview, and that was the
Speaker 4: last chance they got to talk to her because she
Speaker 4: did a lower up then. But they got some good
Speaker 4: stuff in that first twenty five minutes.
Speaker 6: Though, Yeah, it's interesting how they utilize that. So, yeah,
Speaker 6: and pretty well there are no other well, obviously there's
Speaker 6: no other suspects because it again a little bit of
Speaker 6: her defense is that maybe the VITA is framing her.
Speaker 6: But of course nobody could ever find any evidence of
Speaker 6: anything like that in terms of you know, yeah, there's
Speaker 6: a bunch of deaths at this at this hospital. But
Speaker 6: then what's the most I don't know, horrifying is that
Speaker 6: without those two again witnesses that no one believes you
Speaker 6: wouldn't have this crimes free ending anytime soon, would you?
Speaker 6: When when.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's if I hadn't saw it, If I hadn't
Speaker 4: saw it that morning, there's no telling how long this
Speaker 4: would have went on. And the problem was and one
Speaker 4: of the huge problems and how she got a white
Speaker 4: way for so long as she was doing this during
Speaker 4: the breaks, the bunches and the breaks and things like that,
Speaker 4: when she was there with the other people's patients.
Speaker 6: But but you see the incredible odds one in seven
Speaker 6: hundred thousand that somebody can die from the process. And
Speaker 6: you have two people, and then you have three people,
Speaker 6: you have five people. How does how do fellow employees
Speaker 6: explain that? I mean again, I did not that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were, they were at a loss. They really were. Uh,
Speaker 4: they didn't know what was going on. They they really didn't.
Speaker 4: I was gonna tell you, and I know you're running
Speaker 4: out of time here, and I was going to tell
Speaker 4: you about this April second deal. Okay, Uh, the April
Speaker 4: first or two patients died and they brought an investigators
Speaker 4: were there in the morning in April second, but at
Speaker 4: fourth third in the morning, right before she went to work.
Speaker 4: Kimberly signs on April second, got on her computer and
Speaker 4: ran a search. Can bleach be detected in Dallas's lines?
Speaker 6: Interesting?
Speaker 4: And on April second, nobody knew anything about bleach, nothing,
Speaker 4: And she knew these investigators were coming, and she was
Speaker 4: checking on lines to see if they could actually detect
Speaker 4: bleach and Dollas's lines, see how much trouble she was in?
Speaker 6: Can they detect bleach?
Speaker 4: Actually they could not. Up until this point they could not.
Speaker 4: Matter of fact, there was no lab in the country
Speaker 4: capable of testing that equipment and saying it was Bleach genant,
Speaker 4: not a single one. They finally the FDA who said
Speaker 4: they would try, and they were able to.
Speaker 6: But yeah, so this case in particularly brought that change.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the FDI was able to discover that Blake was
Speaker 4: in the Dalarsis line.
Speaker 6: Okay, now when is it and under what circumstances is
Speaker 6: she finally and when what's the date that she's arrested
Speaker 6: and what she charged was? I found this interesting. I'm
Speaker 6: not familiar with this sort of cluster murder charge. So
Speaker 6: tell us when she was and under what circumstance she
Speaker 6: was charged for murder?
Speaker 4: And she was first arrested on May nine, two thousand
Speaker 4: and eight, and she was arrested on charge of took
Speaker 4: charges of aggravators assault, an aggravator, assault with a deadly
Speaker 4: weapon bleach. They were charging her for those two patients
Speaker 4: that she injected with bleach on the morning twenty eight.
Speaker 4: The DA here found out that it's really really difficult,
Speaker 4: really difficult to convict medical people in court, really difficult.
Speaker 4: Matter of fact, less than fifty percent are convicted by trial. Well,
Speaker 4: the other over fifty percent get off. Most of the people,
Speaker 4: most of the medical professionals that are convicted are done
Speaker 4: through confessions. So what they wanted to do in May night,
Speaker 4: if they wanted to charge her with these two aggravated assaults,
Speaker 4: get her in and try to get a confession, because
Speaker 4: that point they knew she committed murders, but they didn't know.
Speaker 4: At that point, they didn't know how or if they
Speaker 4: would ever convict her of them. So they were trying
Speaker 4: to get a confession.
Speaker 6: Yeah, by this time, but this time, by this time,
Speaker 6: unless she has an idiot for an attorney, he knows
Speaker 6: or she knows that. So tell us what the response
Speaker 6: is to that. I would think that wouldn't work.
Speaker 4: No, it didn't. She hadn't turned in. It didn't work. Uh,
Speaker 4: you know, but that's how you that's the best way
Speaker 4: to get medical professionals. You know, you can work out
Speaker 4: a day on so, hey, we'll do this if you'll
Speaker 4: just come out and confess to these and a lot
Speaker 4: of times it works, and sometimes it doesn't. In her case,
Speaker 4: it doesn't. And I spent a lot of time in
Speaker 4: the book I the trial, and I did it for
Speaker 4: a couple of reasons. One because it's so difficult to
Speaker 4: convict medical people with a trial. And number two, nobody
Speaker 4: in this world has ever been put in trial for
Speaker 4: killing someone with bleach.
Speaker 6: And also you've got a woman serial killer, and you've
Speaker 6: got a death penalty state that every state, whether they
Speaker 6: like the death penel.
Speaker 4: Or not, Texas does.
Speaker 6: It doesn't really put women to death. It's hesitant to
Speaker 6: put women to death.
Speaker 4: Yes, Texas is one of those two. Texas will ascieve men.
Speaker 4: Don't get me wrong. They execute a bunch of men,
Speaker 4: but they don't execute a lot of women.
Speaker 6: What I was going to ask is because we won't.
Speaker 6: I love the aspect of the trial, because, like you say,
Speaker 6: it's it's in a lot of cases. From reading the
Speaker 6: back description of the book, you already know what the
Speaker 6: conclusion was. To go through a trial is pretty tedious
Speaker 6: for a lot of people. And I I got I
Speaker 6: can understand that too, because a lot of true crime
Speaker 6: fans are very knowledgeable about the law process. They don't
Speaker 6: want to go back over it again so much. They
Speaker 6: want a lot of movement in a trial. Trialing a
Speaker 6: lot of in a lot of people's minds really slows
Speaker 6: down a story, but not in this particular case. And
Speaker 6: you start off with it and again, we're not going
Speaker 6: to give the conclusion away because the trial is a
Speaker 6: very wild ride and very interesting characters arise. She has
Speaker 6: a really good she has a really good lawyer. Of course,
Speaker 6: when you pay a lot of money and you try
Speaker 6: to get the best, you get somebody that straddles that
Speaker 6: line between ethics. I think I think that's safe to
Speaker 6: say as a homicide.
Speaker 4: The line hey went well over it.
Speaker 6: Well, that's always sun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not often that a judge cause you alar
Speaker 4: and dishonest in court.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know you've crossed some line anyway. Absolutely. Yeah,
Speaker 6: Now we won't give this away because you really have
Speaker 6: access because, like you say, you went to the trial
Speaker 6: and it was what I thought interesting was uh, you know,
Speaker 6: they moved the judge realized that, Okay, we have a
Speaker 6: smaller courtroom and then we have a bigger one. We're
Speaker 6: likely going to need this big one because it has
Speaker 6: international press, it has the media's interest. Uh, and everybody
Speaker 6: wants to get into this thing. And you really painted
Speaker 6: that anticipation that might be that.
Speaker 4: Made me mad?
Speaker 6: Why is that?
Speaker 4: Well, during Boar Dare and everything, I knew that I
Speaker 4: was gonna be I was gonna be pressed for time
Speaker 4: to get through get interviews and everything. So I was
Speaker 4: gonna do some pre riding and one of the things
Speaker 4: I was going to do was described the court room
Speaker 4: and all that. While well for there was going on.
Speaker 4: I was sitting there my typewriter describing the courtroom and everything,
Speaker 4: and right there at the end, the judge said, you know,
Speaker 4: I think about I'm thinking about moving the trial from
Speaker 4: this courtroom to the other one. He said, does anybody
Speaker 4: have any problems with that? And you know, he was
Speaker 4: talking to the attorneys, but I wanted to raise my
Speaker 4: hand and say yeah, oh yeah, I didn't, but I
Speaker 4: wanted to.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of interesting too, because I've never
Speaker 6: really seen any photos and I've never been in any
Speaker 6: courtroom myself where you say, you describe the courtroom as
Speaker 6: kind of tattered in old seats, so you know it's
Speaker 6: and it's dunk you're saying, smell like urine.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Then they bring those prisoners in all at one time,
Speaker 4: and they stepped there in these seats and some of
Speaker 4: them had ever had a bath, I don't think. But
Speaker 4: they bring them in for jail, Kyll. You know, they'll
Speaker 4: bring them, They'll bring faithy of them in at once
Speaker 4: and set them in there. And I think some of
Speaker 4: them pays on it and everything.
Speaker 6: But that play, Yeah, that's that's I'm not familiar with,
Speaker 6: you know, a trial where you'll have anybody, but that
Speaker 6: defended in the actual courtroom itself. I've seen other you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, I've seen adjournments and I've seen you know,
Speaker 6: like for remand. But yeah, so that that was very
Speaker 6: different for me to see that the state and the
Speaker 6: disorder of the courtroom itself, but you really catch staying
Speaker 6: the room only. Yeah, there was quite a bit of
Speaker 6: a stir and and and again always baffling to me
Speaker 6: how some people based on their hunches, I guess, so
Speaker 6: they're thinking she's innocent, but based on what I have
Speaker 6: no godly idea. But it was really a conversation at
Speaker 6: the uh water cooler in this little place, wasn't it, Lufkin?
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh man, this is something you know. The funny
Speaker 4: thing is, because of the news reporting, a lot of
Speaker 4: people thought she was going to get off. I thought
Speaker 4: she was guilty, but I thought she was going to
Speaker 4: get off.
Speaker 6: And we won't give it away. We won't give it
Speaker 6: away because the thing is is that anything, anything could
Speaker 6: happen in this because she was smart enough. It seems
Speaker 6: that as much as the twenty five minute interview was
Speaker 6: a mistake, any kind of interview without an attorney is
Speaker 6: a mistake. Yeah, but she is a pretty cunning kind
Speaker 6: of person. Again, I think it's interesting the psychopath is cunning,
Speaker 6: but then it seems that the ego, the narcissism, takes
Speaker 6: over and and they get foolish. Exactly interesting.
Speaker 4: I think the morning of the twenty eight she was
Speaker 4: just so upset because she wasn't the mad nurse, and
Speaker 4: there were some things that happened to her private life
Speaker 4: to right before that. But I think she was just
Speaker 4: so upsetter she got careless. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well obviously, oh thank god you got careless. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: again a.
Speaker 4: Witnesses said, proved to be true.
Speaker 6: You know, what I found out is that there wasn't
Speaker 6: more disdained for the Vida Corporation itself, and that not
Speaker 6: the corporation, but that hosp that franchise in itself, that clinic.
Speaker 4: They were wrong on some things. There were some things
Speaker 4: that they were not doing well and right, I had
Speaker 4: to say that. But getting information out of them too
Speaker 4: is pretty hard, you know, you don't you don't just
Speaker 4: go up and ask them questions because their employees wouldn't
Speaker 4: even allow their employees had attorneys.
Speaker 6: Well, of course, it's when people are dying that's a
Speaker 6: huge thing. And when it's the responsibility of of a nurse,
Speaker 6: I mean, my god, you know it's it could be
Speaker 6: bad for business. No, it's very bad. I mean, I'm
Speaker 6: being facetious.
Speaker 4: I'll say this for Devada that they have problems. They did,
Speaker 4: but they corrected them, and they got their bets saved
Speaker 4: off too well, and they and they paid those.
Speaker 6: Well. The thing is is that there's a lot more book.
Speaker 6: We've we've gone through this basic story, but there's so
Speaker 6: much more to this book. And like a lot of
Speaker 6: reviewers have said of your book too, it's really because
Speaker 6: I guess you're a fictional writer. It really helps. But
Speaker 6: also I think the main thing of this is that
Speaker 6: you've really don't get overburdened with details that don't mean
Speaker 6: as much so for season readers, they love a great
Speaker 6: story without reiterating some of the things that you know,
Speaker 6: maybe a first time true crime reader might be reading.
Speaker 6: We'll say, and so I applaud you in keeping the reader,
Speaker 6: at myself and any reader basically on the edge of
Speaker 6: his seat here. It moves very very quickly, very exciting story.
Speaker 6: And I love when a trial is not a foregone conclusion.
Speaker 6: So and it's very very interesting trial, like you say,
Speaker 6: it's and this is a tough upheld battle. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Okay, what one of the one of the attorneys told
Speaker 4: me after the trial, I sat down to talam but
Speaker 4: one of them, I don't really want to say which one,
Speaker 4: but he told me that in murder cases, you know,
Speaker 4: usually you have one little point that you have problems with,
Speaker 4: the others are just really open and shot. You usually
Speaker 4: have one little problem that you have problems with, and
Speaker 4: this one I had problems with everything, every point. I
Speaker 4: had to fight for them.
Speaker 6: Before we go, I wanted to also talk about, just
Speaker 6: briefly and just just explain how this happens in Texas,
Speaker 6: is that the jury had to decide on a murder charge,
Speaker 6: but it was five murders in one. I have never
Speaker 6: heard of this sort of cluster murder charge, which seems
Speaker 6: again to have complicated the case for the jury and
Speaker 6: hence for the prosecution in the community. So tell us
Speaker 6: what Texas law is that you are able to do this,
Speaker 6: and why would you do this? And you have to
Speaker 6: do this, or what's yeah, what is this?
Speaker 4: Under Texas law, there's two cups of murder. There's murder
Speaker 4: and then there's capital murder. And capital murder is usually
Speaker 4: best to find by murdering someone in the commission of
Speaker 4: a felony. If you go into a store to rob
Speaker 4: somebody and you shoot and kill a clerk, that's capital murder.
Speaker 4: If you kill a fireman or a policeman in a
Speaker 4: line of duty, that's capital murder. There's a few other things.
Speaker 4: If you kill a kid under ten, it's capital murder.
Speaker 4: But if you kill a number of people over a
Speaker 4: time period using the same method, that's also capital murder.
Speaker 4: So instead of saying she killed five people, they lumped
Speaker 4: all those five together into one charge of capital murder.
Speaker 4: And basically all the jury had to do was say
Speaker 4: she's guilty of at least two of them. If she's
Speaker 4: guilty of at least two of them, the jury blaef
Speaker 4: jury convictor of all five. But the charge sheet they said,
Speaker 4: if you killed at least two of them, then you're
Speaker 4: guilty of this capital murder, because it has to be
Speaker 4: two or more. So that's why they put them all
Speaker 4: in to get capital murder out of it, so they
Speaker 4: could get to death penalty just murder, Yeah, just murder
Speaker 4: doesn't have death penalty.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's just those requirements of the two murders and
Speaker 6: then you get a five was interesting to me. It
Speaker 6: was news to me. I hadn't heard of that kind
Speaker 6: of deal before, and I know that that would complicate
Speaker 6: things for the jury, so further complicating this case. And
Speaker 6: of course it also complicated it by their ploy to
Speaker 6: have her confessed did not work, and so obviously it
Speaker 6: was a setback for the prosecution. So I want to
Speaker 6: thank you very much John for coming on and talking
Speaker 6: about this.
Speaker 4: How can you interesting?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was gonna say, how do people contact you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a w wdbbie dot John Fox, johnhome dot com,
Speaker 4: John Fox, johnhome dot com. And of course I'm on
Speaker 4: Facebook at John dot Fox, John Facebook dot com or
Speaker 4: whatever that is. But uh, just John Fox, John, if
Speaker 4: you if the good.
Speaker 6: I apologize for that we've had some kind of disconnection
Speaker 6: with John. I want to thank you our audience for
Speaker 6: tuning in and listening to John Fox John speaking about
Speaker 6: his book Killer Nurse. Good Night,