Nurse charged in deaths at Texas hospital

Nurse charged in deaths at Texas hospital

A former nurse at Nocona General Hospital in Nocona, Texas, has been arrested on two counts of capital murder in a case where as many as two dozen patients may have been murdered. Nurse Vickie Dawn Jackson, had not worked at the hospital since Feb. 21, 2001.

AP/New York Times, July 17, 2002

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/17/national/17NURS.html

OCONA, Tex., July 17-A former nurse at a North Texas hospital where the deaths of at least two dozen patients are being investigated was arrested today on two counts of capital murder after being indicted by a grand jury.Michael R. Graham, chief executive of Nocona General Hospital, where the deaths took place, said the nurse, Vickie Dawn Jackson, had not worked there since Feb. 21, 2001.

The indictment was to be unsealed on Wednesday at a news conference.

The investigation began last year after officials at the hospital, 45 miles east of Wichita Falls, realized that the number of deaths in December 2000 and January 2001 was twice the normal amount, and that they all took place on the same shift.

Several vials of a drug used to stop breathing temporarily were also reported missing in January 2001