The Malignant Hero

[RN2DNP4.5]

The Malignant Hero

Every parent's worst nightmare is entrusting his or her child into the care of a person who intends it harm. Few people would ever suspect that someone who enters the healing profession and swears on the nurse's oath would rather see children die than be healthy. It took a lengthy investigation, breaking through walls of professional denial, and the near-destruction of a doctor's career before the truth about this malicious caregiver was discovered.

In 1982, Dr. Kathleen Holland opened a pediatrics clinic in Kerrville, Texas. Needing help, she hired a licensed vocational nurse named Genene Ann Jones, who had recently resigned from the Bexar County Medical Center Hospital. Many parents were happy to have this clinic available, but during a period of two months that first summer, seven different children succumbed to seizures while in Holland's office. She transferred them by ambulance for treatment at Sid Peterson Hospital, never thinking the seizures were suspicious. However, from the sheer numbers of children afflicted, the hospital staff thought something odd must be going on.

They questioned Holland and she assured everyone that she was at a total loss as to why these children were suffering at her clinic. At least they'd all recovered. But then one of them, 15-month-old Chelsea McClellan, died while en route from the clinic to the hospital. Dr. Holland was devastated, as were Chelsea's parents. The child had not even been very ill.

Genene Jones 1968

Soon afterward, Genene Jones assured Dr. Holland that she had found a bottle of succinylcholine, a powerful muscle relaxant, that had been reported missing three weeks earlier. Holland saw that the cap was missing and the rubber top punctured with needle marks, so she dismissed Jones from her employ. She was later to learn that the near-full bottle had been filled with saline. In other words, someone had been using this dangerous drug, which paralyzed people into a sort of hell on earth: they lay inert but aware and unable to get anyone's attention.

In February 1983, a grand jury was convened to look into 47 suspicious deaths of children at Bexar County Medical Center Hospital that had occurred over a period of four years-the time when Genene Jones had been a nurse there. A second grand jury organized hearings on the children from Holland's clinic. The body of Chelsea McClellan was exhumed and her tissues tested; her death appeared to have been caused by an injection of the muscle relaxant. Jones was questioned by both grand juries, and, along with Holland, was named by Chelsea's parents in a wrongful death suit.

The grand jury indicted Jones on two counts of murder, and several charges of injury to six other children. The various facilities where she had worked were appalled.

Angels of Death - Nurses, nurses who kill their patients â€" The Malignant Hero â€" Crime Library on truTV.com

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

It takes a special kind of sickness to torture children like that. I'm confused how sux could cause seizures, though.

[xoemmylouox, ASN, RN]

She's getting out soon.. Pretty scary thought.

[RN2DNP4.5]

It takes a special kind of sickness to torture children like that. I'm confused how sux could cause seizures, though.

Sux causes respiratory depression which in turn causes anoxia.

[RN2DNP4.5]

I wish to edit my post...hopefully this works this time. I am listing the link to the website which this article came from.

Angels of Death - Nurses, nurses who kill their patients — The Malignant Hero — Crime Library on truTV.com

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

Sux causes respiratory depression which in turn causes anoxia.

Yeah, once I thought about it I figured hypoxia related, but I was picturing tonic clinic activity and wondering how that was possible in the presence of neuromuscular blockade.

[umcRN, BSN, RN]

WHY was there a muscle relaxant in a CLINIC???

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

WHY was there a muscle relaxant in a CLINIC???

I was wondering about this too. They may have had a crash cart.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

I actually worked as a staff nurse with Genene Jones - at (what was then called) Bexar County hospital prior to the time when she was hired by the pediatrician. She was an LVN working in PICU & I was in Neuro ICU. They were phasing out LVNs in ICU's. It was later discovered that she staged several resuscitations in PICU... inducing resp arrest & then 'rescuing' the patient ... in order to show that she was just as competent as the RN staff. Her later actions at the pedi office were more of the same - staging heroic 'rescues' to inflate her own very disturbed ego.

She was a weird person. Very inappropriate. Of course, looking back we realized all sorts of things were actually 'red flags'. One thing I clearly remember, she had the most expertise starting pedi IVs that I have ever seen. It was not uncommon for her to be called to other units (including mine) when we were unable to start an IV - she just never missed.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

Why go back to school to become an RN and keep your job when you can just start murdering kids instead? Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I am convinced anyone that would so this just isn't normal. HouTx, what were her circumstances for leaving the PICU if you know? Was she fired because of the weird incidences or phased out?

[HazelLPN, LPN]

I actually worked as a staff nurse with Genene Jones - at (what was then called) Bexar County hospital prior to the time when she was hired by the pediatrician. She was an LVN working in PICU & I was in Neuro ICU. They were phasing out LVNs in ICU's. It was later discovered that she staged several resuscitations in PICU... inducing resp arrest & then 'rescuing' the patient ... in order to show that she was just as competent as the RN staff. Her later actions at the pedi office were more of the same - staging heroic 'rescues' to inflate her own very disturbed ego.

She was a weird person. Very inappropriate. Of course, looking back we realized all sorts of things were actually 'red flags'. One thing I clearly remember, she had the most expertise starting pedi IVs that I have ever seen. It was not uncommon for her to be called to other units (including mine) when we were unable to start an IV - she just never missed.

It gave me chills to read your post that you actually worked with this serial killer. I remember watching a TV movie starting the LA Law star Susan Rutttan as Jones back sometime in the 1980s and felt like I was watching a horror movie. Apparently, Stephen King's Misery character Anne Wilkes was inspired by the story of Genene Jones.

After I did some additional reading about her, I understand that the hospital was so afraid of a lawsuit for wrongful termination that they didn't investigate and fire Jones, and instead chose to reassign all of the LPNs in the ICUs just to get rid of her, allowing for her to continue her killing spree when she took a job at a local pediatrician's office. Kids would come in for routine things and end up coding in the office and at least one died.

I knew a questionable nurse once who seemed to get a thrill out of codes. Like Jones, she never missed an IV...and sometimes would "accidently" start A lines on her patients. They ended up being so good that they would actually use them! She never killed or harmed anyone, but she wanted to be in the middle of the action even if it wasn't her patient. She had the nerve to yank the bag out of the hands of respiratory therapists and even the docs and that is what ultimately got her fired.

[Magsulfate, BSN, RN]

SCARY!!!!!