Reta Mays

A war veteran struck by a mysterious, life-threatening illness. His sugar had dropped in a matter of minutes. That sentiment the cardiac arrest. He was non-diabetic and there was absolutely no reason for his blood sugar to be low. As investigators dig into the mystery, a disturbing pattern comes to light. There were events with a number of patients of unexplained hypoglycemia. rumor mill spread around the hospital. It could have been anybody. Pretty clear.

This case occurred in a single unit of the hospital. To unearth the horrifying truth, investigators must expose a killer preying on a community's most vulnerable members. These events couldn't be occurring naturally or by accident. This was being done by someone. insulin had been administered subcutaneously or injected into the patients. Did you have anything to do? So that's what listens for this picture. That's no angel of mercy to me. That's a monster.

Clarksburg, West Virginia is a small town with a proud history. To the Lewis A. Johnson Medical Center, which is one of the 172 veterans' hospitals distributed across the United States. The Lewis A. Johnson Medical Center is a relatively small facility, has approximately 100 beds, and it serves the population of North Central West Virginia and surrounding This is a VA hospital that was built after World War II that sits high on a bluff and you look down over this gorgeous country. Virginia.

The center serves a vital role in the lives of nearly 70,000 veterans. In June 2018, 92-year-old Russell Posey Sr. becomes the latest to be admitted. But his experience won't be routine. My sister called me one morning and said that my father was not acting right. He was sick. So she took him to a VA because that's where his doctors were. They didn't diagnose him with anything for the first day. He was an ICU. And

Low blood pressure, with low kidney response. They said his organs were trying to shut down. Eventually they determined that he had pneumonia. Um they treated him for it. He got better in a couple days. That's when they moved him to Section 3A to get just general care, help him get stronger, and then they were gonna send him home. Ward 3A is the hospital's medical surgical unit where many patients recuperate before release. That was Father's Day that they transferred him into that ward.

We all had a like a little Father's Day party for him. I stayed with him that night until probably midnight. With plans to see his father the following morning, Vincent Posey leaves him to rest. But before returning, he receives unsettling news. The next morning I got a call from my sister. The hospital had called. They said dad had been unresponsive in the middle of the night and that he had an episode. And she asked the doctors what had happened and nobody could give her an answer.

While Vincent is en route, doctors have determined Russell Posey Sr.'s blood sugar levels plummeted during the night, resulting in a life-threatening hypoglycemic attack. A hypoglycemic event is a drop in one's blood sugar level essentially below 70 is what could be considered a hypoglycemic event. His sugar had dropped from I think approximately 117, 118 down to 14. In a matter of minutes. And uh that sent him into cardiac arrest.

You can't spend much time with a blood sugar in the tens or twenties. It is very unusual and it's incredibly rare you're going to start considering organ system failures. Doctors are working feverishly to save Russell's life, but his family is certain nothing in his history explains the crisis. My father never had any uh diabetes or sugar issues ever. A little bit of high blood pressure he's being treated for, but never any issues with sugar.

The nurses and the doctors were both like we don't understand what What what happened?

Russell Posey Sr. was born in Lewis County, West Virginia in 1925. He was raised on a farm, and at the age of 18, like many men of his generation, he answered the call to fight in World War II. My father joined the Navy in 1943. He went to a group called the Raiders. Which, if I understand it correctly, was the predecessor to the seals. Russell was sent to Florida for rigorous training. Upon completion, his unit was selected to perform a dangerous mission.

He was supposed to swim ashore, evade the enemy, draw maps, Check the tides and things like that. But he had boarded the ship and he was on his way to Japan when they dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The coast in Japan. He ended up going to Okinawa and he was cleaning up the war debris and and helping restore, you know, infrastructure. After the war, Russell returned to the state of the world. New lease on life.

He attended West Virginia University, where he became president of his fraternity The love of his life, Nelva. My mom lived in Morgantown. She was born in Italy and came over when she was six years old. And I think that she met him accidentally through another date that she was on. And then he started dating her Russell and Nelva were married on December thirtieth, nineteen fifty. They spent the next fifty-five years together, raising four children and building a lasting legacy.

He bought a drive in restaurant called the Derry Delight. That was in sixty nine, seventy. And then shortly after that we opened a called uh Posey's Lawn and Garden. We ran those businesses for about thirty years. After he quit the businesses when he retired, he moved back to Lewis County onto one of the farms he had owned over there. After more than half a century of marital bliss, Russell lost the love of his life when Nelva passed away in 2005.

When she passed and he was in that house by himself He didn't like it. So he he went to church quite a bit. We kept active with the grandkids coming over as much as we could. Now, 13 years later, Russell's life hangs in the balance as his family waits for him to regain consciousness in the wake of a deadly hypoglycemic attack. He had three IVs of dextrose, I think, being pumped into him and they kept checking him like every couple of minutes.

Dextrose is a simple sugar that's used as a rescue treatment for low blood sugar. There certainly is potential for survival, but it it all depends on the reserve and how quickly that low blood sugar is responded to. he would fade in and out of consciousness that went on through that day. The treatment works, but not without complications.

Later that night he got to the point where he could talk again and open his eyes and move his arms and stuff like that. He was never the same after that though. He didn't recognize people. He was talking to people that weren't there. He had gotten stronger enough to where he could be moved to this nursing home, but he was 92. He was never going to get strong enough to where he could live on his own again. But the Posey family is desperate to understand how could this have happened?

Mr. Posey was non-diabetic, and he had eaten cheesecake the night before, and there was absolutely no reason for his blood sugar to be low. So this is a very unusual event for a non-diabetic. Something else is going on. what could cause severe catastrophic low blood sugar abounts and who could have done this. Investigation uncovers. were in their eighties. One terrible. Explanation. Womer mill spread. began to present itself to me.

After Russell Posey Sr.'s unexplained health crisis, administrators conduct a review of the veteran's case and the hospital's procedures. Find is alarming. They realized that they're not going to be able to do that with a number of patients of unexplained hypoglycemia. dramatic drops in their blood sugar that couldn't be explained by their underlying condition. Administrators review records showing there have been six hypoglycemic incidents that year. Amen.

The first occurred in late January 2018. The patient was 89 year old Robert Kozal. Amen. Robert Kozel was a Korean War veteran who was in the Non life threatening. with him. He was not diabetic but ended up suffering an extreme hypoglycemic event and he received multiple bouts of D50 dextrose. Amen. He was actually really starting to do much, much better. And his family, one of the last memories they have, is singing with him in the hospital bed. And then he dies shortly thereafter.

Two months later, the same thing happened to another Korean War veteran, 84 year old Archie Edjol. Hospital in late March twenty. Conditions related to dementia and was being held ultimately I think expected to be discharged from the ward when he suffered an extreme hypoglycemic event. Cases seemed unrelated at the time, but a third incident made the pattern harder to ignore. On March 22, 2018, 81 year old George Shaw Sr. checked into the hospital.

Expecting the quality care he'd grown accustomed to after decades in the armed forces. My father joined the service when he was 18. He joined the Air Force and he stayed in the Air Force for 28 years before he retired and moved back here. And then after that, he worked for the VA for six years in the mail room. My father wasn't honest and A caring man. In his later years, Shaw struggled with short-term memory loss, often forgetting to eat and drink. Thank you.

That particular day he was We've decided to take him to the VA. I wanted to just keep him in the hospital over the weekend. Like those before him, Shaw's blood sugar suddenly plummeted without an explanation as to why. Every organ in his body was starting to shut down. And he kept trying to tell us something the whole time. He kept pointing, pointing that finger, pointing that finger and trying to talk. And We knew he was trying to. But we didn't know what for sure. Yeah. Two weeks to pass away.

He suffered organ after organ after organ shutdown. The doctors didn't give us an explanation because they were confused. They didn't understand why his sugar dropped that low. We thought somebody had gave him the wrong medicine on accident. We thought it was just a big mistake. However, the incident still went unreported. There were Members of the hospital staff who privately and amongst the And became very, very alarm. Armed.

Bye. Hospitals generally have a culture that really makes it very hard for people to come f Two more deaths occurred in April 2018, two months before Russell's hypoglycemic event. A 96-year-old veteran listed under the initials WAH and 82-year-old Felix McDermott. My dad was talkative, he was friendly, and never forgot a joke. He went right into the service and High school and then he was a paratrooper. Twenty five years old.

And he was with the hundred and first at one point in the uh eighty second airborne. And then he rejoined when my brother joined. So and finished out his ears and reserves. He was military to the core. He always told us after my mum passed. If anything happens to me, I want you to put me into the a nursing home. Similar to the other patients, McDermott's condition was not life-threatening when he was admitted. Yeah. gotten food done and as long as when he was eating dinner.

He went in on a Friday by Sunday. He was doing a lot better. The antibiotic was doing its job. I told him, Hey Dad, I'm gonna go back to work. You should be going home tomorrow. We got called in Sunday night and they tell us that Dad's shortgird failed. Come down to my dad's DNR. So choice was made to let him have. My dad never had problems with the sugar until that night. That was the first time. Two months later, 88-year-old Raymond Golden. Sixth man to die from a hypoglycemic event.

By June had come around, the investigators were confronted with six deaths of elderly male veterans. They all ranged in age from 72 to 96. They all had health problems. They were in a hospital for one reason or another. They were all on the upswing and expecting to be discharged. Russell Posey Sr. is a very good one. Only one of these men who survived.

And now that hospital administrators are aware of the problem, they finally take action. When they could not find a medical explanation, they referred the matter for criminal investigation by the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General. investigate allegations of fraud, waste and abuse. This investigation was first brought to our When what the medical experts were indicating, could lower these sugars that severe. So it was just Yeah. naturally or by accident. This was being done by someone.

The facts describe a horrifying scenario. Someone inside the hospital, most likely a caregiver, has been using insulin as a lethal weapon. The term angel of death began to present itself early in the investigation and the rumor mill spread around the hospital once everyone heard that there was an ensuing investigation. The fact that it was a series of impatience over a short span, the thought process of course crosses your mind that do we have a serial killer on our hands.

After initial findings suggest a caregiver could be killing patients at a Veterans Hospital in West Virginia, additional resources are immediately committed to the investigation. Veterans Affairs Officer Inspector General joined with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office to begin a criminal investigation. The VA Medical Center in Clarksborough. Yeah. The facility at any point in time has approximately twelve hundred employees.

There were any number of employees who could have had access to any of these patients at any point in time. It could have been anybody. Agents try to narrow down the pool of suspects by analyzing patterns in the suspicious deaths. All of the deaths in this case occurred in a single unit of the hospital called Ward 3A. 3A wasn't a like an intensive care unit or anything like that for people expecting to die. It was general medicine where people were recovering and expecting to be discharged.

Employees, you have to scan their cards in order to access different access points. So they immediately start checking timesheets, particularly for folks who worked on or had access to Ward 3A. Only one person fits all of the requirements. Upon further review of the Ward 3A timecard records, we learned that Rita Mays was the only 3A employee that was working when all

was a nursing assistant. Her duties entailed responding to patient call bells, assisting with their daily needs of living, changing linens, and also conducting finger sticks, checking the diabetic patient's blood sugar level. Records indicate Rita wasn't only working in the ward during all of the incidents. She was also in the room with many of the victims. Yeah. Which is just a little bit more. Required one on the first one. attention from a nursing assistant or sometimes a nurse.

In five of our cases, she was sitting one-on-one. Yeah. with the victim immediately prior to them experiencing the hypoglycemic events. Investigators also find evidence of the That Rita seemed very interested in the blood sugar levels of her patients. So the hospital had glucometers which They're required to large. We quickly determined that Rita Mays Took a disproportionate amount of the severely low blood sugar readings as opposed to other staff.

As investigators keep digging, the glucometer readings reveal something else. You were looking at the audit trails. Our investigative team was able to identify an additional patient who suffered similar low blood sugar readings. Robert Edge was admitted with a UTI in July of twenty seventeen. Nothing to do with blood sugar. My grandfather joined the new School to make sure that he was able to provide for himself. to be able to provide for a family.

When he was admitted in the hospital, my dad had texted me and was like, We're just gonna get this like He was diabetic. But he was not receiving insulin from the hospital. It was not a on his charts at all for requiring that. And his blood sugars at one point. death were measured at 17, which is extremely low. Robert Edge Sr. died within 24 hours of his hypoglycemic event. Making him the seventh veteran to pass away under suspicious circumstances.

When my grandpa passed away, there was no additional explanation given to us as to why just that blood sugar issue caused him to pass away. We didn't have my grandpa anymore. I think that it's kind of a wound that's never really healed on our side. Agents confirm Rita Mays was the nurse's assistant on duty. And so, really quickly into the investigation, within the first week, the investigators already had a person of interest, Rita Mayes.

Agents look into Rita's background in an effort to see if there's anything that might tie her to the victim.

Marina Mays at the... In her late forties she Clarksburg and her family had moved around the minute. Her home life. One of her sons had apparently been in jail. We learned that her husband, Gordon Mays, was actually currently serving uh a six year sentence uh stemming from a conviction. Rita's personal life is troubling, but it's her employment history that catches investigators' attention. One of the first things that stuck out was Rita Maze herself as a veteran. Rita May served in the Yeah.

a chemical munitions repairmen uh in support of the war in Iraq. She was ultimately honourably discharged. and she herself received her care from the VA hospital in Clarksburg. Prior to joining VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, she was actually a corrections officer at a local jail in West Virginia. We learned that we're going to be able to He left that position during an internal affairs investigation into allegations of excessive use of force. Thank you.

She had been accused in several complaints of being excessively harsh and holding prisoners while Another That obviously set off a red flag. When investigators talk to Rita's hospital colleagues, they find it hard to believe she could commit murder. We learned that Rita Mayes had a very stellar reputation at the medical center. She had even received a nursing assistant of the year award. But some colleagues do recall suspicious behavior.

They thought it was unusual that Rita was often found in the the victims holding their hands, asking questions as to why and how this could have happened. that we were on the right track and that Rita was our primary target. Rita is suspected in the deaths of seven patients. But less than a week into the investigation, another is added to the list with the death of Russell Posey Sr. My sister got a call by two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning on July the third that my father had passed.

in the night. In the medical report, it said uh natural cause. Unfortunately, there's not yet enough evidence to charge Rita. There's a big difference between us knowing that she did this in our gut and being able to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even worse, the hospital doesn't have any legal reason to fire re- Thank you. We needed to move her off the floor and not give her access to any of their patients. Investigators confront a potential serial killer.

Did you have anything to do with these patients? I don't know what they think could have happened. But when a suspect refuses to talk, there is only one way to reveal the buried truth. The bodies needed to be exhumed. Investigators suspect nurse's assistant Rita Mays has killed eight patients by injecting them with insulin. But until they can prove she's a murderer. Make sure Rita doesn't harm anyone else. Amen. Our mentality.

Yeah. We ultimately made a recommendation to the facility to remove her. Care. She was reassigned to the mail room. It ain't. The thinking became we need to really get to the psychology of this person. What could she be motivated by? There were a lot of things going on in her personal life. There was a lot of turmoil. He was losing control from a lot of different fronts. Because she had been deployed, PTSD can sometimes play a role. And that was something that we considered.

To ensure they are ready to confront Rita with their findings, agents spend the next few weeks Electronic evidence ended up being pretty important. So we also obtained some records by search warrant, and it showed us that Rita Mays had been watching a show called Nurses Who Kill. Now look, we're not who kill that you might be a nurse who kills. In fact, on a couple of those episodes, insulin was the weapon of choice. Armed with more evidence, investigators set up a meeting with Rita.

We elected to go with a specialist from the FBI's behavioral analysis unit to conduct an interview with Rita. It was a voluntary interview and lasted approximately five, five and a half hours. This interview was really meant to start introducing some of the evidence and see if she would discuss. Anything more? As you know, we're looking at things at the hospital. But we're also limited to the patient death. Yeah. And what I'm trying to accomplish today figure out what we're missing.

Okay. After the FBI agent builds rapport with Rita, the questions become more pointed. Did you have anything to do? the deaths or incidents with these patients to absolutely not. Well you guys have to do that. have been asking these questions. people with low blood sugar, I don't know what they think could have happened I test the sugar I tell the nurses what the sugar is. I know it's something to do with it. with that. What kind of meta?

As soon as victims are brought up and the point of question is about anything that might have happened, she really starts to shut down and that's how she ends the interview. Thank you. You're accusing me up. Mirror now, I need a lawyer. So there was no question that when she left that interview, that she knew she was our prom suspect. Investigators see only one way to And it won't be pleasant.

Unfortunately, the investigative team. the difficult decision of approaching the family members of our identified. To seek their consent to exhibit. and perform forensic autopsies. We're looking for every type of medical evidence to determine whether there's insulin present. It's been two months since the federal investigation began, but this is the first time any of the victims' families have been told what's going on.

It was towards the end of August. FBI come to my house. I was in total shock with it. When they explained that they felt somebody had helped this along and had been given What they said is we're investigating your father's death and we would like to exhibit his body. Amen. I said my father would want to make sure that this never happened to anybody else. And if we can help, I'm in favor of them exhuming the body. What hurt me was they were gonna disrupt his rest.

But then, how much of a peaceful rest could he get? Without knowing the truth. So it was easy to say yes. The families of the eight victims give consent, and in fall 2018, investigators exhume those bodies for autopsy. There was a not only to look for the administration of exogenous insulin in various bodily foods. But the tissue samples that were taken to determine if insulin had been in the middle.

Despite months of decomposition, the medical examiner finds the evidence investigators are looking for. The medical examiner discovered. believed to be insulin injection sites. Ultimately determined that What really hit us? The face is seeing the autopsy report and in big black bold letters the words. Homicide. It just all became real then. Seven of the eight victims' causes of death are now classified as homicide.

There remained one case that was not able to uh reach that opinion and left it as undetermined, and that was Mr. Posey. Approximately two two weeks or more after his hypoglycemic event, the medical examiner They changed it to suspicious death. And determined causes which go after her for attempted murder. As the victims are buried for a second time, in the world. Confront Rita with their findings. The investigative team made the decision to reveal to her You it was her and only her.

I committed these acts. If you were the prosecutor. And it looks like I did it. Even under more pressure, Rita still refuses to confess. Ultimately, after being presented with all the evidence, we ended the interview, got up and left. She had had enough, and that was it. Thank you. Okay.

We were at a stage where we believed we had enough evidence. And so at that point, I issued her a target letter that was served on her by the FBI. That target letter simply says you're a target of an investigation. So she was appointed three attorneys. That's because it's a Death penalty eligible case and she has that right. And so we start a dialogue and we are laying out all the evidence against Rita Mays.

After a two-year investigation, authorities are certain 45-year-old nursing assistant Rita Mays is responsible for the murders of seven patients at a veterans hospital in West Virginia. But the case never makes it to trial. She voluntarily surrendered. She was never arrested. She seems to be moving forward in good faith, based on conversations with her attorney, toward a plea agreement. Heard attorneys got what we call

A reverse proffer, which is pretty much a layout of the case that would be presented against their client. And at that point they started working out a plea deal. Talking to the families, we learned very quickly that they're on board with a plea agreement that would uh put Rita Mays in prison for life. in the plea deal. Any longer than it had to be. Part of the plea agreements were that Rita would admit to

Second degree murder. So we had seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in Mr. Posey's case. The court sentenced Rita Mays to the maximum allowed by law. Which here was seven terms of life imprisonment and twenty years for that assault with intent to commit murder. Rita Mays will spend the rest of her life. During sentencing, the judge calls Rita the monster no one sees coming.

The only question remaining is why? What was the motive for Rita May's too? kill elderly, helpless veterans. Yeah. Amen. The plea agreement, very importantly, required that Rita Mays give a debrief in this case, where we'd have the chance finally to get answers from her for what her motivations were. She gave two Contradictory reasons. One is she did try to claim to some extent that some of these were mercy killers. that they were suffering and needed to die.

But the evidence didn't support that. These veterans were not on death's door at all when they were admitted to the Clarksburg VA. What insulin does is shut your body down. One organ at a time. And my father Amen. Lived for two weeks. Suffered. That's no angel of mercy to me. That's a monster. The other contradictory reason was that her home life was out of control. She said that in 2017, when she started having these thoughts, her husband was in prison. Her son was having issues.

This somehow was meant to get away. Of control, but she told us this did not relieve her stress. And she, in fact, hoped that she would get caught someday. Well the things she told us were We'll never know why Grita Mays committed these heinous acts. Why did Re- He went to the dark side and started playing God. Rita May's might be etched in the annals of American serial killers, but the names of the men whose lives she stole Robert. Robert. Archie Edgel. George Shaw Cr. W A H

Raymond Golden. And Russell Posey C. Will be memorialized for a better region. They should be remembered as men who honorably served our country, who were loved and loved their families, and deserved a lot better. I think their legacy will be helping improve how people are treated in the VA. Improving in a system that they all I think believed in. Their families will make sure that they are never forgotten. Never forgotten.