Former W.Va. nursing assistant pleads guilty in 7 veteran deaths, including former Westmoreland man

A former nursing assistant at a West Virginia veterans hospital pleaded guilty Tuesday to causing the deaths of seven veterans, including a former Westmoreland County man.

Reta Mays, 45, worked the night shift at the Louis A. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Clarksburg, W.Va., when federal investigators said she gave insulin to Felix Kirk McDermott, 82. McDermott, formerly of Ruffs Dale, was not diabetic or prescribed insulin, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jarod Douglas.

“Ms. Mays willfully, deliberately and without authorization administered insulin to Mr. McDermott,” Douglas said.

McDermott died April 9, 2018, “as Ms. Mays had intended,” Douglas said. He is buried in Westmoreland County Memorial Park.

The indictment was unsealed Tuesday. Mays pleaded guilty the same day to seven counts of second-degree murder and a single count of assault with intent to commit murder. A status conference was set for Oct. 30 to discuss when a sentencing hearing could be held.

“There’s a substantial amount of mitigation that we’re preparing,” defense attorney David Hoose said.

Douglas said prosecutors are recommending consecutive life sentences on each of the murder charges plus 20 years for the assault count. The plea agreement calls for Mays to waive her appeal rights.

She wore a mask during the hearing in a West Virginia federal courtroom, appearing to wipe back tears. The hearing was broadcast by livestream. She was taken into custody.

Mays admitted to killing seven patients between July 2017 and June 2018 by giving them insulin, a hormone that regulates the amount of glucose in the blood, according to the indictment. Some of the patients were diabetic and others weren’t.

An eighth patient was not diabetic or prescribed insulin when she administered it in June 2018, according to the indictment. That patient later died, but investigators could not determine if the death was a result of the insulin, Douglas said.

Prosecutors said nursing assistants at the center, who were not required to have certification or licenses, performed tasks such as taking vital signs and testing patients’ blood glucose levels. Nursing assistants were not qualified or authorized to administer medication to a patient, according to the indictment.

Two months after McDermott’s death, a doctor there reported concerns about the deaths of several patients. In July 2018, Mays was no longer allowed to care for patients, the indictment said. She told a judge Tuesday that she was being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder.

McDermott was an Army veteran who served in Vietnam and retired as a sergeant after 20 years, according to his obituary. He served in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard afterward and worked as a truck driver.

He was admitted to the hospital for shortness of breath and concern for food aspiration pneumonia on April 6, 2018, according to a lawsuit his daughter, Melanie Proctor, filed in March. McDermott was placed on antibiotics.

Three days later, he was restless and in pain and a test showed he had severe hypoglycemia, or lower than normal blood sugar. An autopsy performed more than six months later showed McDermott had received an insulin injection, the lawsuit said. His death was ruled a homicide.

McDermott’s family declined an interview request Tuesday through their attorney.

Proctor filed the wrongful death claim against Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie that detailed a “widespread system of failures” at the medical center. That lawsuit remains active in federal court.