Female Serial Killers

by Peter Vronsky

  She became very bossy of the staff. If one doctor rejected her advice, she would call another. She questioned medication, dosages, and treatments. When her recommendations were ignored, she predicted disaster, telling one doctor, “This kid is going to die if you don’t do this.”

  On shift changes, nurses would gather to report on the conditions of their patients. During these meetings, Genene would issue dire pronouncements on certain patients, forewarning that they may die that night. As one RN recalled, “It wasn’t like she was predicting it. It was like she knew what was going to happen.”

  All throughout this, Genene Jones was herself a frequent patient. During her first twenty-seven months at Bexar County Hospital, she made thirty visits to the outpatient clinic or the emergency ward where she complained of an extraordinarily diverse catalog of problems: diarrhea and cramps, vomiting, acute gastroenteritis, indigestion, belching, and “burning up” constipation. She experienced shooting chest pains and dizziness. Her thumb had been cut, her hands itched. Excessive menstrual bleeding and lack of menstrual bleeding. Sore throat, allergic reaction to medication. Neck pain, knee pain, abdominal pain, lower back pain.

  Early in 1981, Genene began asking to be assigned to only the sickest children. She actually demanded it, refusing to care for patients who she thought had only routine illnesses. Genene had come to dominate the PICU, breaking rules with no consequences. She would choose her own patients, coming in early and penciling in her name to the charts of patients she was interested in. Her choice of patients ensured that she was involved in more frequent Code Blue calls, the excitement of which she thrived on. Genene would later say of these emergencies, “It’s an incredible experience. Oh, shit, it’s frightening. You’re aware of everything, but you only tune in to two or three different people…you really have to control your physical abilities, because you really get keyed up.”187

  When her patients died, Genene would break down and weep. Nurses have been known to cry over patients with whom they had developed relationships, but Genene wept over every patient who died—and there were increasingly many. She would ask the doctor to wait before informing the parents, all the while rocking the infant’s body. Nurses would normally wheel the dead on stretchers to the morgue in the basement, but Genene, with tears streaming down her face, carried them down in her arms, resembling a grieving mother.

  At home, Genene was mostly ignoring her own two children, leaving them to her mother to care for. Her oldest child, the boy, was roaming the streets of his neighborhood alone, showing up at neighbor’s houses and suspected by them of stealing things.

  Gotten Rid of but “Eligible for Re-Employment”

  The number of patients in her care that Genene prognosed would die and did so began to accumulate beyond a reasonable number. Doctors, mostly residents who rotated in and out of the PICU, did not detect any unusual patterns—only the nurses did. When nurses began to voice their concerns to a supervisor, she dismissed them, championing Genene. She accused them of jealousy and threatened to discipline any nurse who dared to raise the issue again without providing solid evidence. One of the nurses did so, collecting statistical data on the death rate in the PICU and whose patients they were. Despite the skewed figure, the chief nurse continued to defend Genene, reminding everybody that Genene was volunteering for the most critically ill patients—of course her death rate would be higher. But in the end, the numbers proved to go way beyond that explanation.

  When the statistics were gathered, they revealed that there were a total of forty-three deaths in the PICU between January 1, 1981, and March 17, 1982. Fifteen different nurses were assigned to those patients, including Genene Jones. Her patients accounted for a staggering twenty-two out of the forty-three deaths—about 50 percent. Moreover, Genene was present at the deaths of an additional seven patients, having volunteered her services. This could not be ignored. Finally, three months after nurses began to formally voice their concerns over the deaths of patients in Genene’s care, an internal hospital investigation was launched.

  The investigation concluded that either Genene Jones was grossly incompetent or she was deliberately killing the patients but could not find any specific evidence. “Either way, the biggest problem facing the hospital, the investigative team was advised by the hospital’s attorney, was the possibility of being sued by Genene if they could not come up with sufficient evidence for their suspicions.” Things had to be quietly resolved and hushed up.

  The problem was what to do with Genene Jones. Judging by her reactions to past complaints entered into her record, Genene was not going to quietly allow herself to be fired nor did she appear to be predisposed to resigning. Cleverly, the investigative board suggested a ploy: upgrade the qualifications for nurses in the PICU to RNs and thus remove the LVN Genene Jones from the unit. When the time came to reassign the former PICU LVNs to new wards, only Genene and the nurse who pursued the complaints against her could not be found new positions. Genene was sent packing in March 1982 with no grounds for complaint, although she did so anyway and is suspected of sending threatening notes to some of the hospital staff. In her hospital employment records, Genene was designated as “eligible for re-employment” and supplied with letters of recommendation.

  So when in the spring of 1982, Dr. Kathleen Holland contacted the hospital administration to confirm Genene Jones’s status for employment in her own clinic when it opened in August, she was told Genene was classified “eligible for re-employment.” Although other doctors from the hospital privately warned Holland that there were problems with Genene, they never got into any detail beyond the gossip and her tendency to be bossy. Dr. Kathleen Holland went ahead and hired Genene. Not only did she do that, but she also rented a house with Genene: They would be living together along with Genene’s two children.

  Again the similarity between Genene Jones in the 1980s and Jane Toppan in the 1880s is haunting. Just like Genene, Toppan was shuffled off with letters of recommendation to other hospitals as a student despite the inexplicably high death rate among the patients she cared for. Toppan was finally gotten rid of by her nursing certificate being withheld in ambiguous circumstances, allegedly after her dismissal for leaving a ward without permission—even though she had passed her exams already.

  “I Figured It Would Be Okay to Let Her Take Chelsea for a Few Minutes.”

  After freelancing for a few months while waiting for the clinic to open, Genene began work in Dr. Holland’s clinic on Monday, August 23, 1982. That day the clinic had only one patient. The next day they would have their second patient.

  Petti and Reid McClellan, both 27 years old, lived fifteen miles outside of Kerrville. They were exactly the type of people that Dr. Holland had hoped her clinic would serve. In June of the previous year, Petti had given birth to a girl four weeks premature, whom they named Chelsea. The baby suffered from respiratory problems typical of premature infants with underdeveloped lungs and she needed to be hospitalized in San Antonio. After twenty-one days, her condition improved. Her weight climbed and the McClellans took Chelsea home. In May 1982, when Chelsea was ten months old, her parents rushed her to the emergency ward in San Antonio when she was having problems breathing. The baby was diagnosed with pneumonia, treated for several days, and sent home with her parents, who were cautioned to observe her breathing carefully. Otherwise, she was a normal and healthy baby.

  Petti and Reid were overjoyed when they heard that Kerrville was going to have its own pediatric clinic. San Antonio was sixty miles away and the local hospital did not have any specialized pediatricians. So when Chelsea, who was 14 months old, appeared to have a case of “the sniffles” Petti decided to take advantage of the clinic that had just opened in town the day before. At about 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, August 24, she brought Chelsea in to see Dr. Holland.

  As Holland interviewed Petti in her office about Chelsea’s medical history, the baby wiggled out of her mother’s arms and began grabbing at things on Holland’s desk. Petti recalle
d that a smiling woman stuck her head into the office through the open door and said, “Mrs. McClellan, why don’t you let me take Chelsea while you and Dr. Holland finish talking.”

  “It was the office nurse,” Petti would later recall. “I’d never met her before that, but I figured it would be okay to let her take Chelsea for a few minutes.”

  Genene Jones carried the giggling girl away, cooing to her, “Come on you, let’s go play.”

  Petti was recounting to Dr. Holland her daughter’s medical history and was sort of embarrassed about bringing in Chelsea with minor sniffles, but better safe than sorry. Dr. Holland assured her she did the right thing. She would later testify that then she heard something from the examination room down the hall that would break her concentration—she could no longer focus on what Petti was saying, but only on Genene’s voice, which she had heard say in the other room, “Don’t go to sleep, baby. Wake up. Wake up, Chelsea. Don’t go to sleep.”

  It was freaky, because five minutes earlier Chelsea had been twisting and giggling in her office. Holland attempted to ignore the growing wave of anxiety rising up in her and refocused on Petti, who was still talking. Then Holland heard Genene call her, “Dr. Holland, could you come out here now, please.” There was clearly a cold sense of urgency in her voice.

  Chelsea was draped over the examining room table unconscious and Genene was holding an oxygen mask over her face. “She had a seizure,” Genene said. “She stopped breathing.”

  Kathleen began performing an emergency intubation of Chelsea, with Genene smoothly finding and opening the sterile packages of breathing tubes and handing them to Kathleen. As she performed the procedure, Kathleen congratulated herself on her choice of clinic nurse. Genene was performing like a crack surgical nurse, cool and efficient under pressure. Genene started up an IV on the child as ordered by Kathleen, injecting into Chelsea a drug to counteract acidity building up in her failing circulatory system. Paramedics were called and Chelsea was rushed off to the emergency ward at the local Sid Peterson Memorial Hospital in Kerrville where she was admitted at 1:35.

  Two and a half hours later, Chelsea was sitting up in her bed and smiling, leaving everybody perplexed. For the next ten days, almost every conceivable test was run on the 14-month-old girl but nothing could be diagnosed. Chelsea was finally sent home. Petti was grateful for the quick response of Dr. Holland and her nurse, Genene Jones. She praised the clinic, telling all the parents she knew that they should take their kids there.

  On Friday, August 27, 18-year-old Nelda Benites brought in her 3-month-old daughter, Brandy, who was suffering from dark and bloody diarrhea. After examining the infant, Dr. Holland decided she should be transferred to Sid Peterson Memorial Hospital for observation. She put an oxygen mask on Brandy and told Genene to start up an IV to prepare her for a routine transfer to the hospital, about a five-minute drive away. Running an IV was a procedure that Kathleen Holland decided would be routine on any transfer of her patients to Sid Peterson. She wanted her patients to arrive there already prepped, with samples of their blood drawn, and on an IV, so there would be no delays at the small hospital. She then left the child alone with Genene to call the hospital and arrange for the baby’s transfer.

  When Kathleen returned five minutes later, she was alarmed to see that Brandy appeared to be in worse condition: her face had turned ashen, her finger and toes were turning blue, and her breathing was slowing. Emergency procedures were immediately invoked and the run to the local hospital became an urgent one.

  At Sid Peterson, Kathleen Holland stabilized Brandy, but could not explain the cause of the respiratory arrest. She decided to transfer the baby to a pediatric unit in San Antonio. Still breathing on her own, Brandy was put on an IV line, intubated, attached to a cardiac machine, and loaded into an ambulance for the trip to San Antonio. Genene Jones, paramedic Phillip Kneese, and RN Sarah Mauldin from the hospital rode in the back of the ambulance with Brandy. Because Dr. Holland suffered from motion sickness, she followed behind the ambulance in her own car. As they departed the hospital parking lot, RN Mauldin recalled that Brandy was breathing normally.

  In the middle of the trip, Brandy suddenly had a cardiac arrest. The ambulance pulled over to the side of the road and Dr. Holland got on board. She gave Brandy CPR, restarting the child’s heartbeat. She then returned to her car and they continued on their run into San Antonio. On board the ambulance, despite the fact that Sarah Mauldin was the more qualified RN, Genene Jones took charge. She started up a second IV into Brandy’s foot.

  The ambulance paramedic later testified: “Since the ambulance didn’t carry any IV sets, she had to have brought it with her…It’s hard to explain, but she was aggressive in the sense that at all times she gave the impression that she knew exactly what she was doing. I just figure the kid needed it for some reason which I wasn’t aware of.”

  Sarah testified that Genene turned to her and looked her in the eyes, and “with a kind of breathy excitement, said: ‘The kid’s gone bad. Bag like crazy.’ And I did.”

  “Bagging” meant manually pumping a balloonlike bag with oxygen running through it attached to the tubes running into a patient’s airway. Brandy barely survived her trip to San Antonio.

  Dr. Holland’s clinic had had two cardiopulmonary arrests occur in its first four days. Kathleen Holland was a new and inexperienced doctor. Her experience to date had been in a big-city hospital with gravely ill patients—she had no way of knowing just how statistically exceptional these events were in a small-town clinic like hers. She did not know that Kerrville’s oldest doctor had only one pediatric respiratory arrest occur in his practice in a span of forty years.

  The next Tuesday, on August 30, Genene went on the MAST helicopter ambulance run, where a third patient suffered a cardiac arrest.

  On Friday, September 3, 19-year-old Kay Reichenau brought her 21-month-old daughter, Misty, to the clinic complaining of mouth sores and a high fever. Dr. Holland examined the child with Genene assisting her. Genene pointed out that the child appeared to have a stiff neck and Dr. Holland agreed. This and the other symptoms could have been early signals of meningitis, and Dr. Holland decided to transfer Misty to the hospital for routine observation. She left the child alone with Genene to prepare an IV line for her transfer and take her blood samples. It was not long before the child suffered a respiratory arrest, with all the ensuing emergency treatment in the examining room before the baby was rushed off to the emergency ward at Sid Peterson Hospital. Again, despite a battery of tests, the cause of the arrest could not be diagnosed.

  On Saturday, September 11, Nurse Mary Morris, who worked at the Sid Peterson Hospital, heard they were getting a patient in by the name of Genene Jones. She had gone to LVN school with Genene and wondered if it was the same person. It was. Genene was in complaining of a painful ulcer.

  Mary and Genene chatted and she was surprised to learn that Genene was employed right there in Kerrville as the nurse in Kathleen Holland’s newly opened clinic. Genene then said something strange—that she was also in Kerrville because she was going to help the hospital start up a PICU and she would be put in charge of it.

  Mary thought it was a ridiculous notion. First, Genene was only an LVN and not likely to be put in charge of a PICU, and second, Kerrville hardly had enough sick children to justify a PICU. She said to Genene that she had worked in Kerrville for two years and “sure, we have sick children, but I don’t know if there are enough sick children here in the area to constitute a need for a PICU.”

  Genene responded, “Oh, they’re out there. All you have to do is go out and find them.”

  But sometimes, they were just brought straight into Genene’s hands.

  On Friday, September 17, Petti had brought back Chelsea for her second visit to Dr. Holland’s clinic, along with her brother Cameron. It was a routine appointment and Chelsea was scheduled to receive her immunization shots. Chelsea had recovered well from the last month’s episode and was bouncy and alert that mornin
g.

  After examining Chelsea and seeing everything was normal, Dr. Holland told Genene to go ahead and give the girl the two routine infant immunizations: a diphtheria/tetnus and an MMR.

  Genene said to Petti, “Why don’t you wait outside, Mrs. McClellan. I know most mothers don’t like to see their babies get shots.”

  Petti recalled that she told Genene it did not bother her at all and she would come in with them. Petti later testified that Genene did not seem to be at all happy about this and that, “she got sort of huffy.”

  Cradling Chelsea in her arms, Petti followed Genene into the examination room. She saw that there were two filled syringes already prepared. Petti recalled that Chelsea reacted within seconds after the first injection. “My God, I thought, what’s happening. It seemed to me she wasn’t breathing right, and her eyes were looking at me funny. She was sort of whimpering—it was as if she was trying to say, ‘Help me,’ but couldn’t.”

  Petti immediately told Genene that something was wrong, but Genene dismissed her, saying “She’s just mad about having to get the shots. It’s nothing. She’s reacting to the pain.”

  Petti protested, “No, stop. She’s not acting right. She’s having another seizure!”

  But Genene would not stop. Mumbling something like, “I have to give her this other shot,” she stuck the child with the second syringe and plunged its contents into the girl.

  Petti said that Chelsea stopped breathing and began to turn blue. She testified in court:

  I looked at her and I could see she was trying to say “Mama.” I thought, Oh God, she wants to say “Mama.”

  Chelsea then went limp; just like a rag doll, just like Raggedy Ann—that’s exactly what she looked like, just limp. She was still looking at me, but it didn’t look like she could see me. Her eyes were all strange looking and they weren’t like they were supposed to be. They weren’t like they were supposed to be.