Texas Nurse Sentenced To Life In Prison For Killing Dozens Of Babies And Toddlers

January 20. 2020

Genene Jones in court this week

66-year-old Genene Jones has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering dozens of young children in the 1980s, while working as a nurse in places such as Bexar County Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. Hospital staff began noticing babies having mysterious emergencies and dying during Jones’ 3-11PM shift.

Genene Jones whe she was a nurse in the 1980s

Texas Monthly reported regarding the children, “Kids who seemed stable suddenly stopped breathing. They had seizures. Their hearts halted or started beating irregularly. Babies pricked with intravenous needles began oozing blood, their clotting mechanisms inexplicably gone haywire.”

Genene Jones during her first criminal trial in the 1980s for killing babies at hospitals she worked as a nurse

Jones deliberately gave children the wrong medication and in large doses, in acts meant to kill them. Upon sentencing Judge Frank J. Castro stated to Genene Jones, who took the plea deal, “I truly believe that your ultimate judgment is in the next life.”

STORY SOURCE

A former nurse suspected of killing dozens of children has been sentenced to life in prison

Updated 4:51 PM ET, Fri January 17, 2020 - (CNN)A former Texas nurse suspected of murdering dozens of young children decades ago was sentenced to life in prison Thursday after pleading guilty in San Antonio court to killing an 11-month-old boy in 1981. The plea deal helped Genene Jones avoid a trial beginning next month for the murder of the child, Joshua Sawyer, CNN affiliate KSAT reported.

Charges in the deaths of four other babies were dropped as part of the agreement.
"Ms. Jones, something has to be said for you taking the plea to life on this murder," District Judge Frank J. Castro told the former nurse, who appeared in court dressed in a blue jail uniform. "But it doesn't come close to what you did to these families and the tragedies that you caused. You took God's most precious gift -- babies, defenseless, innocent." "But I truly believe," Castro said, "that your ultimate judgment is in the next life."

https://www.cnn.com

The Death Shift

When nurse Genene Jones was on duty in a San Antonio hospital, babies had mysterious emergencies and sometimes died. Then she moved to a Kerrville clinic, and the awful pattern began again. One morning in October 1981, after finishing up the overnight nursing shift in the pediatric intensive care unit at Bexar County Hospital in San Antonio, Suzanna Maldonado stepped into the office of her boss. Pat Belko, the pediatric ICU’s head nurse, could not have been pleased to see Maldonado—the 25-year old registered nurse was not one of her favorites—and she was even less pleased when she found out what Maldonado had on her mind.

Too many babies were dying in the ICU, she began—dying of problems that shouldn’t have been fatal. They were dying during a single nursing shift, the three-to-eleven evening shift. And they were dying, Maldonado said, under the care of a single nurse: Genene Jones.

https://www.texasmonthly.com