A nurse in Pennsylvania was found guilty Thursday and given a life sentence by the state’s attorney general, Michelle Henry. The nurse is accused of killing three patients at skilled nursing homes across the state and trying to kill 19 other people in her care.
The release says that Heather Pressdee, a former nurse, will spend the next three decades in prison serving life sentences for three first-degree killings and 380 to 760 years in prison serving consecutive sentences for three attempted murders.
Henry said, “The defendant used her position of trust to poison patients who relied on her care.” “This guilty plea and life sentence won’t bring back the people who died, but they will make sure Heather Pressdee never gets another chance to hurt someone else.”
Her lawyer, Phillip DiLucente, said that Pressdee pleaded guilty to stay alive and escape the death penalty.
According to the charges, Pressdee gave patients at five different care facilities between 2020 and 2023 lethal or possibly lethal amounts of medication on purpose.
The statement said that Pressdee had given the insulin to people in Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler, and Westmoreland counties.
In May 2023, after two men died and a third was taken to the hospital, she was first charged with murder and attempted murder. Since her arrest in May, Pressdee has been in jail.
In the criminal complaint against the former nurse, Henry’s office said Pressdee admitted to “harming, with the intent to kill” the 19 patients, whose ages ranged from 43 to 104.
The criminal charge said that she often gave insulin during the night shift when there weren’t many people working and while she was working the medicine cart at the facilities.
The criminal complaint says that Pressdee often made sure her victims would die before shift change so that they wouldn’t be sent to the hospital and medical tests like C-peptide tests could be used to find out about her plan.
According to a news release from the attorney general, “many relatives of the victims” spoke out this week in Butler County Court about the “pain and anguish” they felt when they learned their loved one’s death was not natural but caused by a crime.
