IN nurse/serial killer Orville Lynn Majors:An update,plus info on other nurse/SK cases
Joe1orbit
Hello,
Here is quite an interesting update on Orville Lynn Majors, the 36 year old
male nurse in Indiana who is charged with serially murdering six patients at
the hospital where he worked, in 1994 and 1995. There is also a MOST
fascinating report on a study of nurse serial killers that was done by a lawyer
and professor of nursing named Beatrice Crofts Yorker. She studied 14 separate
registered nurses, worldwide, who serially killed their patients, and she
provides us with her theories, which are obviously LIMITED in value to the fact
that you cannot generalize or form accurate conclusions when you only have 14
cases to analyze.
Still, we learn that most of the 14 nurse-serial killers had excellent
reputations at the hospitals where they worked. They worked hard, and fellow
staff members never suspected them of having the desire or the ability to
serially kill patients, until the bodies started to pile up.
Beatrice believes that these nurse-serial killers share a mental disorder
with other people, who deliberately injure other people in order to make
themselves look and feel important, by then "rescuing" the injured person. She
sees a link between Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, which is when mothers abuse
and harm their children because they want the attention of doctors, and
nurse-serial killers who murder their patients. I think that a FEW nurse
serial-killers might share a similar mindset, but the overall link is not a
valid one, especially not as a BLANKET statement regarding all or a majority of
nurse-killer's mindsets.
We get some interesting case histories of some lesser known nurse-serial
killers, which do show that SOME of these nurses do not truly want to KILL
their victims. They only want to make them ill, then "rescue" them and thus be
able to internally view themselves as being heroes.
If you are a parent who likes to hurt your child repeatedly, you should be
aware that more and more hospitals ARE setting up hidden cameras in hospital
rooms, specifically designed to catch parents, or any adult, deliberately
hurting a child. This is being done in England, as I reported in a previous
post. But we learn below that it is also being done at USA hospitals, and
several Mommies have been caught on take deliberately injuring their
hospitalized children. One mother put FECAL MATTER into a syringe and INJECTED
it into her child's bloostream through an IV, as the child lay in a hospital,
suffering from OTHER injuries that the Mommy had already inflicted upon her
SLAVE in the past!
Orville Lynn Majors, however, does NOT seem to fit into the category of
nurse-serial killers who only want to injure their patients and then get
attention & feel heroic by "rescuing" them. Orville HATED the patients that he
killed, and clearly wanted them to DIE. He seemed to hate old people, and his
actions demonstrate hatred, rather than any desire for "attention". But most of
the time, his demeanor at the hospital was a very kind and compassionate one.
He even shed tears and embraced his patients and their survivers, on a regular
basis. He is pleading Not Guilty to all six murders, but it sounds like
prosecutors do have rather solid evidence linking him to these deaths.
Even though all 6 victims were older people, ranging in age from 56 to 89,
police discount the theory that "mercy" may have been involved in the killings,
Two of Orville's victims were quite healthy, and scheduled to be discharged
from the hospital the very next day, when Orville allegedly injected them with
a toxic poison.
He definately did make very disparaging remarks about old people, to friends
and collagues. One time declaring that "All old people should be gassed". He
also falsified records and mistated his nursing credentials, that appears
undeniable. I think it looks quite bad for Orville, in terms of getting an
aquittal for these 6 counts of murder. But then again, nobody can testify that
they SAW orville inject poison into anyone. People may have seen him give an
injection or two, that was suspicious, and the patient did die later on. But as
far as I can see, there is no DIRECT eyewitness who can state that they KNOW
Orville had poison inside of the syringe that he plunged into any human being.
So, I would say that Orville MIGHT have a 3-5% chance of getting an
acquittal, at most. It's not clear when his trial will be held, or whether he
will be charged with all six murders at this initial trial. Investigators are
continuing to probe the possibility that Orville may have killed more than just
these six patients.
Take care, JOE
The following two news articles both appear courtesy of the 2/14/98 online
edition of the Indianapolis Star-News newspaper:
Expert says caregivers kill for attention
By Rob Schneider
Indianapolis Star/News
(Sat, Feb 14, 1998) -- News of Orville Lynn Majors' arrest was like a siren
going off.
Press releases churned out, reporters scrambled about, and the public shuddered
as a former nurse was hustled into a courthouse through a phalanx of state
troopers and cameras.
This seemingly friendly-looking man stands accused of murdering six patients in
the intensive care unit at a small Vermillion County hospital where he once
worked.
If the charges are true, that makes him part of a chilling phenomenon that
dates to the 1970s: nurses who prey on defenseless patients.
Since a nurse in Scotland was convicted of injecting patients needlessly with
insulin in 1974, epidemics of illness and death induced by nurses have been
reported about once every 1 1/2 years.
Researchers investigating this trail of death have been led to diverse places.
A New York hospital. A small-town clinic in Texas. More than a dozen other
medical facilities.
They found the accused killers to be hard-working, ideal staff members --
heroes, even, for their nursing abilities until a grimmer truth emerged. They
also found some links to explain the otherwise mystifying behavior.
Documenting cases
One person who might know as much as anyone about such cases is Beatrice Crofts
Yorker, a lawyer and professor of nursing at Georgia State University.
She has documented 13 cases involving 14 registered nurses in Alabama,
California, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Texas, and
Canada, England and West Germany.
Yorker acknowledges the number of cases is shocking but adds that the
likelihood of such an event is still less than being struck by lightning.
Even so, the numbers add up to this: Registered nurses comprise the largest
group of professional caregivers associated with serial killings and assaults
in hospitals.
Yorker has spent much of her career on the teaching and research end of
nursing, first earning an undergraduate degree in 1975 from Indiana University.
According to her research, which began more than a decade ago as a law school
project, the 13 cases involved 206 suspicious deaths, out of which 47 murder
and 69 assault charges eventually were filed.
Eleven nurses were convicted, although two convictions were overturned on
appeal. Two nurses were found not guilty.
The numbers go up when personnel other than registered nurses, such as nurse's
aides and licensed practical nurses, are included.
One hospital orderly, Donald Harvey, has admitted to killing 60 people,
including patients at a Cincinnati hospital, during the 1970s and '80s. He
killed by slipping poison into their food or by injecting them with poisons.
Actions linked with disorder
By the late 1980s, Yorker suspected a link between the actions of killer nurses
and a mental disorder in which people victimized others to make themselves look
more important.
"The fact that it's repeated among people who have never seen or talked to each
other, that it spontaneously shows up with some regularity, made me think it
was a phenomenon going on."
And a hospital provided just the setting. The nurses' victims were either
critically ill, elderly or very young.
Yorker proposed looking at the actions of the nurses under the general
guidelines of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a disorder attributed to parents
who create medical emergencies in children. Generally, the syndrome applies in
cases when:
• Illness in a child is invented by a parent.
• The child is presented repeatedly for medical treatment.
• The perpetrator, at least initially, denies inventing or causing the child's
illness.
• The signs of illness diminish greatly or cease when the child is separated
from the perpetrator.
"If the term 'dependent person' is substituted for 'the child,' then indeed all
of these criteria are met in many of the cases of nurses convicted of serial
murder," Yorker writes in The Spectrum of Factitious Disorders, a book that
looks at fake illnesses.
Yorker says the medical killers shared other characteristics with Munchausen
syndrome by proxy perpetrators -- they tended to be deceitful about many
aspects of their lives and thrived on being the center of attention.
Take the case of Randy Powers, a nurse's aide who was a qualified respiratory
therapist. He had his license revoked twice and changed his name, falsified his
background and was hired and fired from a series of health care facilities.
He ran into trouble after performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on an
11-month-old reportedly sickened by an insect bite.
At first, people regarded Powers as a hero. But then a physician, who could
find no sign of an insect bite, spotted an injection mark. Toxic levels of
lidocaine were found in the infant's system. Powers was convicted of assault.
There also was the case of a nurse in a New York hospital where 25 patients
died in a six-week period in 1987 after experiencing breathing failure.
Several other patients were resuscitated, including one who accused a nurse of
giving him an injection that led to his inability to breathe.
"The rest of the nursing staff found it hard to believe that their
well-respected colleague, who was so adept at CPR, could be harming patients,"
Yorker later wrote of the incident.
The nurse eventually confessed to killing the patients and admitted he was
trying to gain respect and attention. He compared his actions to those of a
firefighter who starts a blaze to be a hero.
Yorker finds nothing strange about a nurse's adrenaline rush while responding
to a code, a hospital term for an emergency situation. Most intensive care unit
nurses get some job satisfaction in these situations, she said.
"But it takes something pretty bizarre for someone to cross the line to cause a
code."
Called "model" nurses
"Excellent," even "model" nurses are words often used to describe those accused
of harming patients.
That was the situation Ron Sutton faced when he brought charges against a
Kerrville, Texas, nurse, Genene Jones, for murdering a 15-month-old infant.
"The family of the deceased took out an ad after the baby died thanking Genene
for her efforts in trying to save the baby," said Sutton.
However, when a number of children began suffering seizures at the small clinic
where Jones worked, officials became suspicious.
The district attorney was able to show that the infant had been injected with a
powerful muscle relaxant. It created a situation in which "the brain is still
alive, but the body is limp like an old rag," Sutton said.
The prosecutor believed the nurse was causing the seizures to create the need
for a pediatric intensive care unit, which she wanted to be in charge of.
The nurse never testified, and her defense was basically that she loved
children and was just trying to take care of them, Sutton said.
That left him with the task of taking on someone from a respected profession.
"You've got not only the presumption of innocence, as anyone would have, you've
got a presumption these people are medical people and they're not going to do
that."
In January 1984, Jones was found guilty of murder.
Later that year, she was convicted in San Antonio of causing serious bodily
injury to a 1-month-old infant in a hospital where she worked before moving to
Kerrville.
At the hospital, the baby suffered four incidents of massive bleeding, excess
urination and heart failure before he recovered. Investigators said Jones had
injected the baby with an overdose of blood thinner. Caught on video
In looking at the darker side of human nature, Yorker has an advantage over
most people. She's witnessed it firsthand. On video.
Yorker has worked with an Atlanta hospital to set up video surveillance rooms
to allow staff to check on parents suspected of harming their children.
She recalls watching a mother reach over the crib, pinch the child's nose and
put her hand over the mouth.
Another time she saw a mother take a dirty diaper into the bathroom, come out
with a syringe and inject fecal material into the child's bloodstream through
an IV.
The scenarios she witnessed are similar to the nursing cases she's studied.
So what's the answer?
The medical care industry simply has to do a better job of understanding and
recognizing the potential, albeit a small one, of troubled nurses, Yorker said.
"Our recognition that people would trick, lie, exploit the medical system could
be improved."
-------------------------------------------
Police suggest Majors killed out of hate
By Richard D. Walton
Indianapolis Star/News
(Sat, Feb 14, 1998) -- The Orville Lynn Majors described by police was no mercy
killer.
The former Vermillion County nurse murdered patients, investigators suggest,
out of hatred for the old.
But that explanation, if the charges of murder prove true, defies the
complexity of a man described as emotionally needy and arrogant, who inspired
both confidence and fear.
A former boss suggests another possible motivation: a desire for attention gone
horribly out of control.
Sandy Park-Teelon, a member of the state's respiratory care committee, oversaw
Majors when he worked as a respiratory therapist at Daviess County Hospital in
the early 1980s, long before his fateful employment in Vermillion County.
She said she saw both a good and a bad Majors.
"To me," she said, "he's Jekyll and Hyde."
Park-Teelon said Majors was the conniver who overstated his professional
credentials -- then lied about it when caught. Majors also was the caring,
enthusiastic staffer. "He loved to take care of people; he loved to be kind."
After a patient died, Majors joined in the grieving.
He'd embrace survivors. Counsel them. Cry with them.
If Majors killed, said Park-Teelon, "I believe he liked the scenario after."
The 36-year-old Majors has pleaded not guilty to charges that he murdered six
patients, ages 56 to 89, at Vermillion County Hospital in 1994 and 1995.
The alleged means: injection of potassium chloride or epinephrine, which is
adrenalin. If misused, either substance can kill quickly and without a trace.
Police contend that Majors also was taking drugs.
A Jasonville man told investigators that while installing a furnace at Majors'
Linton pet shop in January 1995, Majors tried to sell him a drug. It was
"powerful stuff," Majors reportedly said. The man said Majors appeared to be
high at the time.
At the hospital, investigators say, Majors carried a black pouch or bag
containing syringes.
A friend told police that Majors used those syringes to take stimulants.
In July 1994, the start of what authorities call an "epidemic" of death at the
hospital, co-workers noticed a personality change in Majors. They said he grew
more irritable, especially when someone crossed him.
Court documents say Majors became wild-eyed and almost uncontrollably irate.
Majors' Indianapolis attorney, I. Marshall Pinkus, scoffs at the contention
that Majors underwent mood changes. And he's incredulous at the Jasonville
man's allegation that Majors tried to sell him drugs. It "never happened,"
Pinkus said.
He said State Police are making desperate charges -- claims, he predicts,
"they're not going to be able to prove."
Compassion or contempt?
Investigators apparently have discounted early speculation that Majors was an
"angel of death," a man driven by a desire to put dying patients out of their
misery.
Two of Majors' six alleged murder victims expected to be discharged from the
hospital the next day.
A third, 79-year-old Margaret Hornick, appeared to be on the mend from hip
surgery. Documents say Hornick died in the intensive care unit after just nine
minutes in Majors' care.
Police now hint at a far different motive -- a contempt by Majors for patients.
It is a view shockingly at odds with the statements of many who knew him.
A Linton woman, a nurse who worked alongside Majors at Greene County Hospital,
wrote that his "uppermost concern was always saving the patient."
A Dana woman wrote that she was in Vermillion County Hospital in February 1994
when Majors rushed to help an elderly woman in distress. "I heard him tell the
lady to hang in there," she said. "And he kept talking to her like a loving
nurse."
Again and again, acquaintances say they would trust Majors with their lives.
Yet court documents charge that Majors disparaged some patients' families as a
"f------ bunch of whiners," "white trash" and "dirt." He allegedly once said,
"Let the patient die.'" Another time, next to a patient's monitor, Majors
reportedly coaxed death with "C'mon on, baby. C'mon, baby."
Documents say Majors told a friend that he hated old people, declaring: "They
should all be gassed."
On Feb. 16, 1995 -- the date of death of one of the six alleged murder victims,
Freddie Wilson -- two other patients also died in the ICU while Majors was
working. This fact, police assert, is "significant from an investigative
standpoint."
They don't say why. But documents show the three died in ascending order of age
-- the 56-year-old Wilson first, followed closely by two women ages 82 and 91.
To attorney Pinkus, it is absurd to say Majors hated the old. While working for
a home health care agency, Majors routinely was alone with the elderly, Pinkus
said.
Some were blind or suffering from cancer.
None, he said, died in Majors' care.
Majors allegedly made the "gassing" remark more than a decade ago. Pinkus says
his client does not recall it.
But Pinkus also notes that dark humor -- replete with shocking comments about
patients -- is one way staffers relieve the stress of working in the ER or
intensive care units.
A deceiving case
Majors had an irreverent sense of humor, confirms Park-Teelon, his former boss
at Daviess County Hospital. She liked and appreciated him.
But Park-Teelon said she was forced to fire Majors in 1984 when he falsely
claimed to be a credentialed respiratory-therapy technician. When she
confronted him on it, she said, he gave her an an altered document backing up
the lie.
Even after being fired, Majors reportedly continued to profess his innocence.
"I'm certified. I'm certified," she says he claimed.
It would not be the last time Majors falsified paperwork, according to police.
Court documents allege that at Vermillion County Hospital, since renamed West
Central Community Hospital, he twice misrepresented patients' conditions as
being worse than they were.
Police say Majors listed one patient as semiconscious and with slurred speech,
when in fact the patient was alert and speaking plainly. That patient died.
Pinkus denies his client misrepresented patient conditions or, in 1984, lied
about his credentials.
Could the mercurial Majors have killed?
Park-Teelon says she doesn't know.
Neither did an alleged eyewitness.
Police say Majors gave an injection to 80-year-old Dorothea Hixon in the
presence of her daughter, Paula Holdaway, on April 23, 1994. A minute later,
Hixon was dead.
Yet, far from being suspicious, Holdaway and her sister wrote Majors a note on
flowered stationery thanking him for "the loving care you gave to our mother,
and the family."
It said: "May you never lose that caring touch."