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.
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Joe Vinas called back, and Holland asked him to come over. “I’ve got something important to show you,” she told him. He arrived in the early evening, and Holland led him back to her private office. She showed Vinas the bottle of Anectine. He looked at the vial and its orange rubber top. “It’s full,” said Vinas. “It’s full, and it’s got holes in it. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.” It was as if someone had tried to hide the fact that the bottle had been entered. A laboratory analysis later found that the contents of the bottle have been five-sixths diluted. Whoever had drawn out the Anectine had replaced its volume with saline solution.
Vinas, wanting to find someone who knew more about Anectine, phoned Dr. Frank Bradley, the anesthesiologist, and asked him to come over. Holland called Tony Hall and asked him to come too. Together, the four of them searched through the office records for invoices documenting purchases of Anectine. They found three: one bottle had been purchased on August 18 from Pampell’s Pharmacy when Holland had ordered her initial stock of drugs; one bottle had been purchased on September 7 from the hospital pharmacy to replace the bottle Genene had said was missing; and one had been purchased from the Sid Peterson pharmacy on September 20. But there were only two bottles of Anectine in the office refrigerator, and Holland had not ordered a third bottle. Where was it? Who had ordered it? They looked closely at the invoice: it was unsigned.
As the doctors prepared to leave, Holland noticed three paper bags in a corner of the office, stuffed with baby clothes and toys. They had belonged to Chelsea McClellan; Petti had dropped them off for Holland to give to charity. Now Holland pointed them out as tears streamed down her face. “If that child died because of something Genene did,” she said, “I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”
A Parting of the Ways
Tuesday, September 28
When Genene Jones was released from the hospital after her drug overdose, Texas Ranger Joe Davis had a talk with her. Genene told him she had no idea how the holes had gotten into the bottle of Anectine that Holland had found, and she insisted she hadn’t ordered a third bottle of the drug. She hadn’t harmed a soul, Genene said, and she would take a polygraph exam to prove it if Kathy Holland would.
At 10 a.m. Kathy Holland was startled to see Genene Jones walk in, dressed for work. “Genene, I hate to say this,” Holland told her, “but I think with all the things that have happened, it would be better for you and me both if you didn’t work here anymore.”
Genene was angry. She challenged Holland to take a polygraph test; Holland said she would. “There’s only one thing I’m really sorry for,” Genene told her. “Somebody convinced you that I’m guilty.” She stormed out of the office.
Joe Davis arrived a short time later to talk to Holland. While he was there, Genene called, but Holland wouldn’t speak to her. Genene left word with Gwen that there was a letter for Holland in a drawer in the office. It was a one-page handwritten suicide note, apparently left the day before, when Genene had taken the overdose of pills:
There isn’t anyway to explain to you why things are going to change. Sometimes, as wrong as it may seem, you have to except what life dishes out.
When your older, and I know your tired of hearing that, but you will be able to understand why, why I have to go away. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Please believe that. No amount of money or worldly goods could ever buy my love. It is so deep & strong, it will last for all eternity.
Please explain if you can to Heather & Michael how much I love them. It’s such a strong love, I can’t put it on paper. I know I’m asking alot, but I really feel your the only one who could do it.
I’m not guilty of murder, & I hope you believe that. But Daddy’s way is right. It takes all the pressure off you and the seven people, whose life I have altered.
No one can hurt me with my Daddy. He’ll straighten this whole thing out & then we’ll go home & everything will be alright. No more problems for you, no more nightmares for me.
Please make sure Michael and Heather are not separated. I know how my mother feels about Heather, but I also know how she feels about Michael. If Debbie or you can’t take them together, please be sure whoever does are good people. People with lots of love.
Please don’t be angry. I’m going with Daddy because I miss him and I want to be with him. He’ll take care of both of us.
You’ll be fine. Please believe that.
I love you,
Genene
That afternoon, Joe David took Genene to Austin to take her polygraph examination, and Kathy Holland was notified that her hospital privileges had been suspended.
Wednesday, September 29
Joe Davis escorted Kathy Holland to Austin for her polygraph exam and then drove her back to her office in Kerrville. By then, Cathy Ferguson had brought Holland’s belongings over from Nixon Lane; Holland was unwilling to retrieve them herself as long as Genene was there. She planned to meet Charleigh at a Kerrville hotel. She reached into an overnight bag to get some toothpaste; there were two vials and a letter inside. “What’s that?” asked Joe Davis.
Holland was upset. “This lady’s trying to frame me,” she said. The note was from Genene, written before Holland had gone to Austin for the polygraph test. She had given medicine without doctor’s orders to one child, and she had changed medications to make them weaker or stronger, Genene wrote, according to those who have seen the note. She had failed the polygraph test, and she expected Holland to fail it too. I may go down for this, Genene wrote, but I won’t go down alone.
Epilogue
A few days after Dr. Holland fired her, Genene Jones accepted the invitation of the parents of Chris Hogeda—the child whose death was the first considered suspicious in San Antonio—to move to San Angelo. Debbie Sultenfuss resigned her job in the Sid Peterson intensive care unit, saying she was leaving because of the hospitals “antiquated ideals,” and moved her mobile home to a dusty trailer park on the southern outskirts of San Angelo. Genene moved in with her.
On October 4 Ron Sutton began presenting evidence on the case to a Kerr Country grand jury. Petti and Reid McClellan, after learning from Sutton and Joe Davis that their daughter’s death might not have been natural, retained a medical malpractice lawyer. Sutton held meetings with the Kerr County grand jury for more than three months before his counterparts in San Antonio learned that similar events associated with Genene Jones had taken place at Medical Center Hospital. In January, Sam Millsap began his investigation in Bexar County.
The world learned about what has become known as the baby deaths case on February 16, when San Antonio television reporter Ted Dracos broadcast a brief report revealing that the grand jury investigations were taking place. The story quickly became national news.
Millsap labeled the case his office’s top priority and assigned his best staff members to it. They set up shop in the old county jail. Although they have compiled enormous amounts of material, so far they have found firm evidence of wrongdoing elusive. Millsap now says it is possible the grand jury may have to content itself with issuing only a written report.
Sutton had better luck. He felt ready to indict Genene Jones by March, but he held back at Millsap’s urging. In April he learned of a new test that might do what he had believed impossible: find succinylcholine (that is, Anectine) in embalmed body tissue. The test was developed by a Swedish physician, Bo Holmstedt, and he was the only one in the world who claimed to be able to find the drug. On May 7 the body of Chelsea McClellan was exhumed from its grave at the Garden of Memories cemetery in Kerrville. Tissue samples were flown to Stockholm, and Dr. Holmstedt did find evidence of the drug. On May 25 the Kerr County grand jury issued its indictments against Genene Jones. A pair of Texas Rangers found her in Odessa, at the home of relatives of her new husband, Garron Ray Turk. At 10:30 p.m. she was arrested and taken to jail.
By that time, Ron Sutton had come up with what he considers an eyewitness account of unauthorized injections in Dr. Holland’s office. Cathy Ferguson, the young woman who lived with Genene in the Nixon Lane house (and later moved with her to the mobile home in San Angelo), told investigators she had been present on about five occasions in the treatment room of Holland’s pediatric clinic when Genene had taken a bottle of clear liquid from a drawer in the treatment room table, drawn some of its contents into a syringe, and injected children with the liquid. In each of those cases, the children began having seizures a few moments later, Ferguson said. On March 13, 1983, Cathy Ferguson’s own son, Travis, born a week earlier without complications, was rushed from the San Angelo mobile home to a local hospital with sudden breathing problems; Genene Jones, identifying herself as Travis’ grandmother, took the baby to the emergency room. On May 8, two days after she testified before Kerr County grand jury, Cathy Ferguson was taken by ambulance from the mobile home to another San Angelo hospital. She had gone into seizures shortly after starting to eat dinner.
Genene Jones faces eight criminal charges. She is charged with murder in the September 17 death of Chelsea McClellan. And she is charged with injury to a child in the treatment of Chelsea McClellan on August 24, Brandy Benites on August 27, Chris Parker and Jimmy Pearson on August 30, Misty Reichenau on September 3, Jacob Evans on September 17, and Rolinda Ruff on September 23. All eight indictments charge that the nurse “intentionally and knowingly” injured the children by injecting them with succinylcholine or some other drug.
The parents whose children became ill in Kathy Holland’s office have responded in different ways to the investigation. The parents of Brandy Benites and Chris Parker brought their children back to Holland, who is now practicing in the house on Nixon Lane. They believe that if something was done to their children, Dr. Holland had nothing to do with it. The parents of three other children-Chelsea McClellan, Misty Reichenau, and Jacob Evans-are suing both Holland and Genene Jones. They believe that Holland either knew that Genene was harming children or should have known.
Most certain of all are Petti and Reid McClellan. They are filled with rage-at the San Antonio hospital that didn’t tell anyone about Genene Jones, at themselves for returning to Holland’s office after Chelsea’s first arrest, at the medical profession, and, most of all, at the doctor and nurse in whom they placed their trust. “I want them to suffer for a long period of time,” says Reid McClellan. “I want them to suffer like they caused my daughter to suffer. God, I hope they suffer as much as those kids. Those kids are helpless. They couldn’t fight back.”
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