A nurse who killed at least three patients and tried to kill more than a dozen more at a nursing home in the Pittsburgh area of the US state of Pennsylvania has been sentenced to life in prison.
Heather Pressdee (41) pleaded guilty to three counts of premeditated murder and 19 counts of attempted murder, writes CNN and several news media.
The 41-year-old’s lawyer Phil DiLucente says she pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty.
And she will never ever get out of prison.
The Butler County judge sentenced her to three consecutive life sentences for the three murders. In addition, the judge added 380 to 760 years to the 19 counts of attempted murder for which she was convicted.
She will not be eligible for parole, is the brief message from the attorney general’s office.
– She is pure evil (…) We will get justice when she meets her maker, Melinda Brown said in a statement, according to the local TV station WTAE.
Her brother Nicholas Cymbol was killed by an overdose that Pressdee admitted to having set.
Elizabeth Simons Ozella, the daughter of another of Pressdee’s victims said she would “never forgive Pressdee for what she did,” according to the TV station.
– She took someone from this earth that she had no right to take, and she played God even though she didn’t have that right, Simons Ozella said in a statement, according to The Guardian.
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– Used his trust
– The defendant used her trust as a nurse as a means to poison patients who depended on her for care and attention, says state attorney Michelle Henry.
Prosecutors indicted Pressdee in May 2023, alleging that she intentionally injected a mixture of lethal and potentially lethal amounts of insulin into 22 patients at five different medical facilities spread across the Pittsburgh area.
The conditions must have started in 2020 and the patients must have been aged from 43 to 104 years.
– A tear in her eyes
Pennsylvania practices the death penalty, but Pressdee avoided the possibility of execution by lethal injection by entering into a plea deal with prosecutors in which she pleaded guilty to the charges.
Defense counsel for Heather Pressdee
– I am very sorry. I am sorry for what I have done, Pressdee said in court on Thursday, according to WTAE.
Her defense attorney made a statement outside the courtroom in which he claimed that Pressdee regretted his wrongdoing.
– People are not just bad, and you could see towards the end that she regretted (…) There was a tear in her eye, said DiLucente.
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