06 May 2024 :
May 2, 2024 - Pennsylvania. Heather Pressdee Gets Life Sentence in 17 Insulin Deaths
Heather Pressdee, 41, White, former nurse, admitted to trying to kill 19 patients by administering excessive amounts of insulin, prosecutors said. She pleaded guilty to 3 counts of murder and other charges. 17 of them actually died.
Pressdee administered high doses of insulin to 22 patients at five rehabilitation centers across Pennsylvania between 2020 and 2023, prosecutors said. The patients she was accused of mistreating ranged in age from 43 to 104.
Ms. Pressdee was initially charged in May 2023 with killing 2 patients and injuring a 3rd. But in November, the state attorney general’s office came forward with additional charges after prosecutors said Ms. Pressdee admitted to trying to kill a total of 19 patients.
According to the attorney general’s office, 1st-degree murder charges were filed against Ms. Pressdee only in cases where “physical evidence” was available. Attempted-murder charges were filed, it said, in cases where “the victims either survived the excessive dosage of insulin, or the cause of death could not be determined.”
At her arraignment in November, Ms. Pressdee’s lawyer, Phillip P. DiLucente, said his goal was to avoid the death penalty. Capital punishment is legal though rarely used in Pennsylvania.
Ms. Pressdee pleaded guilty on Thursday to 3 counts of 1st-degree murder and 19 counts of attempted murder. As part of the plea agreement, she was sentenced to 3 consecutive terms of life in prison and another consecutive prison term of 380 to 760 years on the attempted murder charges, the attorney general’s office said in a statement.
