00:00:04
NARRATOR: In September
1982, Chelsea McClellan had what appeared to be a severe
reaction to an inoculation
00:00:12
and died in a small
hospital in Comfort, Texas. She was just 15 months old. Doctors couldn't work out why
Chelsea had died so suddenly,
00:00:23
but the truth was,
she'd been murdered. And her killer was the nurse who
was meant to be caring for her.
00:00:30
When you're sick and in
need and you need a doctor, the last place you think's going
to happen to injure a child
00:00:38
or hurt a child is
the medical field. And when that happens, well,
it's the worst of the worst,
00:00:48
in my opinion. NARRATOR: The killer nurse
was 32-year-old Genene Jones. And Chelsea McClellan
was not her first victim.
00:00:57
It's believed this
twisted angel of death could have taken
the lives of over 50 babies and young children.
00:01:06
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Most are
disguised in the outfit of a caring nurse, a woman who
should have been there to help
00:01:15
to make young lives better. But she never did. She ended them. NARRATOR: Jones's
arrest and trial
00:01:23
sent shockwaves across Texas. Her crimes had gone undetected
for almost four years.
00:01:30
If you look at the graph
of deaths that occurred at the Hospital District, Genene
Jones was always on the shift
00:01:38
and somehow always find herself
immersed in whatever happened in the death of an infant
on what later became
00:01:46
known as the death shift. NARRATOR: Genene Jones, a
killer of helpless children,
00:01:52
had been exposed as one of
the world's most evil killers. [theme music] In January 2020,
69-year-old Genene Jones
00:02:22
pleaded guilty to the murder
of 11-month-old Joshua Sawyer. She'd already served 36
years of a life sentence
00:02:31
for killing 15-month-old
Chelsea McClellan over three decades earlier. Proving that a nurse
was killing children
00:02:39
by injecting them with
a lethal amount of drugs was no mean feat. It was an investigation
that took its toll
00:02:48
on Texas Ranger Joe Davis. When we go to bed at night,
we were thinking about it.
00:02:54
When we woke up
the next morning, we started investigating
again, because this was a crime that we all
felt like we had to solve.
00:03:03
This is a crime that you
don't see happen normally. We had to get it done. And we'd give it our
all to make it happen.
00:03:13
NARRATOR: Jones had begun
her insatiable killing spree while working in a
pediatric intensive care
00:03:19
unit in San Antonio, Texas. But she went undetected
for almost four years. Victim advocate Andy Kahan
worked with the parents
00:03:30
and siblings of
many children who believe Jones was responsible
for the death of their loved
00:03:35
ones. When you look back in
hindsight, you can pretty much squarely say that
something was irregular,
00:03:42
something was happening. But back then, nobody
put two and two together. NARRATOR: This
killer's story begins
00:03:51
on the 13th of July, 1950. Genene Van Jones was born
in San Antonio, Texas. But at a young age, she
was put up for adoption
00:04:01
by her birth parents. It was the start of a
difficult childhood. Looking back at
Jones's early life,
00:04:10
there is quite a lot of trauma
in that adoptive family. So we see that two
of her brothers died.
00:04:17
One died in an accident at home. Another one died of cancer. And then later on, her
father died of cancer.
00:04:25
So there are a lot of things
going on in this family unit that she does not
feel in control of.
00:04:31
She does not feel that
stability and that safety and that security. And I think that potentially is
a factor that accelerated her
00:04:40
on the course that she took. NARRATOR: Growing up,
Jones felt like she didn't belong in the family unit.
00:04:48
JOE DAVIS: She wasn't raised
in the best conditions. She always felt, from what I
could find out, that she was
00:04:54
the black sheep of the family. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She
would often say that she was
00:04:59
unwanted, that she was unloved. And I think when you
hear somebody spinning that narrative,
you've got to look
00:05:06
at the motivation behind it. So what is it that
they're trying to get? They're trying to
get validation.
00:05:10
They're trying to get attention. So we have this "poor me"
character that emerges.
00:05:16
NARRATOR: By June
1976, Jones had been married, divorced,
had two children with different fathers.
00:05:23
And after a brief time
working at a beauty parlor, the 25-year-old was
training for a new vocation.
00:05:32
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think
Genene Jones's choice of a career in nursing was
quite a deliberate one, quite
00:05:37
a strategic one. So she's somebody who
always felt that she was unloved, that she was unwanted.
00:05:44
And when you are a nurse, people
are very grateful for the work that you do. They're very thankful for
what you do to help them
00:05:51
and to help their relatives. So I think this was
something about validation in this career appealed to her.
00:05:59
NARRATOR: In October
1978, Genene Jones began working on the
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit,
00:06:06
known as PICU, at Bexar County
Hospital in San Antonio. Her former colleague,
Cheri Pendergraft,
00:06:13
remembers meeting Jones
for the first time. When she was hired on, I
was in charge of orienting her
00:06:21
to the unit, making her feel
comfortable with surroundings, where things were,
what procedures we did,
00:06:27
and all of those things,
and then also assessing her knowledge and nursing
skills to make sure that she
00:06:33
would fulfill the
requirements needed for patient care in the PICU. NARRATOR: Jones seemed
interested in treating
00:06:41
patients hands-on. Genene took one of
the advanced courses that we offered in the education
and training department, one
00:06:49
of which included IV therapy. She became very
proficient at starting IVs and liked doing
procedures on patients.
00:06:59
Starting an IV itself requires
a bit of finesse and skill because getting the
tiny needle into
00:07:05
the tiny, tiny, little
vein of a pediatric patient can be very challenging. But she became very
proficient at it.
00:07:13
NARRATOR: Cheri found Jones
to be an intense personality on the PICU ward. And sometimes her
compassion came
00:07:20
across as eerie and extreme. It was the first or second
night that she came on duty.
00:07:28
And there was a very
small premature baby admitted who was very sick. And the likelihood of it
surviving was very slim.
00:07:43
So we cared for the baby for a
few hours, and it passed away. And Genene asked me if
she could hold the baby.
00:07:54
And I said, well, yes, which
I thought was kind of unusual. But I thought, maybe she felt
deep compassion for the baby
00:08:02
because this was
her first exposure to this particular kind of
incident where a baby died.
00:08:10
And so she took the baby over
to the corner of the PICU and sat in the rocking chair and
rocked the baby for, I think,
00:08:17
about an hour and was sobbing. And I just thought that was an
unusual reaction to the death
00:08:26
of a very tiny,
tiny premature baby that she had no attachment to. She hadn't had time to
form any attachment to it.
00:08:36
NARRATOR: The longer Jones was
in the role, the more difficult she became. And she seemingly had
ideas above her station.
00:08:44
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Jones was
a licensed vocational nurse. So this is more of a
nursing assistant type role.
00:08:51
And it contrasts
with a registered nurse, who is a fully
qualified certified nurse.
00:08:57
And I think Jones always
felt entitled to more. She was never happy and
content with what she had.
00:09:02
She always had to go further. But she would step
over the line. She would push the
boundaries in ways that were
00:09:09
unprofessional and unethical. She was crass
and foul mouthed. And she came across as arrogant
and know-it-all a lot of times.
00:09:21
And some of the nurses
really did not like that. She would be making decisions
that registered nurses
00:09:28
would normally be making. And those were things
that she shouldn't really have been doing.
00:09:32
So that sense of entitlement,
that sense of grandiosity is there from the
very beginning.
00:09:38
NARRATOR: Cheri clashed with
Jones on more than one occasion during her time at
Bexar County Hospital.
00:09:44
On one particular
night shift, Cheri came to relieve Jones from
a traumatic situation,
00:09:50
but her reaction was
far from professional. CHERI PENDERGRAFT: I went and
put my things down in the back
00:09:56
and came into the room, where
Genene was performing CPR on a little, maybe
eight-year-old boy or so
00:10:02
who had been a near drowning. She had been working for
16 hours at that point and/or a little bit more than.
00:10:09
And she was due to come back the
next morning for another shift. NARRATOR: But a clearly
exhausted Jones refused
00:10:17
to hand over control to Cheri. And she said no,
I'm performing CPR. And I said no, you--
00:10:26
I can take over. I'm perfectly capable of
performing CPR and taking over. So you really need to go home.
00:10:32
And she refused. And she yelled at me. And so I called the
nursing house supervisor,
00:10:38
told her the situation. And she came down and told
Genene that she needed to leave
00:10:44
and go home and get some rest. She stormed out of the room. I took over CPR. She went and grabbed her things.
00:10:51
And then she stormed out of
the ICU, swearing and yelling, which I thought was a
strange sort of overreaction
00:11:01
and a possessiveness of the
patient situation at that time, not wanting to relinquish.
00:11:08
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
She wants attention. She feels entitled to attention. She likes drama.
00:11:12
She thrives on it. She's somebody who wants
to be center stage. And I think that is
the motivation here.
00:11:18
She's always entitled to more. She always wants
to create a drama and place herself right
in the middle of it.
00:11:26
NARRATOR: Cheri
Pendergraft had no idea that her colleague's
lust for drama had,
00:11:31
in fact, turned deadly. And a staff logbook would soon
reveal an unnatural number
00:11:38
of infants were dying
on the PICU Ward at Bexar County
Hospital whenever Genene Jones was working.
00:11:46
No child was safe
on the death shift. In the early 1980s,
Genene Jones was working
00:11:55
as a nurse on the Pediatric
Intensive Care Unit at Bexar County Hospital
in San Antonio, Texas.
00:12:04
Her colleagues had
begun to notice that the infant
death rate would rise whenever she was on the wards.
00:12:12
Jones used to work a late
shift, 3:00 PM until 11:00 PM. And this shift became
known as the death shift
00:12:20
because for a period
of around 15 months, people were 10 times
more likely to die
00:12:25
during this period of time
than any other period of time. NARRATOR: One baby who survived
his time on the death shift
00:12:32
was four-week-old Rolando
Santos, who arrived on the ward in December 1981. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He had
some issues with pneumonia,
00:12:42
some breathing problems. And he was admitted to the
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
00:12:47
And he becomes even more
unwell when he's in there. And he starts to
bleed from a site
00:12:54
where he's previously
had an injection. Now a doctor ordered some
tests to be carried out.
00:12:59
And they come back
positive for heparin, which is a blood thinner. And this doctor ordered Rolando
to be taken off the Pediatric
00:13:08
Intensive Care Unit. And this was a
decision that actually saved this child's life.
00:13:14
NARRATOR: A staff
logbook was used to record Rolando's near
death experience and a host
00:13:19
of other similar incidents. The abnormal spike
in the death rates was highlighted
by the colleagues
00:13:26
of nurse Cheri Pendergraft. CHERI PENDERGRAFT: Several
of the nurses in the PICU
00:13:33
called my attention
to the logbook one day when we were sitting
in the nursing station.
00:13:41
And they noticed that
there was a higher than usual mortality rate. And so I looked at the logbook.
00:13:52
And yes, there did seem
to be a higher mortality rate during that time. And it seemed to have happen
mostly on the 3:00 to 11:00
00:14:01
shift. More of the deaths occurred
on the 3:00 to 11:00 shift, according to the logbook.
00:14:08
NARRATOR: Cheri took the
logbook to her superiors, but her concerns
fell on deaf ears.
00:14:14
CHERI PENDERGRAFT: At
that point in time, it was at the discretion
of the head nurse.
00:14:18
And if she didn't see
anything worth investigating-- because she trusted
all her nurses.
00:14:26
So I don't think that she
saw any particular reason to investigate it any
further other than my
00:14:34
bringing it to her attention. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
The hospital managers and administrators will say,
well, show me the proof,
00:14:41
but there is no proof. But doctors and nurses, their
intuition is really well honed.
00:14:47
And it's not some
mystical thing. It's a thing that's based
on experience and expertise.
00:14:52
As somebody with compassion, as
somebody who relates very well to other people,
you can pick up when
00:14:58
somebody is not quite right. And those are warning
signs that really should have been heeded here.
00:15:04
NARRATOR: The lack of scrutiny
of the hospital records stunned victim
advocate Andy Kahan
00:15:10
when he became involved
in the case decades later. When the Bexar County
Hospital District
00:15:17
decided to actually take some
action involving the high rate of infant mortality
death, they didn't
00:15:23
call for an investigation. They didn't bring, you know, the
police department down there.
00:15:28
They didn't come
take statements. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: They wanted
to sweep this under the carpet.
00:15:33
So all of the licensed
vocational nurses were replaced with
registered nurses. Jones was offered another
position in the hospital.
00:15:42
But she chose to resign instead. And I think at this
point, she realizes that the net is closing in,
and she needs to move on.
00:15:50
ANDY KAHAN: And so
Genene Jones was, for all intents and purposes,
now no longer working
00:15:56
at the Hospital District. And as a result of her no longer
working there, gee, guess what?
00:16:03
All of a sudden,
the deaths declined. Wow, what a fascinating
coincidence. So as far as the Bexar County
Hospital District goes,
00:16:10
they're out of it. I think at this
point in time, she feels absolutely untouchable.
00:16:16
I think there's a
part of her that realizes that this is a PR job. This is the hospital trying
to make the problem go away.
00:16:24
And it suits her
down to the ground. NARRATOR: Cheri Pendergraft
had no idea she'd been working
00:16:30
alongside a woman who was
intentionally harming babies in the Pediatric
Intensive Care Unit,
00:16:37
the one place children
were meant to feel safe. CHERI PENDERGRAFT: It's
difficult to believe
00:16:42
that I worked with someone
who became so evil. To take the lives of
other people's children
00:16:53
for their own attention
seeking or goals is just beyond comprehension
for a normal person.
00:17:06
But we're not talking
about a normal person here. So it has affected me in the
sense that I worked with her,
00:17:14
and I wish that I
had become aware of something that may have
stopped her from progressing.
00:17:25
We just had no evidence
of any direct connection with kids dying on
Genene Jones's watch.
00:17:36
And I think it was
beyond our comprehension that anything like that could
even happen on our watch.
00:17:47
NARRATOR: In March
1982, Genene Jones left Bexar County Hospital. And five months later,
she started another job
00:17:56
60 miles northwest
of San Antonio at a new pediatric clinic in the
small town of Kerrville, Texas.
00:18:04
At the time of
this investigation, it was approximately
20,000 people were located off Interstate
10, about 60 miles west
00:18:13
of San Antonio. It's mainly a retirement town. NARRATOR: In September 1982, a
case landed on Joe's lap that
00:18:24
would change the town forever. JOE DAVIS: I was in my office
when I received a telephone
00:18:29
call from an investigator for
the Board of Nursing in Austin. Tony Howell, who was a hospital
administrator at Sid Peterson
00:18:38
Hospital in Kerrville,
had advised him that they had
started investigation on a nurse and doctor who was
having several babies were
00:18:50
coming into the emergency room. They had never witnessed
this before in Kerrville.
00:18:55
And one of the babies had died. And during the conversation with
the investigator, he told me,
00:19:00
he said, Joe, I think you have
a child killer in Kerrville. NARRATOR: All the babies
had come into the hospital
00:19:09
via the new pediatric
clinic in town run by Dr. Kathleen
Holland, who was assisted by nurse Genene Jones.
00:19:18
It was Jones's behavior
in the aftermath of the revelations that
focused Joe's attention on her.
00:19:26
He had told me also
that Genene Jones had come in to the hospital
the day before
00:19:32
and apparently, had
tried to commit suicide, only they were kind
of suspicious of that.
00:19:38
From what she had taken,
it wasn't that serious. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When the
investigation gets underway,
00:19:44
Jones stages a suicide attempt. So she ingests some drugs
which are nowhere near
00:19:49
enough to bring about
her death, but they're enough to create the
illusion that she's
00:19:55
tried to take her own life. And when we look at the impact
of this kind of behavior,
00:20:00
it's going to bring you
quite a lot of sympathy, quite a lot of attention. You'll get considerable
compassion from other people.
00:20:07
So I think it was that outcome
that she was interested in. This was not a serious
attempt to end her life.
00:20:14
NARRATOR: Joe went to
meet Jones at the hospital to get her side of the story. JOE DAVIS: So I
told her I'd like
00:20:21
to go ahead and interview
her at that time since she's there
at the hospital. So he arranged for me
to go to a conference
00:20:29
room in the hospital. And they brought
Genene Jones in. And that's when I first
met her and started
00:20:36
an interview with her
over the investigation. NARRATOR: For the first
time, Genene Jones was
00:20:43
under investigation for murder. JOE DAVIS: I was in
the conference room when they brought
Genene Jones in.
00:20:51
And I identified myself
as a Texas Ranger and told her I was there to
investigate some emergencies
00:20:59
that were coming into the
hospital from their office, and that one of the babies
that were brought in had died.
00:21:08
And so I started interviewing
her regarding the emergencies. NARRATOR: Throughout
the brief discussion,
00:21:17
Jones didn't flinch. JOE DAVIS: She
didn't seem upset. She was pretty
cool and collected,
00:21:23
answered the few
questions I had for her, and was cooperative
with me at that time.
00:21:31
NARRATOR: But
something told Joe it wouldn't be the last
time he'd crossed paths with Genene Jones.
00:21:38
JOE DAVIS: Before I
left, I asked her. I said, OK, I'm going to
start an investigation.
00:21:43
And would you be willing
to take a polygraph test in the near future? And she said she would.
00:21:50
So I told her I would be
getting back with her later when I had more information.
00:21:55
And she agreed, OK. And that, more or less, ended
the interview at that time with her.
00:22:03
NARRATOR: With no
evidence against her, Genene Jones was free
to leave the hospital.
00:22:10
Joe Davis's detective
instincts, however, told him that everything
was not as it should be.
00:22:18
He was certain
Jones was involved, and now he had to prove it. In September 1982,
nurse Genene Jones
00:22:30
was working at a new clinic in
the town of Kerrville, Texas. She'd taken a job with
pediatrician Dr. Kathleen
00:22:39
Holland, who, like Jones, had
previously worked at Bexar County Hospital in San Antonio.
00:22:47
A number of suspicious
infant collapses had led detectives to
speak to Genene Jones.
00:22:53
And next on their
radar was Dr. Holland. JOE DAVIS: During the
interview with Dr. Holland,
00:22:59
she told me and I found out
that when these patients were brought in by their mothers,
these young infants,
00:23:07
Genene Jones would say, let me
take the baby back to the back, so y'all can talk.
00:23:14
So the babies may be crying
or making some noises. And not long after the
baby was taken to the back,
00:23:21
Genene Jones would holler out,
oh, the baby stopped breathing! I need an emergency.
00:23:27
Come back quick! We need to call an ambulance. NARRATOR: Dr. Holland was
ruled out as a suspect.
00:23:35
And attention turned
solely to Genene Jones. One of the babies who had
fallen ill at the clinic
00:23:43
was Chelsea McClellan. Victim liaison
officer Andy Kahan got to know Chelsea's
mother, Petti,
00:23:50
in the aftermath of the case. She'd taken her
15-month-old daughter for some routine inoculations
in September 1982.
00:24:01
ANDY KAHAN: Petti
pretty much told me the story of what happened. I mean, she just brought
Chelsea to the clinic.
00:24:07
She was only 15 months old. It wasn't anything really
serious going on with Chelsea.
00:24:12
And the next thing she
knows, all of a sudden, you know, there's a
code blue with Chelsea.
00:24:20
NARRATOR: Just like
the other children, Jones had volunteered to
give Chelsea her injections.
00:24:26
Sat facing Petti McClellan,
Jones had Chelsea on her lap and injected her twice,
once in each leg,
00:24:33
before the 15-month-old
began struggling to breathe. An ambulance took Chelsea
to the emergency room
00:24:41
at the Sid Peterson
Hospital in Kerrville, where her conditions
seemed to improve.
00:24:47
But now, back in the
ambulance, Chelsea suddenly deteriorated again. JOE DAVIS: One of the nurses
had actually seen Genene Jones
00:24:56
before the ambulance left
the hospital in Kerrville give the baby another shot
as the doors were shutting.
00:25:04
But on the way, she and an
attendant was in the back when Chelsea went
into cardiac arrest.
00:25:12
Dr. Holland was
following in a car. They immediately pulled
over, tried to revive her.
00:25:19
Dr. Holland said let's take her
in to the hospital in comfort. And that's where
she passed away.
00:25:26
NARRATOR: Genene
Jones had brazenly murdered Chelsea McClellan
in front of her own mother.
00:25:34
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When we
look at Chelsea's murder, we can see that Jones
was absolutely determined
00:25:39
to end this little girl's life. So when she gave her these
so-called routine immunizations
00:25:45
and she became
incredibly unwell, but they didn't kill
her, Jones made sure that she was in the
ambulance with this child
00:25:52
on the way to the hospital. She wanted to finish the job. How personal that must be
to have a infant in your hands
00:26:04
and taking a needle
and knowing full well that you're taking their life. That's about as cold-blooded,
diabolical as you can get.
00:26:21
NARRATOR: Despite
Jones's actions, nobody was aware that she
was responsible for Chelsea's
00:26:27
death. The drug that Jones
administered to Chelsea was a drug that
essentially disappears
00:26:34
without a trace
when it's entered into the body of somebody. So an autopsy is not
able to establish
00:26:41
what the cause of death is. So sudden infant death
syndrome is entered on the death certificate.
00:26:49
ANDY KAHAN: And I
know for Petti, it was like, I brought my child in. You know, there wasn't
anything serious going on,
00:26:58
and now she's dead. And so she started questioning. And she brought up
a lot of questions.
00:27:04
And she brought this to the
attention of the Kerrville County District Attorney's
Office, who eventually
00:27:12
opened up an investigation. NARRATOR: As part of a deeper
look into the death of Chelsea
00:27:18
McClellan and the
other collapses coming out of the clinic,
Detective Joe Davis visited
00:27:24
Dr. Kathleen Holland once more. She'd spotted some superficial
damage in a vial of a drug
00:27:31
called succinylcholine, an
anesthetic muscle relaxant. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Dr. Holland notices
00:27:38
that the vial of
succinylcholine has got puncture marks in the top. And she knows that
she hasn't used it.
00:27:45
And so, obviously,
it has to be Jones because they were the only
two people with the key.
00:27:51
JOE DAVIS: Two bottles, one was
capped and one was uncapped. And then the top of that
one bottle that was uncapped
00:27:57
was several puncture holes,
needles, as if they were taking that drug out-- somebody was.
00:28:04
However, the bottle
appeared to be full. So I told her at that
time, I needed that bottle
00:28:10
to have it checked to make
sure that the drug was still in there or what
was in that bottle,
00:28:17
or if it'd been refilled. NARRATOR: The results
proved to be a huge turning point in the investigation.
00:28:25
JOE DAVIS: They checked
it and notified me later that it was a saline solution. It was not the drug that
was supposed to be in it.
00:28:34
It looked like it
had been refilled. And so that indicated that
maybe the whole bottle
00:28:39
had been used in some of these
emergencies, was good to know. You know, in courtrooms
and in law enforcement,
00:28:49
there's, like, a smoking gun. That's kind of what it's called. And the smoking gun was that
tiny, little puncture wound in
00:28:59
that bottle of succinylcholine. NARRATOR: A search
into her background meant the finger of
suspicion suddenly began
00:29:08
to point directly at Jones. I found out also that Genene
Jones had taken a class in San
00:29:16
Antonio strictly on
the use of this drug while she was there
being a nurse. She asked for that class
and learned the ins and outs
00:29:26
of administering that drug. So she was very familiar with
it before she came to Kerrville
00:29:32
and what doses to use. NARRATOR: Joe scoured
the world for a way to prove that succinylcholine
was used to murder Chelsea.
00:29:42
He found a doctor
from Sweden who'd developed a way to identify
the supposedly undetectable
00:29:49
drug in body tissue. But that meant investigators had
to make a difficult decision.
00:29:56
On the 7th of May, 1983, with
the permission of her parents, Chelsea McClellan's
body was exhumed.
00:30:05
JOE DAVIS: When they exhumed
Chelsea and opened the casket, I was present. It was amazing that she
looked like a little doll
00:30:14
laying there. Had her bonnet on, and her
favorite toy was a little duck. It was really a sad moment
for all of us to witness.
00:30:25
NARRATOR: The body tissue
was examined in Stockholm. And the results
showed conclusively
00:30:30
that dangerously high
levels of succinylcholine were present in
Chelsea McLellan.
00:30:36
She had been callously
murdered by the nurse who was meant to be helping her. JOE DAVIS: After we found
the drug, of course,
00:30:44
we knew that Genene Jones
had been lying to us. And she had been observed
also by another nurse,
00:30:51
as I previously stated,
giving another shot when Chelsea went down. And it all indicated, based
on all the evidence now,
00:31:01
that she was, in
our minds, guilty. NARRATOR: On the
25th of May 1983, Genene Jones was
arrested for the murder
00:31:10
of Chelsea McClellan. But the 32-year-old nurse
denied any wrongdoing. JOE DAVIS: I took Genene
Jones down first to be
00:31:21
examined on the polygraph. And questions were
asked regarding the investigation and her
contact with the patients.
00:31:29
And did she do anything
to injure them or give her any substance or anything? And she actually
failed the polygraph.
00:31:37
Based on the questions asked
there, she did not pass. I tried to talk to her more,
but she just, being who she was,
00:31:46
she slammed the
polygraph's wrong. I didn't do nothing
wrong, and maintained that she was innocent of
anything to those babies.
00:31:55
NARRATOR: In February
1984, Genene Jones was on trial for murder. In her defense, Jones
argued that she'd
00:32:02
used succinylcholine,
on Chelsea McClellan appropriately and denied
trying to kill her.
00:32:10
ANDY KAHAN: I mean, this
is a complicated case. This is 1984. You know, there's a lot of
medical jargon that has--
00:32:18
going around for the
jury to comprehend. But I'll tell you what. This jury saw right through.
00:32:24
And when people were testifying
in the courtroom, I mean, there wasn't really a
dry eye in the courtroom.
00:32:33
The only dry eye
in the courtroom was Genene Jones, who didn't
show any emotion, anything.
00:32:44
NARRATOR: Jones was found
guilty and sentenced to 99 years for murder. In October 1984, Jones was found
guilty once more for attempting
00:32:53
to kill Rolando
Santos at Bexar County Hospital between December
1981 and January 1982.
00:33:01
She was given another
60-year sentence that would run concurrently
to the 99 years
00:33:07
she was already serving. GEOFFREY WANSELL: It
took the jury no time to become completely convinced
that she had, indeed, set out
00:33:15
to kill both Chelsea and Rolando
in a heartless, cruel manner, thereby trying to make herself
look, at one moment, savior,
00:33:27
at the next moment, killer. It is a dreadful conceit and
evidence of pure wickedness.
00:33:35
NARRATOR: Genene Jones
was finally in prison. But under Texas legislation,
she was due to be freed in 2018.
00:33:43
Outraged by the
impending release date, a group of relatives
who are certain Jones
00:33:48
had killed their loved
ones came together to fight the injustice. They wanted to keep Genene
Jones behind bars for good.
00:33:59
By 2017, convicted baby
killer Genene Jones had served 33 years in prison for murder.
00:34:07
But her time inside
was coming to an end. Legislation put in place
to ease the overpopulation
00:34:15
of prisons in Texas meant
she would soon be free. Court reporter Elizabeth Zavala
followed the latest chapter
00:34:24
in the story of
the killer nurse. ELIZABETH ZAVALA:
Because of that law to ease prison
crowding, Genene Jones
00:34:34
would have been eligible
for parole in March of 2018. And for people in the San
Antonio community, Bexar
00:34:45
County, South Texas,
even, they just didn't want to see
a convicted baby killer like Genene Jones be
released out into the public.
00:34:55
NARRATOR: The fight for
justice was spearheaded by the mother of
Genene Jones's murder
00:35:00
victim, Chelsea McClellan. Petti McClellan-Wiese
had refused to give up the
fight over the years
00:35:07
whenever Jones
was up for parole. Petti would go to the
parole board hearings. And she made it a point
to be there every time
00:35:16
and argue for Genene
Jones to stay behind bars. She was very passionate about
that because of her own child's
00:35:26
death, but also Petti
felt very protective of the San Antonio mothers. NARRATOR: Mothers in San
Antonio who'd lost babies
00:35:38
at Bexar County Hospital
during Jones's time there all believe their children
could have been
00:35:44
murdered by the killer nurse. Victim advocate
Andy Kahan worked with Petti McClellan-Wiese
to find some new cases.
00:35:54
ANDY KAHAN: We ended up actually
forming a Facebook group, a closed Facebook group called
Victims of Genene Anne Jones.
00:36:02
And that's how we communicated. And we started hearing
from other families. Their infants also died under,
quote, "the death shift."
00:36:10
And that's how we started
getting other people involved and other
families involved.
00:36:15
And it just spiraled from there. NARRATOR: With the help
of Petti and Andy Kahan,
00:36:22
District Attorney Joe
Gonzales identified a handful of potential victims. We had five
separate indictments,
00:36:30
the strongest of
which was the case involving young Joshua Sawyer. And I will tell you that the
reason that that case was
00:36:39
the strongest case
that we had was because of his mother, Connie Weeks. She had kept meticulous
records of her child
00:36:50
going to the doctor. Had it not been for
her, I don't believe we would have been able to
prosecute Genene Jones the way
00:36:58
we did. NARRATOR: 11-month-old Joshua
Sawyer had died at Bexar County Hospital while Jones was
working in the Pediatric
00:37:07
Intensive Care Unit. Joshua Sawyer was brought
into the hospital in December in 1981, because there'd
been a fire in his home,
00:37:17
and he'd experienced
some smoke inhalation. And that shouldn't have
been the end of his life.
00:37:22
But he had a cardiac arrest
when he was in the hospital. And it transpired that
he had a huge amount
00:37:29
of anti-seizure
medication in his system, way more than the normal range. NARRATOR: Joshua Sawyer
had been injected
00:37:38
with a deadly
amount of Dilantin, an anti-seizure medication. And so the effect
that it would have had
00:37:47
was a violent effect on his
body, I think, on the muscles. Basically, it was an
overdose of Dilantin.
00:37:53
And so that's what caused
the death of Joshua Sawyer. NARRATOR: A series of hearings
followed in which it was
00:38:01
decided that the new charges
could be brought against Genene Jones, much to the
relief of Petti
00:38:07
McClellan-Wiese and Andy Kahan. I was floored. And it was quite an emotional
day, obviously, for Petti.
00:38:17
It was emotional for me, who had
been involved with this for so long, to see her charged and to
know, at least, right now, she
00:38:25
wouldn't be legally released
because she was brought back to Bexar County Jail and held
in custody under a $1 million
00:38:33
bond, pending the charges. NARRATOR: Jones would
remain behind bars until a new trial date was set.
00:38:41
Unfortunately, Petti
McClellan-Wiese would not get to see justice
served for a second time.
00:38:48
She passed away in June
2019 at the age of 64. ANDY KAHAN: I remember
getting a call.
00:38:59
And sadly, at this time,
Petti had passed away. And that was-- I was just so
saddened by her sudden passing.
00:39:08
And she didn't get to live
to see the culmination of her efforts, or
culmination of efforts
00:39:15
lived through other families
that she brought together. And she was kind of like
the godmother of this group.
00:39:23
And everyone looked up to her. NARRATOR: Suddenly, as
preparations were being made
00:39:32
for the trial, word came
through that Genene Jones had agreed to a plea bargain.
00:39:37
She would plead guilty to
the murder of Joshua Sawyer in exchange for a life sentence
and the other four cases
00:39:44
to be dropped. She was due to confirm
this at a San Antonio courthouse in January 2020.
00:39:54
ANDY KAHAN: And keep
in mind, at that time, Jones could change her
mind at any moment,
00:39:58
because she's the one
who agreed to the deal. And the deal was she would
plead guilty to the one murder.
00:40:03
And the other charges
would be dropped. There's always a little
apprehension that this
00:40:09
isn't going to happen. And when she finally
had pled guilty, it was quite a sense of relief
for everybody there that day.
00:40:19
NARRATOR: Genene
Jones had finally admitted to killing at least
one baby under her care.
00:40:26
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Has she suddenly developed a conscience? Does she suddenly feel
compassionate for her victims
00:40:31
and their relatives? No, I don't think so whatsoever. I think what's going on here
is she's trying to prevent
00:40:37
a trial from taking place
because during a trial, a lot of information
becomes known about you.
00:40:43
And she would not want that
information to become known. So she is essentially
taking back control
00:40:50
by putting in this guilty plea. JOE GONZALES: I actually
looked to see whether or not
00:40:55
she had any reaction. I never saw any
tears in her eyes. I never saw any
indication of any remorse,
00:41:03
which is pretty
indicative of your cold-blooded serial killers. Here, you had a lady that,
as far as I'm concerned,
00:41:11
was evil incarnate. She was a woman who made a
point of ending infants' lives. And she didn't appear
to have any remorse.
00:41:22
She never indicated
in court that she was sorry for what she did. NARRATOR: In January
2020, Genene Jones
00:41:31
was given another life
sentence for the murder of 11-month-old Joshua Sawyer. JOE GONZALES: Genene Jones was
sentenced to life in prison,
00:41:40
which means that she
will have to serve the sentence until 2038. That is the first
opportunity that she
00:41:48
has to be eligible for parole. Now she will be about 87
years old at that time. And so we suspect that
she may not make it,
00:41:58
or if she does, that her
parole will be denied. We believe that she will spend
her very last breath in prison.
00:42:08
I think that the families
feel they have justice. The one thing that was always
constant with each family
00:42:21
member of one of these children
was that they wanted for Genene Jones to die in prison.
00:42:32
NARRATOR: Genene Jones has
officially been found guilty of two murders,
but experts suggest
00:42:38
the real number of deaths
caused by her deadly injections could be somewhere
between 40 and 60.
00:42:45
But her continued
silence means we may never know the full story. Families will be
wondering for generations
00:42:55
whether or not they lost
their loved ones at the hand of this cold killer. ANDY KAHAN: When I look back
at Jeanine Jones's reign
00:43:04
of terror, I get
angry and so upset and very emotionally
drained because look at who her victims were.
00:43:14
These were infants. None of her victims could
run, yell, scream for help. They were at her mercy.
00:43:25
And they were with
someone whom families believed they could trust. JOE DAVIS: When somebody
in the medical field
00:43:33
takes advantage of especially
a young baby that can't talk and say what happened
and tell the story
00:43:41
of what Genene Jones did when
she took the baby to the back, and-- pretty bad. And it's people that you
trust with your own kid
00:43:53
to help that kid get well. And they ended up
causing its death. What could be worse than that?
00:44:02
[music playing] NARRATOR: Jones was a
cold-hearted killer. She took the lives
of young children
00:44:23
who did not have the voice or
strength to fight against her. To intentionally harm a
child is a callous act,
00:44:31
but to do it under the guise
of a caring nurse is abhorrent. And that's why Genene
Jones will forever
00:44:38
be remembered as one of the
world's most evil killers. [music playing]