‘Angel of Death’ faces new charge ahead of release
A convicted child killer who is scheduled for release next year was indicted on a new murder charge Thursday by a Bexar County grand jury in the death of an infant in 1981.
Genene Jones, a former nurse at hospitals in San Antonio and Kerrville, is serving a 99-year sentence for killing Chelsea McClellan, who was 15 months old when she was given a fatal overdose of muscle relaxers in 1982.
Jones also was convicted in Bexar County of injury to a child/serious bodily injury and sentenced to 60 years in prison for giving an overdose to Rolando Santos in 1982. The infant, who was 4 weeks old, survived. The sentences are being served at the same time.
In the new indictment, Jones is accused of giving a fatal dose of Dilantin, also known as phenytoin, to 11-month-old Joshua Sawyer on Dec. 12, 1981.
Jones, 66, is serving out her sentence at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Murray Unit in Gatesville. Because of a mandatory release law designed to prevent prison overcrowding, she is due for release in March, according to TDCJ.
In light of that, the grand jury went an extra step Thursday and issued an order setting bond at $1 million should she be released. Under the conditions, she would be under GPS monitoring with full house arrest and is ordered to have no contact with children under the age of 18, with any medical facility of any kind unless it is for her own care and with any child care facility.
Jones, dubbed the “Angel of Death,” has been eligible for parole before and was last denied in August 2014.
She worked in San Antonio at University Hospital, formerly Medical Center Hospital, in 1981 and 1982. Jones is suspected in the killings of at least 40 to 60 infants, including some in Clear Lake.