Hospital worker who killed gets seven life terms

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – A former nursing assistant who killed seven elderly veterans with fatal injections of insulin at a West Virginia hospital was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday by a judge who called her “the monster that no one sees coming.”

Reta Mays has a history of mental health problems and offered no explanation Tuesday for why she killed the men. But U.S. District Judge Thomas Kleeh told her “you knew what you were doing” before sentencing her to seven consecutive life terms, a punishment that means she’ll likely die in prison.

Mays, 46, pleaded guilty last year in federal court to seven counts of second-degree murder for intentionally injecting the men with unprescribed insulin at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg. While the deaths accumulated during her overnight shifts at the hospital in 2017 and 2018, Mays conducted internet searches on female serial killers and watched the Netflix series “Nurses Who Kill,” Kleeh said.

“Several times your counsels made the point that you shouldn’t be considered a monster,” Kleeh said. “Respectfully, I disagree with that. You are the worst kind. You’re the monster that no one sees coming.”

Mays cried and apologized in addressing the court briefly before learning her sentence.

“I know that there’s no words that I can say that would alter the families’ pain and comfort,” she said. “I don’t ask for forgiveness because I don’t think I could forgive anyone for doing what I did.”

Hospital officials reported the deaths to the VA inspector general and fired Mays after evidence pointed to her.

An interview with Mays after her guilty plea was included in a lengthy report released after Tuesday’s sentencing by the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Inspector General detailing deficiencies at the hospital. In it, she said she administered insulin to patients she believed were suffering so they that could pass “gently.” She said she also had great stress and chaos in her personal and professional life.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jarod Douglas called her actions “predatory and planned, not reactionary.”