Facility linked to ‘killer nurse’ faces lawsuit
Sunnyview in Butler County latest to be sued
Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is the latest facility with links to so-called “killer nurse” Heather Pressdee that faces lawsuits from family members of the Harrison woman’s alleged victims.
The family of 43-year-old Nicolas Cymbol — the youngest of Ms. Pressdee’s alleged nursing home victims — filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Butler County facility Wednesday. Marguerite Laskovich, 80, died at the facility in January 2023. Her son, Keith Laskovich, filed a lawsuit against Sunnyview earlier this month.
Both lawsuits allege the nursing home was negligent in hiring Ms. Pressdee, who by that point had worked at 10 skilled nursing facilities in the previous four years. Representatives for Sunnyview could not immediately be reached
for comment.
Similar lawsuits have been filed against Belair Health and Rehabilitation in Lower Burrell, where she worked from April 2021 to January 2022. It was there, records contend, that she earned the nickname “The Killer Nurse.”
Ms. Pressdee, 41, has been linked to 17 deaths across five facilities as she bounced from nursing home to nursing home, each time allegedly terminated or forced to resign. Overall, she faces charges connected to 22 patients, including five who survived.
She is charged with murder in four of those deaths — those for whom investigators could prove a cause of death. In the case of the 18 others, she is charged with attempted homicide.
“While my co-counsel and I have not reviewed the complaint filed today, it comes as no surprise to us or our client,” Phil DiLucente, one of Ms. Pressdee’s criminal defense attorneys, said in a statement Wednesday. “Without question, the civil nature of this situation
appears that it will continue for some time in the future.”
Cymbol is among the patients Ms. Pressdee is charged with killing. Five Sunnyview residents died under Ms. Pressdee’s care, including three within days of each other. The lawsuit accuses the facility’s management of turning a blind eye, alleging that at least one nurse went to management about Ms. Pressdee’s behavior.
According to the lawsuit, the facility’s director of nursing told that nurse that Ms. Pressdee “does her work.”
Cymbol was considered a “brittle diabetic” — his body had trouble regulating insulin. He had other ailments, many of which stemmed from a brain injury earlier in his life.
A sensor implanted in Cymbol’s body kept a constant monitor of his blood sugar. An alarm would sound if the reading dropped or spiked, investigators said.
Before Cymbol died, Ms. Pressdee told coworkers that he would “be the next one to die,” according to the complaint. Witnesses said she’d called him “gross” and said people with his quality of life didn’t deserve to live.
On April 30, Cymbol suffered a low sugar episode on Ms. Pressdee’s watch and was sent to Butler Memorial Hospital, where he was treated and released back to Sunnyview. The next morning, during Ms. Pressdee’s shift, Cymbol suffered another sugar crash. A nurse found him foaming at the mouth and his sensor showing a reading from the previous day. He died later that day.
Ms. Pressdee was arrested about three weeks later. She allegedly admitted to investigators she’d given Cymbol an overdose of insulin.
“We were hired by the families of Heather Pressdee’s victims to get answers as to how she was permitted to continue working in these facilities despite her erratic, disturbing and abusive behavior,” said attorney Rob Peirce, whose firm represents the families of several alleged victims. “The more our office has investigated, the more questions we have as to why these facilities allowed these tragedies to occur.”
The son of Marguerite Laskovich made similar allegations.
Sunnyview hired Ms. Pressdee “despite her alarming history of resident abuse at prior facilities and the sheer number of nursing facilities that she worked in such a short period of time and for such short lengths of time,” according to the lawsuit.
The facility, the lawsuit alleged, “clearly failed to conduct an appropriate background check.” Had officials done so, they “would have learned that Heather Pressdee was a danger to their residents.”
Laskovich was admitted to Sunnyview about a month before Ms. Pressdee was hired. Upon her hiring, the lawsuit alleged, she became the point of contact for the Laskovich family. At the same time, according to the lawsuit, Laskovich began to “unexpectedly deteriorate.” Ms. Pressdee urged the family to put Laskovich in hospice care, to which family members “reluctantly agreed.”
The lawsuit alleged that Laskovich suffered a sharp decline in the three weeks that followed, and she often appeared “overly medicated and drugged.” Two days before her death, her son said in the lawsuit, he visited his mother and found that she “appeared beaten and bloody.” She had broken teeth and two black eyes, which Ms. Pressdee allegedly attributed to a fall.
Two days later on Jan. 21, 2023, Ms. Pressdee called Mr. Laskovich and urged him to bring his family to Sunnyview because “his mother was failing.” With the family gathered in the room, Mr. Laskovich said, Ms. Pressdee gave his mother an injection, which he now believes was a lethal dose of short-acting insulin. She died a short time later.
The lawsuit on behalf of Cymbol was filed by his sister, Melinda Brown. It pointed to Laskovich’s death as the first of what should have been four red flags for Sunnyview administrators.
A 104-year-old woman died after receiving care from Ms. Pressdee, who allegedly later admitted to giving her an overdose of insulin. The woman, referred to in court records as “A.V.,” died March 21 after being found foaming at the mouth and suffering a low blood-sugar crisis.
Three days later, a 78-year-old woman identified as “L.S.” died while she was actively receiving care from Ms. Pressdee, according to the lawsuit. Criminal court records indicate Ms. Pressdee confessed to investigators she’d given the woman two overdoses of insulin.
The same day, a 90-year-old man under Ms. Pressdee’s care was found foaming at the mouth and suffering from low blood sugar. He recovered from the sugar crash but died the next day, allegedly after Ms. Pressdee injected air into his bloodstream.
“This marked the second time in three days that a Sunnyview resident was found foaming at the mouth while under the care of Pressdee,” attorneys for Ms. Brown wrote. “Unbelievably, the staff and management at Sunnyview did nothing to investigate these very unusual occurrences in just a matter of days.”
Three weeks later, an 82-year-old identified as “S.L.” died after Ms. Pressdee allegedly injected her with an overdose of insulin followed by an injection of air.
“Put simply,” according to the lawsuit, Sunnyview “did not care that two residents died after foaming at the mouth and another two died from air embolisms.”
Cymbol is the last patient death linked to Ms. Pressdee before her arrest in late May. By that point, she’d already left Sunnyview and began working at Cheswick Rehab and Wellness.
The lawsuit pointed to a particular instance of cruelty Ms. Pressdee was accused of before Cymbol’s death. On the Friday before he died, witnesses told investigators, a fellow nurse was emphasizing to Cymbol the importance of keeping up with his medications. She told him she wanted him to be there when she returned to work Monday.
Ms. Pressdee allegedly called the interaction “gross,” telling others on staff that Cymbol would “be the next one to die.”
“It is absolutely beyond the pale,” according to the lawsuit, “that no one did anything after Pressdee made this promise regarding Mr. Cymbol.”
The morning after Cymbol’s death, Ms. Pressdee approached the nurse whose conversation she’d called gross the week before. She “smacked her on the back” and said, “Sorry to hear about Nick, but at least you got to say your final goodbye.” Later, she sent a sympathy card to Cymbol’s family.