Sentencing Set For Nursing Assistant In W. Va. VA Hospital Killings
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A former nursing assistant who has pleaded guilty to intentionally killing seven people with fatal doses of insulin at a West Virginia veterans hospital is scheduled to be sentenced in February.
News outlets report that a judge has scheduled Reta Mays' sentencing for Feb. 18 and Feb. 19 in Clarksburg.
Mays pleaded guilty earlier this year to intentionally killing seven patients with wrongful insulin injections at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg. Mays faces up to life in prison for each of seven counts of second-degree murder.
Mays admitted at a plea hearing to purposely killing the veterans, injecting them with unprescribed insulin while she worked overnight shifts at the hospital in northern West Virginia between 2017 and 2018.
Defense lawyers want to review Mays' military service behavioral health records. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jarod Douglas asked Judge Thomas Kleeh to sentence Mays in mid-January, citing the interest of victims' families.
Defense attorney Jay McCamic had sought a sentencing hearing in March.
The VA is responsible for 9 million military veterans. The agency's former director was fired in 2018 in the wake of a bruising ethics scandal and a mounting rebellion within the agency. Robert Wilkie took over as Veterans Affairs secretary in July 2018.
(Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)