'Death Nurse' To Get Life In Prison

A former nurse unexpectedly pleaded no contest Tuesday to injecting 10 patients with lethal drug doses at a North Texas hospital.

Vickie Dawn Jackson's plea came after prosecutors had received questionnaires potential jurors had filled out that morning in her capital murder trial, which was to start with testimony Monday.

"Frankly, I've never been so surprised in a case in my life," said Jack McGaughey, district attorney for Montague, Clay and Archer counties, who had planned to call 58 witnesses in the trial that was expected to last through the end of October.

Now the state will present some of its evidence against Jackson at a hearing Thursday before state District Judge Roger Towery, who will then sentence her to life in prison. That was the maximum sentence she faced if she had been convicted by a jury.

Jackson's attorney Bruce Martin said she decided to enter the plea because her adult daughter was on the state's witness list.

"She has never admitted guilt and she was never convicted by a jury," Martin told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "And her daughter never had to testify against her. Those things meant something to her."

Prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty against Jackson, 40, who had maintained her innocence. She is accused of injecting patients at Nocona General Hospital in late 2000 and early 2001 with a drug normally used to temporarily stop breathing to insert a breathing tube.

The case has been delayed in part because of budget issues and problems finding an impartial jury.

The trial was moved last year to San Angelo, about 330 miles southwest of Nocona, because of intense publicity in North Texas.