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- Heather Pressdee, a former nurse, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, 17 counts of attempted murder, and 19 counts of neglect across five care facilities in Pennsylvania.
- Pressdee allegedly administered excessive doses of insulin to elderly residents, leading to their deaths.
- The victims include Irene Simons, 78, and Sandra Lincoln, 82, with the families filing separate wrongful death lawsuits against Sunnyview Operating LLC and Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
- The lawsuits highlight a systemic failure in hiring and staff behavior, with Sunnyview accused of negligence in hiring Pressdee and failing to prevent her from administering unnecessary insulin.
- Pressdee confessed to trying to kill 19 others at five different rehabilitation centers across the US since 2020, linking her to 17 different deaths.
- The lawsuits also allege abusive behavior towards patients, with management failing to address complaints or remove Pressdee from caring for patients.
- The families involved in the lawsuits aim to prevent such incidents from happening again in the future, emphasizing the importance of the civil lawsuit in addition to the criminal charges.
The case of Nurse Accused of 17 Patient Deaths and Sends Flowers to Victim Poisoned with Insulin has garnered national attention. Heather Pressdee, a former nurse at Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Pennsylvania, has been charged with a series of heinous crimes against her patients. Pressdee, now 41, faces two counts of first-degree murder, 17 counts of attempted murder, and 19 counts of neglect across five care facilities. The charges stem from her alleged actions between 2020 and 2023, where she is accused of administering unnecessary doses of insulin to elderly residents, leading to their deaths. The victims include Irene Simons, 78, and Sandra Lincoln, 82, who died following these unnecessary doses of insulin last year. Their families have filed separate wrongful death lawsuits against Sunnyview Operating LLC and Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, seeking justice and compensation for their loss.
The lawsuit filed by the family of Irene Simons alleges that Pressdee injected the elderly victim with 60 doses of insulin before administering another 60 when she did not immediately die in March 2023. The lawsuit also claims that Sunnyview failed to conduct an appropriate background check prior to hiring Pressdee, highlighting a systemic failure in the hiring process that allowed a nurse with a history of abusive tendencies and behaviors toward residents and staff to remain employed.
In another case, the family of Sandra Lincoln, who died on April 17, 2023, filed a separate lawsuit that includes Premier Healthcare Management, LLC as a defendant. They claimed that Pressdee was heard saying Lincoln “needed to die” 40 minutes before she was pronounced dead. The victim had made it clear she wanted to be discharged from Sunnyview and taken off tube feedings so she could die at home. Pressdee admitted to administering insulin to Lincoln before injecting one syringe of air into the victim to create a dangerous air embolism, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office. The lawsuit claims Sunnyview acted negligently by hiring Pressdee and is liable for its staff behavior. The family added that the company failed to prevent the nurse from administering unnecessary insulin to Lincoln, did not tell the Pennsylvania Department of Health about unusual deaths at the home, and failed to report or act on suspected abuse.
Pressdee has confessed to trying to kill 19 others at five different rehabilitation centers across the US since 2020, linking her to 17 different deaths. Her defense lawyers, James DePasquale and Phil DiLucente, have admitted they’re trying to escape the death penalty. They have stated that their goal has been from the beginning to avoid the possibility of the death penalty and that they are very close to accomplishing that. Pressdee typically administered the insulin during overnight shifts when staffing was low and the emergencies would not prompt immediate hospitalization. The victims ranged in age from 43 to 104.
The lawsuit also alleges that Pressdee was particularly abusive to a patient named Cymbol, routinely insulting, berating, bullying, and abusing him. Other nurses reported that she called him gross and said that he was going to be the next one to die anyway. Despite these allegations, management did nothing to remove Pressdee from caring for Cymbol or any other patients. The lawsuit against Sunnyview comes on the heels of two earlier lawsuits against Belair Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center on behalf of the families of Jack Rogers and Normal Hendrickson, as well as a lawsuit for the family of Marianne Bower in October.
Pressdee is currently in the Butler County Jail, facing four counts of homicide. The families involved in the lawsuits aim to prevent such incidents from happening again in the future, emphasizing the importance of the civil lawsuit in addition to the criminal charges.
