On Aug. 23, 1994, Aleata Beach, a 48-year-old nurse at the
Grady Memorial Hospital in Chickasha, Oklahoma attempted suicide. She wrote out
a suicide note confessing to murdering four patients, three of them elderly and
one aged only 31, detailing the means she used to kill them. The younger
victim was a “former high school football and basketball star … who … had been
suffering for two years from a rare brain fungus.” The note stated that one had
been killed with potassium chloride and three with injections of air.
Aleata recovered and was arrested and held on $1 million bail. The
bodies were autopsied but since all had been embalmed the examination gave
inconclusive results. The judge ruled that the written confession, which was
later recanted by Mrs. Beach, was not sufficient in itself to bring her to
trial on four charges of first-degree murder. Charges were dropped and the
prosecution did not appeal.
[Robert St. Estephe]
***
Aleata Beach, 48, Rush Springs, Oklahoma
Grady Memorial Hospital, Chickasha
Jun. 1994 – AB takes overdose of “painkillers.”
4 deaths: one killed with potassium chloride, three with injections of air.
Aug. 19, 1994 – Goldie Crumm, 83, of Rush Springs.
Aug. 19, 1994 – Darrell Edwin Richie, 31, of Chickasha;
“former high school football and basketball star in Chickasha, died Aug. 20. He
had been suffering for two years from a rare brain fungus.”
Aug. 21, 1994 – Irene Mullins, 73, of Chickasha.
Aug. 21, 1994 – Flossie Fair, 88, of Cyril.
Aug. 23, 1994 – AB
attempts suicide attempt while at work; confesses to coworkers in a suicide
note that detailed her method.
Nov. 10, 1994 – AB indicted.
Nov. 15, 1994 – “During a bond hearing Tuesday, District
Judge James R. Winchester set Beach's bond at $1 million, or $250,000 for each
charge.”
Jan. 6, 1995 – “A Grady County judge on Friday [Jan. 6,
1995] determined a nurse's confession she killed four patients was not enough
evidence to order her to trial on four counts of first-degree murder. Special
District Judge Karen Ivy dismissed the charges against nurse Aleata May Beach,
48, the day after three witnesses testified for the prosecution during a
preliminary hearing.”
***
[“Nurse indicted in
four deaths,” The Tuscaloosa News (Al.), Nov. 11, 1994, p. 2A]
[Lillie-Beth Sanger, “Husband Says
Nurse Had Drug Problem,” The Oklahoman (Tulsa, Ok.), Nov. 16, 1994]
[Lillie-Beth Sanger, “Charges
Dismissed In 4 Deaths Nurse's Confession Ruled Insufficient,” The Oklahoman
(Tulsa, Ok.), Jan. 7, 1995]
[“Nurse Who Says She
Helped Patients Die Took Overdose in June,” Tulsa World (Ok.), Aug. 28, 1994]
***
[1420-11/6/20]
***
women do tend to kill people who are otherwise helpless, women who are trusted to care for others.
ReplyDeletehence why they tend to murder the elderly, children, victims who are asleep, or in the more recent cases of domestic violence, men who they know will not be protected by the police.