Wikipedia: Terri Eden Maples Rachals is a former nurse from Georgia
who was accused of killing people at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany,
Georgia with potassium chloride, a heart-stopping drug. While suspected of
killing at least nine of her patients, she was charged with only six murders,
three of which she acknowledged possibly committing while in a "Fugue
state" in a recanted confession that she made to the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation.
Her trial, held in 1986, found her guilty on one of twenty aggravated
assault charges. The other nineteen charges, as well as the ones for murder,
were dismissed after a psychiatrist testified that she suffered from depression
and other disorders that made her unaware of what she was doing.
Rachals served 17 years in prison and was released in 2003.
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CHRONOLOGY
Terri Eden Maples Rachals.
Oct. 19, 1985. 68-year-old Milton Lucas, pronounced dead.
Nov. 7, 1985 – Next up was Minnie Houck, age 58.
Nov. 10, 1985 – Joe Irwin, 36, died.
Nov. 15, 1985 – Roger Parker, also 36, died.
Nov. 24, 1985 – Andrew Daniels, age 73, died.
Nov. 27, 1985 – three-year-old Norris Morgan died.
Dec. 21, 1985 – Lee Creech, a 26-year-old jail inmate, had
died under treatment.
Mar. 13, 1986 – Rachals (24) arrested; reportedly confessed
to injecting five patients with lethal doses of potassium chloride.
Mar. 25, 1986 – Rachals was indicted on six counts of murder
and 20 counts of aggravated assault against nine patients. Some of them had
received multiple injections, with Creech and Parker holding the record at six
and four jolts, respectively.
Oct. 1, 1986 – Found guilty but mentally ill on one of 20
charges of aggravated assault. Sentenced to a 17-year prison term.
Apr. 1, 2003 – Released
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lost his struggle for life on November 24, and he was
followed two days later by
Survivors included patients Sam Bentley, George Whiting,
Frances Freeman, and Jack Stephens, all of whom had suffered one or more
unexplained cardiac arrests in ICU.
By New Years, authorities were confident of six victims, but
there may have been more. Lee Creech, a 26-year-old jail inmate, had died under
treatment on December 21, and detectives were suspicious of three or four other
deaths, dating back to mid-August. By March, their investigation had focused on
a 24-year-old nurse, Terri Eden Maples Rachals, and on
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