Fired VA staffer admits to murdering 7 patients with insulin

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A former staffer at a veterans hospital in West Virginia pleaded guilty Tuesday to intentionally killing seven patients with fatal doses of insulin, capping a sweeping federal investigation into a series of mysterious deaths at the medical center.

Reta Mays, a former nursing assistant at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg was charged with seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of assault with the intent to commit murder of an eighth person.

She faces life sentences for each murder. At a plea hearing, Mays, 46, admitted 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.

Her voice cracked throughout the hearing as she answered a judge's questions. She shook and appeared to weep as details of the charges were read aloud.

U.S. Attorney Bill Powell told reporters that Mays' motive is still unclear, saying that authorities did not receive a "satisfactory response" to questions about the reasoning behind her actions. "Though we can't bring these men back because of her evil acts, we hope the conclusion of the investigation and guilty plea helps ease the pain of the victims' families," Powell said.

Court records unsealed Tuesday, which named Mays publicly for the first time, came after multiple families initiated civil lawsuits against VA leadership alleging a widespread system of failures at the hospital, where victims were wrongfully given insulin and suddenly died.

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