Two more victims have been added to the death toll of a Pennsylvania nurse accused of killing patients.
Heather Pressdee has now been accused of murder in the deaths of four patients, and hit with 17 counts of attempted murder for allegedly giving lethal doses of insulin to numerous patients at different rehabilitation centers where she worked, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry announced this week.
In total, Pressdee, 41, has been charged with mistreating 22 patients, ranging in age from 43 to 104, since 2020, according to the Attorney General’s office.
In all, 17 of Pressdee’s patients have died, though she has not been charged in those deaths authorities said.
“The allegations against Ms. Pressdee are disturbing. It is hard to comprehend how a nurse, trusted to care for her patients, could choose to deliberately and systematically harm them,” Henry said.
Pressdee had a history of being disciplined for abusive behavior, according to court documents.
Her nursing license was suspended earlier this year after she was arrested in May for murder in the deaths of two patients.
She had complained to her mother in text messages about patients, colleagues and others she came across, including at Arby’s, Taco Bell and a pizzeria, and spoke of harming them, according to the documents.
“If you get like this you will get pillow therapy,” she said in one message, apparently referring to suffocation.
“I can’t with this lady tonight,” she said in another text, authorities said. “She’s going to get pillow therapy.”
“This nurse may die today,” she said in a January text to her mother.
In 2018, she wrote on Facebook, “May kill a doctor today” and stated in a different post, “if you needed to take 2 units, but accidentally took 10 units instead, it could be deadly in a matter of hours.”
A lawyer for Pressdee said she is trying to avoid the death penalty, and the new charges were not unexpected, according to reports.
The alleged crimes happened while Pressdee was employed as a registered nurse at the following facilities: Concordia at Rebecca Residence; Belair Healthcare and Rehabilitation (Guardian); Quality Life Services Chicora; Premier Armstrong Rehabilitation and Nursing Center; and Sunnyview Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.
Pressdee did short stints at several nursing homes and facilities in western Pennsylvania since 2018, according to the documents, and before that worked as a veterinary technician.
With Post wires