American serial killer, a veteran’s hospital nurse convicted on 3/15/2001 of killing at least four patients by lethal injection. Nearly 40 cases were investigated of patients who had died while under her care. For the four cases in which she was involved, they had died from cardiac arrest after being given a stimulant in a Northampton Veterans Hospital
Hospital authorities had approached authorities with allegations in February 1996. Three nurses who worked with Kristen noticed that an unusual number of her patients were dying. In the case of Kenneth Cutting, 41, she had asked her supervisor if she could leave work early if he died, the night of 2/02/1996. He died two hours later. When Edward Skwira, 68, died on 2/18/1996, several ampoules of epinephrine were found to be missing from a cabinet and the empty ampoules found in the trash. She was also convicted of the former deaths of Henry Hudon, 35 and of Stanley Jagodowski, 66. The prosecution called her an Angel of Death and a sociopath, with no conscience.
The 33-year-old nurse has two sons, ages seven and ten, whom she has not seen in years. Married to Glenn Gilbert at 20, she had her first child three years later. Her second son was born on her birthday, on 11/13/1993. In late 1995, her marriage began to fail. While having an affair with a hospital security guard, she moved out, renting an apartment in the next town and leaving the boys, ages 2 and 4, with Glenn. During the divorce, he won custody of the children. During the trial, Kristen’s attorney played the card that, in spite of abandoning her kids, her death sentence by the state would cause them grief in future years.
Her ex-husband testified that she had tried to kill him in 1995, giving him odd-tasting food and then an injection that caused him to faint. She has also told both her ex-husband and her lover that she had killed the men. Though Kristen has not seen her sons for several years, she has nonetheless sent them some 300 letters. While guilt was established, the jury was unable to reach a verdict of the death sentence and Judge Ponsor pronounced a mandatory sentence of life without parole. It was decided that a death sentence would cause grief to her sons, parents, grandparents and younger sister.
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