Pennsylvania Attorney General
A Pennsylvania nurse accused in the insulin-overdose deaths of 17 nursing home patients as she bounced from one facility to another pleaded guilty Thursday and was sentenced to life in prison—avoiding a lethal injection herself. At the hearing, a parade of furious victims’ relatives vented their rage at Heather Pressdee, 41, who said little during the proceeding. “I hope you live to 100,” one victim’s niece told her, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pressdee worked as a veterinary tech euthanizing animals before she began caring for elderly humans in 2018. She told investigators that she delivered deadly and near-fatal doses of insulin to patients for a variety of reasons, including how they looked at her or because she thought they had no quality of life. In a deal that allows her to escape the death penalty she pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and 19 counts of attempted murder. The case has also spawned civil lawsuits, with families claiming the nursing homes ignored red flags or covered up Pressdee’s disturbing behavior and suspicious deaths.
One after another, family members aimed their grief and anguish at Heather Pressdee, who sat quietly on the other side of the Butler County courtroom.
Some called her the devil. One woman told her to burn in hell. They told she was not God, that she was no longer in control.
“I hope you live to 100,” Jack Rogers’ niece told her.
Dubbed the “killer nurse” for her hand in the deaths of 17 nursing home patients at five facilities, Pressdee pleaded guilty Thursday to three counts of first-degree murder and 19 counts of attempted murder. In return for her plea, the 41-year-old will avoid the possibility of the death penalty. She will instead receive three consecutive life sentences plus hundreds more years for the attempted murder charges.
Megan GuzaTracing the path of Western Pennsylvania’s ‘killer nurse’
Pressdee said little during the status conference-turned plea hearing in front of Butler County Common Pleas Judge Joseph E. Kubit. She answered each question attorneys asked her regarding her plea: Did she understand that she was presumed innocent? Was she aware of the defenses her attorneys could present? Did she review the evidence against her?
Yes.
Why are you pleading guilty? attorney James DePasquale asked her.
“Because I am guilty,” Pressdee replied.
She’d faced more than three dozen charges in connection with the deaths, which happened between 2020 and her arrest in May 2023, including four murder charges. Investigators have said they filed murder charges only in connection with the deaths for which they could concretely prove a cause of death.
As family members of Pressdee’s victims gave their victim-impact statements, they spoke lovingly about who their loved ones were before Pressdee, in the words of some, tried to play God.
Nick Cymbol loved Jeeps, the Steelers and monkeys, and he was the social butterfly of Sunnyview Health and Rehabilitation. Gerald Shrum was a veteran and lifelong patriot. His daughter said she has nightmares imagining her father’s last moments. Betty McQueeney was a faithful Jehovah’s Witness. Some were elderly or ill, their families said, but none were ready to die. That wasn’t up to Pressdee, they said, but she took it upon herself nonetheless.
Megan GuzaWhat we know about the victims of Western Pennsylvania's 'killer nurse'
Pressdee worked at six different nursing facilities across the region in less than three years, and she was at her seventh last year when she was initially charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of two patients at Quality Life Services Chicora.
Six months later, after more families brought their suspicions to the Attorney General’s Office, investigators filed dozens more charges, including two more counts of murder.
The two criminal complaints spanned more than 40 pages and detailed Pressdee’s confessions to each insulin overdose.
One woman “looked at her like an animal would,” she told investigators. One man “had no quality of life,” she said, and she “felt bad” for another. One “needed to die.”
That was a frequent refrain at Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation in Butler, coworkers told investigators. She’s been linked to six patient deaths during her time there. Pressdee, one fellow nurse told police, was always saying that residents “just needed to die.”
Lawsuits filed by multiple families allege a culture of cover-up at the facilities Pressdee bounced among, claiming that administrators went so far as to discipline nurses who discussed her behavior. Coworkers at Belair Health and Rehabilitation in Lower Burrell dubbed her “the Killer Nurse.”
Pressdee did not begin her nursing career until 2018. She attended the Community College of Allegheny County in 2003 and 2004 but never finished her degree. She went on to work 14 years as a veterinary technician at the Pittsburgh Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Center. She told police that she provided critical care to animals, including anesthesia, and practiced euthanasia.
CCAC officials previously told the Post-Gazette that Pressdee returned to the school from 2016 to May 2018, when she graduated with an associate’s degree in nursing. From there, she worked at 12 nursing facilities between then and her arrest.
As early as her first stint in skilled nursing following her graduation, coworkers questioned her conduct.
At Encompass Health Rehabilitation of Harmarville, where she worked from Oct. 1, 2018, through April 21, 2019, she was disciplined for administering insulin outside of a physician’s orders.
Investigators said her employee file noted she was counseled Dec. 7, 2018, after an insulin error. A corrective action plan dictated she meet with supervisors to review insulin protocols. A supervisor at Encompass told investigators she was concerned Pressdee was harming residents and “took actions internally.” It’s not clear what those actions were.
After Encompass, Pressdee went from one short stint to the next. She worked at Allegheny Valley Hospital from April to September 2019. She was hired at Platinum Ridge Center for Rehabilitation in Brackenridge in September 2019. Investigators found she listed a fake name as a reference, and the phone number listed belonged to a relative.
She allegedly used a similar fake reference when she was hired at Concordia at Rebecca Residences in West Deer, where investigators have linked her to one patient death.
She began at Belair Health in April 2021, and investigators have linked her to the five patients, four of whom died. One woman was treated at Allegheny Valley Hospital before succumbing to the incident, and the man who survived was treated there as well.
The doctor who treated the man took note of the fact he was the second low blood sugar patient seen at the hospital that had been treated by Pressdee at Belair. He made a referral to the state Department of Health after he treated the second person.
It wasn’t clear what, if anything, the Department of Health did with that referral.
Her coworkers, too, sounded an alarm after a fourth patient died after receiving care from Pressdee. One official with Guardian Healthcare, which operated Belair, told investigators that the woman’s coworkers noticed the pattern of deaths and took the concerns to superiors. Pressdee was briefly suspended but an internal investigation turned up “no identifiable evidence.”