‘BABY KILLER’

‘Killer Nurse’ Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murdering Infant in 1981

Genene Jones has been suspected of killing up to 60 children.

A woman known as the “killer nurse” who is suspected of killing up to 60 children was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for the death of a San Antonio baby in 1981. Genene Jones, 69, was convicted in a separate killing of 15-month-old Chelsea McClellan in 1984 by injecting her with a fatal dose of a muscle relaxer. She was reportedly a pediatric nurse at Bexar County Hospital, now University Hospital, when both infants died. Jones had served only a third of her original 99-year-sentence and was eligible to be released from prison in 2018 due to a bill to relieve prison overcrowding. In 2017, however, she was indicted in the deaths of Richard Nelson, Rosemary Vega, Paul Villarreal, Joshua Sawyer, and Patrick Zavala. All were patients at the hospital in 1981 or 1982, ranged in age from three months to two years, and were injected with an overdose of a muscle relaxer or an unknown substance, court records state. Jones pleaded guilty on Thursday to killing Sawyer in exchange for a life sentence and the dismissal of the four other cases. “The odds are that she will take her last breath in prison,” said Catherine Babbitt, chief of major crimes for the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.