Forensic Files - Season 5, Episode 10 - Nursery Crimes - Full Episode | Forensic Files

within weeks of opening her medical clinic dr kathleen holland had seven infants who stopped breathing and had
seizures severe enough to require emergency resuscitation in her office considerably more than what most
pediatricians see in an entire year when one of the children died local health officials demanded answers
[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] kerrville texas is a quiet little community just an hour's drive from san
antonio although kerrville is primarily a retirement community dr kathleen holland saw a business
opportunity she opened what was only the second pediatric clinic in kerrville reed and patty mcclellan were excited by
the prospect of a female pediatrician coming to town a lot of mothers do want to take their kids particularly if it's
a girl to a to a female doctor and this was a young doctor a progressive doctor somebody that seemed to kind of breathe
a fresh a little bit of fresh air into the medical community there and had training in the latest techniques the
mcclellan's daughter chelsea was one of dr holland's first patients when she opened her practice in 1982.
chelsea was 15 months old chelsea arrived on the very first day of practice mom called reporting that she
was breathing funny and had done so again previously two months ago just moments after dr holland finished
the evaluation chelsea stopped breathing and had to be rushed by ambulance to the
sid peterson memorial hospital there emergency room doctors revived chelsea but tests could not reveal what caused
the incident just one month later chelsea visited dr holland's office again this time for a routine
vaccination after being given the shot chelsea stopped breathing turned blue and had a seizure
once again the child was rushed to peterson memorial hospital where she was stabilized
later that day chelsea was taken by ambulance to san antonio to be evaluated by specialists
dr holland was following the ambulance in her own car along the way chelsea went into cardiac
arrest the ambulance pulled off the road so dr holland could assist in the resuscitation
[Music] i jumped into the ambulance and started doing cpr and asked them where the closest
facility was which was comfort and so we pulled into the closest facility and unfortunately she did not respond to all
of the efforts uh to bring her back and so after about 20 minutes or more in the hospital as
well as all of the efforts on route she was pronounced dead the autopsy concluded that chelsea died
of cardiac arrest attributed to sudden infant death syndrome which usually occurs in children under one year of age
chelsea had been premature and had some breathing problems at birth but by all accounts medical accounts she
had outgrown that problem and sids is something that afflicts kids who are younger i mean certainly doctors
can speak about that more authoritatively but generally you don't have kids dying of
sids at the age of 15 months over the next several weeks dr holland had more emergencies
a five-month-old girl started choking and was unable to breathe and she too had to be rushed to the hospital
a few days later yet another child had a seizure which required emergency treatment
in the first month of practice dr holland had seven children who suddenly and unexpectedly stopped
breathing had seizures and required emergency hospitalization some of them were indeed life threatening had
ambulances coming in on more than a weekly basis that was totally astonishing it was totally unprecedented
in kerrville they don't even have very many young families with children so ultimately other doctors who were just
watching this blizzard of activity got very suspicious and started asking questions and those suspicions led
medical investigators to reopen their inquiry into chelsea mcclellan's death [Music]
in the first month of practice dr kathleen holland had seven children who experienced seizures and breathing
problems in her office severe enough to require hospitalization one of those patients 15 month old
chelsea mcclellan died of cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital administrators at peterson memorial
hospital asked dr holland to attend a formal meeting to discuss the situation i was considered a prime suspect
and my practice obviously fell back as a result it strained put a great strain on my
marriage at the time and financially things were falling apart [Music] during the meeting dr holland reviewed
each of the cases for the committee she said all of the incidents could be explained by the children's medical
histories chelsea was born premature and had a history of breathing problems even
before coming to me one member of the committee asked dr holland if she used the drug succinyl choline in
her practice succinylcholine is a powerful muscle relaxant which can cause respiratory
failure in large doses it's so powerful it's sometimes used in lethal injections for executions
dr holland said she had a vial in her office but had never used it they also asked dr holland if she
trusted her employees dr holland said she did that night after office hours dr holland spoke with her nurse janine
jones dr holland described jones's behavior that night as suspicious there was a lull in the
conversation and the next thing she said was oh by the way i found that missing vial of such no
choline and i said what missing pile of sucks no culling i told you before i lost a vial of
succino choline and ordered a replacement for it and i found the missing bottle so now we have two vials
dr holland suspected it was more than a mere coincidence that her nurse mentioned the exact same drug
doctors asked her about in the meeting i'm just sitting there and i'm absorbing all of this
and i'm putting it in perspective with the the emergency the meeting regarding my emergencies
the next morning dr holland went to the refrigerator and found the two vials of succinyl choline
both appeared to be full but in one of the caps she noticed two tiny needle marks
and at that point in time my whole world collapsed and i remember being emotionally just in
turmoil that morning just absolutely in turmoil dr holland immediately turned the vials
over to the authorities dr holland was within our circle of suspicion dr holland
was very defensive in our investigation because she felt that as a captain of the ship so to
speak that she was responsible for this child's death and bear in mind at that time she was
anticipating a flood of lawsuits from parents janine jones was also under suspicion
jones was a year 33-year-old licensed vocational nurse divorced with two children who had
come to kerrville after leaving a job in a pediatric intensive care unit in san antonio she was sort of rough and ready
personality she was very coarse rough she cursed like a sailor she talked about sex a lot even though
she wasn't an attractive woman she kind of liked to you know mix it up and give people a hard time the two vials of
succinyl choline were sent to the forensic lab for testing although the vial with the two needle holes appeared
to be full tests indicated that 80 percent of the vial had been filled with water
a large dose of succinyl choline could have caused chelsea mcclellan's death unfortunately it was considered to be
untraceable it's the type of drug that after injection into the body it rapidly disappears and it's not traceable in its
original form because suctional choline is made up of succinic acid and choline which are natural elements in the human
body and without hard scientific evidence all investigators had were dr holland's
suspicions and janine jones denials [Music] district attorney ron sutton was beginning to suspect that 15 month old
chelsea mcclellan and some of the other children in dr holland's pediatric clinic had been intentionally injected
with succinylcholine a powerful muscle relaxant every child who is of a non-talking age that came
into this clinic with a potentially serious medical problem suddenly had a seizure if the child was a talking age
child or some other problems just a sniffle or something like that didn't get it but if
they had a potentially serious problem and a non-talker they got it a vial of succinyl choline in dr
holland's office appeared to be full but had two needle holes in the cap and had been refilled with water
the prime suspect was dr holland's nurse janine jones since she was in the ambulance with
chelsea mcclellan when she went into cardiac arrest and died while all this was going on in kerrville
there were similar suspicions about janine jones in san antonio just one year earlier death rates rose
dramatically in the pediatric intensive care unit at bexar county hospital while
janine jones was working there dr vincent demaio the chief medical examiner for bear county heard
suspicions about janine jones from some of his medical colleagues after a while it became common knowledge and it became
a kind of a morbid joke that if you were going to have deaths in the pediatric care unit it was always on
the shift that janine jones was working dr demaio passed this information on to deputy district attorney nick rothy who
discovered that the death rates dropped as soon as janine jones left the hospital
we could tell that when jones left those peak numbers dropped immediately the month she left the day after she
left things just leveled out and stayed level they were level going in and then just
peaked right there and then the minute she left i'd say almost a minute i mean today to the day
they went back to what normal levels officials in san antonio called in the centers for disease control in atlanta
georgia the premier medical investigation agency in the world dr gregory istri was the epidemiologist
assigned to analyze the death rates in the intensive care unit the fact that the deaths appear to have been declining
in the late 1970s in 1980 early 1981 and then seemed to go up again in 1981-82 and the fact that that increase was
almost exclusively on the evening shift or in the evening hours made us think that there really was
something unusual that was going on there the rise in the intensive care death rates coincided with the dates
janine jones worked there and jones worked the 3 to 11 shift but there were more than 200 individuals
who passed through the pediatric intensive care unit doctors nurses aides ward clerks therapists technicians and
medical residents dr istri began his investigation by assigning each employee a number he
charted which of the 200 individuals were on duty at the time of the 30 suspicious deaths and the 50 or so
unexplained medical emergencies nurse 32 had a significant and quite extraordinarily high risk of deaths to
patients when nurse 32 was working compared to when nurse 32 was not working in fact
that risk was 10 times higher the risk of death was 10 times higher when she was working compared to when
she was not working and the identity of nurse number 32 nurse 32 was janine jones
is janine jones prosecutors found evidence that supervisors in the intensive care unit
strongly suspected janine jones was somehow involved in these mysterious deaths so they conducted a study
began to focus on janine jones but decided what to do would be to eliminate the lvns
from the staff and only staff the unit with registered nurses thus getting janine out of the picture
dr holland asked hospital staff down there if janine would be a good choice for her to
ask to come to kirby with her and they said yes that she would be a good choice and a good nurse for her therefore san
antonio got rid of janine sent her to kirby the suspicious deaths in the intensive
care unit stopped after janine jones left and the incident's mysteriously resurfaced in the medical practice where
jones was next employed prosecutors were convinced that 15 month old chelsea mcclellan had been murdered
by an intentional injection of succinyl choline a powerful muscle relaxant but they had no way to prove it since
there were no toxicology tests sensitive enough to find succinylcholine in the human body but prosecutors heard about a
forensic scientist in philadelphia dr frederick readers who was conducting research on drugs like
succinylcholine chelsea mcclellan's autopsy samples were sent to dr readers who took them to the
karolinska institute in sweden there an experimental protocol permitted chelsea's tissues to be analyzed with
gas chromatography this process heats and separates the various molecules in the samples then
measures the speed at which they separate from one another in a scientific first
traces of succinylcholine were discovered in chelsea mcclellan's embalmed tissues we have the hypothesis
of our finding that we are reasonably certain that this child was administered sectional calling
at or around the time of her death order at or around the time of her onset of the symptoms and signs
that then led to her death jeanine jones was charged with the murder of chelsea mcclellan
and pleaded not guilty prosecutors believe that janine jones first injected chelsea mcclellan with
succinylcholine in the examining room while dr holland was busy with chelsea's mother
and later injected chelsea again in the ambulance causing her death the discovery of succinyl choline in
chelsea mcclellan's tissues the diluted vial with the needle holes found in dr holland's office
and the fact that janine jones was alone with each of the infants at the time of
their seizures all told a story the last witness i believe that testified in the in the kirbyo case in
georgetown testified that she went up to janine standing outside of sid peterson
hospital and janine had said you know what this place needs or at some point she said is
that what this place needs is a pediatric intensive care unit and uh and obviously she would want to
be the head nurse and this other person said i think it was another nurse said well but janine we don't have any
critically ill children like that out here and janine said yes you do you just need to know go out
and find them on february 16 1984 janine jones was found guilty of the merger of chelsea mcclellan
by injection of succinal choline and was sentenced to 99 years in prison in a later trial
janine jones was also convicted of one count of injury to a child while working at bear county hospital in san antonio
specifically for injecting an infant with 22 000 units of heparin a near fatal dose
for that crime janine jones was sentenced to an additional 60 years in prison what had happened what janine was
doing was injecting these children with a drug called heparin and which is a blood thinner and and because it's a
blood thinner these children's little wounds wouldn't coagulate and consequently they started oozing
blood from all these stick marks janine jones began creating havoc in the intensive care unit in san antonio
because of what prosecutors believe was her contempt for some of the doctors and
registered nurses who worked there she was still in lvn she didn't have the education they had and she wasn't going
to go as far as they were going to go and i think she resented that and when janine jones left san antonio
she continued her rampage in kerrville there's so many people that that could have indeed stopped janine jones at some
point could have done the right thing and failed to do it it's really a story about the medical
bureaucracy it's a story about medical politics it's a story about institutions that
fail to do what they should do for all the wrong reasons that that are afraid of
bad publicity and scandal um and litigation and so allow janine jones to go off and and harm kids and
curve all and murder chelsea mcclellan that's what makes it a a terrible a truly tragic tale
[Music] dr holland says she relied on the positive employment reference bear county hospital provided for jeanine
jones before hiring her despite a broken marriage numerous lawsuits and near bankruptcy
dr holland stayed in kerrville texas to rebuild her practice she says it has taken years to regain
the trust of the community in february of 1984 the practice was down to seeing four
patients a week my husband divorced me before the year 1982 was closed um while those who had worked with me
before knew of my own character and knew that that i wasn't involved my professional
reputation was totally gone especially in this town and so i found myself at rock bottom
but i knew i hadn't i knew i hadn't participated in that crime and i knew that and i knew god knew that
and i just made a decision that i wasn't going to quit and i wasn't going to leave
i had nothing to run from [Music] [Music] you

A police investigation of a pediatrician, after the mysterious death of one of her patients, leads to a Texas hospital where the pediatric mortality rate is higher than at any hospital in the country.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Dr. Kathleen Holland's clinic faced multiple infant emergencies, leading to the murder conviction of nurse Janine Jones for Chelsea McClellan's death.

Key points

The Mysterious Deaths. Dr. Holland's clinic experiences a shocking number of emergencies, raising suspicions.
The Discovery of Succinylcholine. Forensic analysis reveals traces of a powerful drug in Chelsea's tissues, leading to a murder charge.
Janine Jones Convicted. Janine Jones is found guilty of Chelsea's murder, sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I was considered a prime suspect.

Dr. Holland reflects on the scrutiny she faced after Chelsea's death.

5:51WatchNov 11, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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