William Davis: Killer Nurse | Making A Serial Killer | Forensic Files

[Music] being honest with you it felt like it was a sudden impulse or a quick impulse
it was it was work it was money it was it's this is all freaking evil even though the code blue had gone
off he's watching him die we would show them that footage and many of them just broke down in tears I'm telling you I
don't understand why I don't know why my Lord you you just don't think about going to the hospital and being killed
one of the things that's so scary about healthc care serial killers is they know
ways to kill people you know to do something like this one time is is Unthinkable but to do it multiple times
times you'd have to enjoy it we are together and then he's gone it's horrible it's sad it makes me want to
cry [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I am Martha the K blanks I go by K I made him in a bar but he owned
it he told me I just lit the room up when I walked in oh honey he was goodlooking he was dark brown eyes and
dark hair he had a great head of hair always did in fact there were women that told him they'd like to run their hands
through it he said I don't think my wife would like that but what got him was the heart we were
on a trip to New Orleans when he had the first heart attack 8 months later we were in Las Vegas he had another heart
attack he just I guess it just got worse and worse in early January 2017 James blinks
has a successful operation and is sent to recover on an ICU ward in Christus Mother Francis Hospital in Tyler
Texas he had a triple bypass I was there the day of surgery could not stay the night of surgery but I saw him the next
day and he was doing well there was a lady who called me every 30 minutes in the waiting room she was the nurse and
she would give me his progress and he was doing good doing good doing good all the way
through my name is Jeff Roberts at the time that the Will Davis case was ongoing I was a detective at the Tyler
Police Department the most distinctive thing about which at the time was Trinity
Mother Francis they've since changed their name to Christus is that we have a very good and well respected Hospital
District bad outcomes are very uncommon Jacob Putman I'm the Smith County criminal district attorney Chris's
Mother Francis Hospital uh is a large hospital they care lots of patients they had reach recently built a new heart
hospital as a part of that heart patients who've had heart surgery almost always recover uh and actually go home
within just a few days so for any patients to have you know extraordinary bad outcomes is unusual and concerning
to the staff it's not something that they're used to [Music] seeing I saw him the next
day they'd had him up walking he was sitting in a chair and when I walked in he he did this to me calling
me over and I walked over to him and I leaned down and I kissed him you know like that because that's what he
wanted and I want to say this because it's really important to me the last time I kissed him it was to be a pack
and when we connected we did not disconnect and he didn't you know how you'll pull away or nothing and later I
thought about that God gave us that goodbye he gave us that goodbye he died that
night when he passed away I was told that by myself at 2:00 in the morning oh my God God oh my God he was
the love of my life and you know what I thought of I could never hear him walk in the door and say mama what are we
going to eat or just whatever his habit was and I would never it was closure I would never see him
again he was gone he was doing well I said what happened he was doing perfect he was doing great great what happened
and she said we don't know got the surgeon got me on the phone and he said we don't know everybody was
shocked it had been six months I had buried James thinking he died of complications with his heart and then I
got a a text message one day and a very good friend call me and she said you need to watch
this right now and it was on the tube I don't know what it was but I tuned it in
at the beginning of the investigation Christus approached the Smith County District Attorney's office and the Tyler
Police Department with concerns that a nurse may have been involved in intentionally harming causing harm to
patients at one of their hospitals the news report over a year after James died is about an
investigation into the Unexplained deaths of patients recovering from heart surgery when I saw that news and they
said if you knew anybody that was in on the fifth floor Tyler Tex is you need to call us
immediately and I did and I told him my husband had been there and he had died he said your story is just like every
everybody else's of those people exactly my Lord you you just don't think about going to the hospital and being
killed your spouse being killed you go there to heal William Davis is from Tyler Texas
he grew up in a pretty close-knit family he's the oldest of four boys seems to have a very loving mother
but nothing that was a really really stood out yeah he was a football star in a very small town meaning he would have
been well liked and well known by both kids and parents uh he came in second in his class as far as grades so he was
intelligent I think that will Davis was a big fish in a small pond and when you're talking about growing up if you
are that big fish in a small pond it can feel very powerful people do look up to
you and they do notice you and they know who you are as a Young Man everybody liked him
and he seemed to be a standout that was going [Music] places we have Will Davis who's around
16 17 he's a normal Adolescent and he is attracted to this 12 or 13 year old girl
and I think when you look at the age difference and the maturity level this is something that really would be
shocking to most people a 16-year-old dating a 13-year-old is criminal in many jurisdictions that is certainly giving
us an element of perhaps a starting of criminal delinquent Behavior giving us an indication that law may not be as
important it is to other people I mean it's really not an equal relationship by any stretch of the imagination in terms
of their age in terms of their maturity in terms of what they're allowed to do and all those things and I think one of
the things we start seeing as will you know having a very strong need to control the people around him her
parents did not approve of that cuz he was too old he continued to pursue that relationship even though he had been
told to kind of move on became kind of obsessive about her and to the point of actually uh crashing his car into a tree
in front of her house uh that's when the police got involved and he uh got some mental health attention at that point
it did cause him some problems early on coping skills the ability to see problems and your ability to have
resilience the question becomes our ability to deal with difficult situations does aggression come out does
the ability to pick up yourself and move on from the problem does that occur he becomes depressed he seeks out some
anti-depressants he goes to get some help he's told he's depressed then he's told he has bipolar disorder and he's
prescribed a couple of different medications he doesn't really believe that fits him but I think the big
picture is that this is somebody who is not just struggling from an adjustment standpoint but really struggling from a
mental health standpoint and is trying to figure out a way to navigate that while he's in
college got married uh ended up divorced but then he got remarried and went back
to school and got a Nursing degree and was kind of headed on the right trajectory after a few years by 2013
Davis is working at Christus Mother Francis Hospital Well everybody's very prideful in what they do uh nurses take
an oath and they take their job very serious I have good friends that are nurses and will tell you how serious
they take the ethics of their job and the responsibility of job is there a more vulnerable position than being
medically sedated coming out of a surgery and counting on care which thank the Lord uh most of the time is exactly
what we all receive Will Davis is somebody who is a smart guy he's made it through nursing
school which is no easy feat he's now ambitious to go further than that he's getting his master's degree which many
people acknowledge that's quite an accomplish M so as we progress in life we gain more
stressors and the question becomes how do you deal with those stressors what is your response we later see what those
responses are [Music] William Davis is a trusted nurse at a well-respected hospital he'd been working at that
hospital for 3 or four years uh he was generally well-liked very friendly uh he worked primarily in the cardiac unit but
he also would float and to other floors and help out mostly intensive care units
caring for very sick patients Davis is studying for a master's degree and is house hunting with his wife while she's
expecting their second child at the same time I think there are some indications
that Everything Is Not What It Seems so for example he has a very very difficult
time managing money and this seems to be a problem for him for many many years the way this couple seems to handle this
initially is the wife kind of takes over the finances and when I talk about being
in trouble financially I'm not talking about missing a few payments I'm talking about somebody who's in like $135,000
wor a debt and that's hard to climb out of one of the most telling things is at one
point he texts a colleague to ask if they have any any anti- anxiety medication and what is that tells me two
different things number one is he's struggling and things are getting harder for him but also what he says which is I
need something before I get into trouble and I think that is you know is somebody who's worked with many patients
with anxiety or depression or whatever I've never ever had anybody no matter how anxious they are or depressed they
are say I'm about to get into [Music] trouble it's been 5 months since the surprise death of James blanks another
patient is recovering from a successful operation 74 4-year-old John laferty he had woken up he was verbal he was alert
he seemed to be doing very very well there were every indication every expectation that this was somebody who
was going to have a smooth recovery he was retired had a loving family grown children grandchildren very
well-loved he had had heart surgery and was on this road to recovery uh when he crashed it was an unusual bad outcome it
was an unusual death not one that they predicted so when Mr lafy died it was puzzling to the doctors and they wanted
to try to figure out what the cause was but at the time really they couldn't come up with any answers they they kind
of had to shrug their shoulders and say it's [Music] undetermined 68-year-old Ronald Clark is
recovering from a successful operation Ronald Clark was a little bit different he didn't have heart surgery he had uh
vascular surgery which uh meaning not on the heart itself but on the aorta as it
goes down towards the legs but similar in that he had successful surgery and he should have recovered very quickly the
doctors were thrilled at the progress he was making and yet 24 hours after he has
his surgery he's brain dead they did a review of the surgery and really at that point they were not able
to come up with any plausible explanation as to why he would have uh had a stroke and
died will also took some additional safeguards so for example he didn't kill people he was assigned to look after he
would go and kill people who other people were assigned to look after so I think that was for two
reasons one is he don't want his patients to be in danger look I'm a great nurse nobody's you know nobody's
dying under my watch but I think it it it it was another way I think of evading attention or evading anybody questioning
his ability to care for [Music] patients Christopher Greenway aged 47 becomes the third Unexpected
death Christopher Greenway was really exceptional in a lot of ways as a patient he was much younger he had been
a war veteran he was actually a paramedic but but in terms of heart patients who need heart surgery he was
incredibly healthy and had almost no risk factors associated with his surgery so when he crashed and
died it was very shocking for the nurses and doctors because he was in such good
health the doctors actually were very frustrated because they didn't have an answer to give to the family the
hospital was definitely trying to figure out what was going on certainly three deaths in this uh close proximity highly
unusual they did the things hospitals usually do which is check their equipment to make sure there's no
malfunctioning equipment either on the floor or in surgery uh checking the medications that they're being given but
everything they would check was working properly one of the things that's so scary about healthc care serial killers
is they know ways to kill people and they they know ways to kill people in in in ways that won't be spotted very
easily but I think what kept Him murdering what turned him really into a serial killer was the thrill and the
exhilaration and that sense of release and power and control that he got when he killed and killed again and I think
that probably for will I think he was surprised that he felt a sense of power a sense of control and also a sense of
relief from this stress a temporary kind of reprieve and I think that surprised him and it really set up a very
dangerous situation for him down the road I think for will it was easy I think he also enjoyed watching uh
everyone respond to these rooms and try to figure out what was going on I mean there's a a team of doctors
nurse is trying to save these patients trying to determine what happened and he's the only one in the room that
really knows what's going on I think will had had to have enjoyed it or he wouldn't have done it more than
once so to do many in kind of quick sucession like this there has to be something driving him to make him keep
doing it this is when you have to go to another level this is when you have to question everything that you're doing
for this hospital for this facility cameras are now installed the question becomes who was
the last person to see that individual or interact with that individual before their death if the alarms go off that
this person is is perhaps flatlining who was the last person to be in that room was that person doing something positive
or negative to the individual was it done with malice Joseph Kina 58 is recovering from a
successful operation so Joseph Kina was an American truck driver talking with his family uh he loved his job he loved
his family came out of surgery neurologically intact had no issues or complications from the surgery and was
put on the ICU Wing there at the Heart Hospital for more monitoring from there he was in the care
of a nurse one of the things that happened in this case was that for lunch the nurse
asked will to watch his patient for him as he went to grab a quick lunch and as he was coming back from
lunch is when the monitor was going [Applause] off Joseph Kina was crashing with this
unexplained event the nurse was actually in there uh responding as well while will Davis was watching outside the
[Music] room the CCTV showed that in this particular case immediately within minutes after will leaving the room of
Joseph Kina he crashes the devastating part was the video also showed Will Davis staging
himself down the hall there was a TV that he had access to that would Monitor and show the
vitals uh for the patients on that wing and he kept looking up at that and then he would look down the hall and then he
would look up at the monitor uh and here he was just like an arsonist uh watching
his victim suffer you know when you see he the way he acts in the body language on the video it's
certainly hard to imagine somebody doing something like this on purpose to a patient but certainly to to commit a
murder and to walk nonchalantly down the hall as if nothing had happened would take someone who was incredibly cold and
unfeeling I think that it wasn't so much that will Davis didn't care but I think
at this point in his life life that drive that compulsion that need to feel good took over everything
else will was initially interviewed about his interactions with that patient by Hospital staff and gave a story that
did not match the CCTV in the case that was obviously a huge red flag will basically said he he really
didn't do anything he turned off an alarm on one of the IV pumps but they could tell from the instruments in the
room that his arterial line had been accessed and touched the IV pump and the arterial line are on different sides of
the bed so there'd be no reason to touch one uh when you really saying you're touching the other when will lies about
being in the room that's not only unusual that doesn't happen so why would a nurse possibly lie about going into a
patient's room when that Dawns on them you then have to reexamine every patient every bad outcome you've ever
had nurse with malicious intent is never something that they check for when they do and they start
connecting the dots really it just opened up of Pandora's box of patience and what had happened to
him right after they caught him lying they sent him home and suspended him until they could figure it
[Music] out any hospital is going to have deaths but you start to see perhaps a pattern
of deaths occurring you have it investigated and then there's a question of Foul
Play Through investigation through camera video and others that starts to point to one person we must call on the
police will Davis has been suspended after CCTV captured him leaving the room of Joseph Kina a patient who crashed
during recovery from successful surgery the hospital now suspects he may be involved in other unexplained deaths too
and have called the police one of the really impressive things that this hospital did was number one I think they
took the suspicions and concerns seriously from the very beginning and the other thing is that the doctors got
involved in this the hospital went through all their patients for the last couple years
before will was suspected and looked at those bad outcomes to see if they thought it fit the pattern of injury
that Mr Kina had they also set up a hotline for people to call uh if they thought their loved one might have had
been a victim of of will only at this point a year after her husband James's death does cinks learn
there was a potential killer on his Ward so the police and the media got it what I think is he killed
James and then H he got by with it and then he went and killed one just right real
quick and so when James was killed there was no camera lawyer told me that my case or my story was exactly like
everybody else is there's really no crime I've ever handled quite like this is unique in many aspects both in the
number of victims the kind of perpetrator that was committing the crimes the motivation behind the crimes
all of those were unique and and certainly a large case to kind of wrap your mind around the
community was terrified so the idea that someone could intend harm to you in that setting uh
was really terrifying and caused a lot of attention investigators know will lied
about touching the arterial line of Joseph Kina so they investigate if the medical emergencies could have been
caused by Will interfering with this equipment so early on the suspicion was that air was being injected into the
arterial line of patients as they were uh post surgery so there's a lot of reasons why that was very hard to detect
first is the arterial line is not a place where you typically inject anything but if you inject air into it
that air will travel up the artery to the highest point in the body which in a hospital bed is the brain so as air
travels up the arterial line into the brain it then blocks blood from getting to the brain which causes a
stroke and then after about 6 to 10 minutes maybe 30 minutes that air is then absorbed by the brain so it's uh
the air is a murder weapon that disappears all on its own certainly you look at the way of placing air and
someone's tubing that's for an IV there are no marks there are no bruises so this way leaves no clues you could get
away with this will Davis had reached out to us early in the investigation to see
ironically enough to see if we had talked with his attorney it was a phone conversation
I thought it was interesting in some some of the early conversation that he would bring up things that we knew as
investigators we were interested in the case but he would bring up things like the art line or bad surgery outcomes as
soon as we would turn it to any of the patients in general uh you would hear his voice choke up as he would get
nervous detective Weber at that time as we were finishing up that interview just
flat out asked him uh about putting air and the arterior lines of patients and he would only say I won't answer that
without my attorney which was good enough for me to understand we were clearly in the right
direction with our [Music] investigation the police wanted to make sure they went through everything and
see if there were more how many we could really only go back about a year cuz that's how long the hospital keeps the
detailed records that we would need to prove it and as they went through the they found four that they were able to
confirm cuz they had Imaging whe there' be CTS or MRIs that would confirm the kind of injury and then they found a
list of others that they suspected as they found more and more cases that met that pattern it became more and more
clear that will Davis was a murderer and he' murdered multiple people we need to prove uh this man's
guilt or innocence but we're going to follow the facts we lived just outside of Tyler he
was married they had two kids one had just been born was described as a hard worker you know on face value had
everything going for him but we saw things in the investigation that kind of pointed to to some things that weren't
necessarily forthcoming inappropriate relationship uh with a younger female uh as well as some some potential suicide
attempts just things that were red flags for us as investigators as you start uncovering
more evidence living outside of his means appeared to be a problem for sure it was new trucks new house new pool uh
living the American dream uh albeit without maybe respect to how much money he had in the bank and anytime you add
stress on top of any other mental incapacities or or deficiencies going on any kind of trigger uh can be an issue
but he had a clear pattern of being impulsive with money decisions that to us didn't seem related but when we
talked to psychologists they said there's a there's a pretty good connection there between sociopaths uh
who know how to be controlled and deliberate in some areas of their life but are very impulsive and unorganized
in other areas of their lives a lot of his behavior which to us seemed normal they said would be typical of a
sociopath that being very friendly uh being having a short attention span and that's what really unraveled some of
just the psychology of Will Davis uh maybe what was a motive uh but I think at this uh anyone on that investigative
team would just remind you that sometimes there is just evil what we often find is I've done the
first murder I've not been caught there was even a feeling of euphoria there's a
feeling of success that wrestling now has perhaps made that anxiety disappear for just a a little
bit of time maybe I liked the feeling of when that death occurred why not have the feeling
again will was absolutely aware of what he was getting away with because no one in the hospital is
suspecting it might have been intentional it was nearly impossible for them to connect the dots the security
footage was really the most useful piece of evidence uh it's very cold it's very
shocking Will Davis actually in a phone interview told us he grabbed syringes just prior to walking into that room uh
he's in there for for just about a minute uh and then walked out him being in the room the video capturing that uh
and even his own admissions placing himself in direct care with the patient at the time of the incident was very
critical Air does not just happen in your brain uh and so the method he chose to maim and murder his victims is
ultimately what got him caught on April 10th 2018 police will Davis are you here Will Davis is
arrested for the murders of John laferty Ronald Clark and Christopher greenaway he's held in Smith County jail
on an $8.75 million bond an $8.75 million bond is something it tells us how serious this case is it tells us
how the criminal justice system believes that this individual is a threat to society when we look at this case it
looks like a slam dunk for prosecution you have an individual with cameras showing that he is coming out of the
room he's in the room just before death occurs however a defense attorney is going to go the route in this case to
say people are in a hospital people are ill people are recovering from major operations they were probably going to
die anyway and Davis may get away with this crime Will Davis is in custody in awaiting trial the co pandemic delays
proceedings and during 2020 Joseph Kina passes away [Music] [Music] you know I know for everyone when it
comes to trial no matter the case there's always going to be nerves uh you you never know what curve ball is going
to be thrown by the defense or anything else it is the job of the defense to slap down the argument that's presented
by the prosecution how are you able to link that to my client if you can't I must be
found not guilty we prepared for this case for for 9 months just uh preparing Witnesses and
going through evidence and then we spent several months picking the jury and trying the case the interesting part in
our investigation even from early on was that over 6-month period uh from June until January of
2028 uh Will Davis was the only nurse on duty at the time of each of the events evidence was very very clear the medical
evidence backed up everything that the video backed up and when pieced together really painted the picture of the serial
killer that was running the [Music] floors I expected them to deliberate a while is because they had a whole lot of
information to go over but we went over it in great detail for several weeks with them uh and I I think at the end of
listening to all of that uh testimony all of those doctors and nurses and experts there really wasn't another
conclusion they could come to Davis is found guilty of 4 counts of capital [Music]
murder you now have this this relief because you know justice has been served you know he's been found guilty and then
they go into Victim Impact statements and now it's the the humanization it's the reality for people to hear precisely
the effects of the devastation that will Davis chose to bring upon his victims I'll never forget and I believe
it was Miss blanks giving her uh statement to the court so I stood there and looked right
at him he has black eyes it seems like held his face kind of like something weird with his
hands but he is down and when I would talk to him he would go and these tears would come down his
face and I said I am K blanks James blank's wife your first victim and I said my husband did not
deserve to die like that and and I said I forgive you because God tells us to forgive and I'm led by the Holy Spirit
to tell you because we won't be forgiven if we don't forgive and I do believe that I said but I feel just like
everybody else feels about you I told him straight to his face I said something's wrong with you
buddy and what was so impactful is so often you expect it to be Vengeance and anger and all these
things and here was a woman offering forgiveness uh and really pointing Will Davis to the finality and the Eternal
decision of his actions and I'll never forget that because it did point to the truth the truth of the matter uh that
there was a hir judge to answer to uh and that he better be ready for that [Music]
I want you to know that I am not a malicious man I loved you I love the kids during the summertime of 17 that
summer we had a lot of finances and of course some of that's my fault I I'm blaming myself for that nice house I
want you to have a nice house I want you have a nice pool I want you have a nice
car I want I want to have a nice truck and a car car you know and I was trying to work every day I could I couldn't
afford to be off I couldn't afford to be called off and I made sure that people stayed I see a little bit longer just a
little bit longer so that our numbers would work out so that we could take in so I could
work I want you to know that Colina colen was an accident Clea was not on purpose or nothing like that nothing at
that greway what about the other people the other ones were accidents yes they were they
weren't I I after what you told me you purposely try to keep them out longer this behavior of I've gone
through the criminal justice system the criminal justice system has found me guilty and now I must rationalize why I
did what I did is often the case with serial killers those who are uh found guilty of very violent
crimes how do I find some sort of ability to find and let other people see me as a human being that has feelings
and this is often what occurs is this rationalization of the behavior especially to that of family members and
those close to the individual whenever you get back in that court room again I want you to just see if you can at least
take this stand and take the come to apologize to these victims and their families they deserve more sympathy and
in the end you will Rec to so and not tell you unbelievable that guy's a nut I let me take what the da told the
jury he said he did not kill those people for money he said he didn't do it for that reason and he spoke like that
he said he did it because he liked watching them die I thought the go of that excuse me to have the gall to
saunter around like that looking at his damage taking people's lives it's almost
like I've done these horrible things that I know people would would hate me for and yet I need to somehow soften it
and justify it and rationalize it and it's just it it it always surprises me because you think once you cost this
line would you really care I mean you're not caring about human life if you're murdering somebody how is that going to
result in more [Music] overtime when you look at this type of evil the death penalty exists for cases
like this I think there is certainly a great deal of narcissist ISM in Will Davis and
I think that narcissism and that justification for putting his own needs and actions above other people you know
is a seed that contributes later on to his lack of [Music] empathy I wake up many times and I will
feel that he was is in the bed or just got up went to the bathroom and that feeling of so
habitual and it's just like he's there but we're together we are together and then he's gone it's
horrible it's sad it makes me want to cry [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

To friends and family, William Davis was a loving dad and caring nurse. But, when his patients began to die unexpectedly, investigators discovered a shocking sinister side to the seemingly normal nurse.

It would take the installation of CCTV cameras and fast work by hospital staff and police to catch this twisted killer.

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Brief Summary

William Davis, a nurse, is accused of murdering patients at a Texas hospital, leading to a shocking investigation and trial.

Key points

Unexpected Deaths in Recovery. Multiple patients die unexpectedly after heart surgery, raising alarm at the hospital.
Suspicion Arises. CCTV footage raises suspicions about a nurse's involvement in patient deaths.
Will Davis Arrested. On April 10th, 2018, Will Davis is arrested for multiple murders, held on an $8.75 million bond.
Guilty Verdict. Davis is found guilty of four counts of capital murder, bringing relief to the victims' families.
Victim Impact Statements. Victims' families share their pain and forgiveness in court, highlighting the human cost of Davis's actions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He was the love of my life.

5:34WatchNov 22, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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