Texas nurse guilty of killing patients by injecting them with air

A Texas nurse was found guilty of murdering four patients who died after injecting them with air after heart surgery.

William Davis, 37, was convicted of capital murder by a jury on Tuesday and could now face the death penalty.

Prosecutors said they targeted seven people from June 2017 to January 2018.

Christus Mother Frances Hospital, where the attacks took place, said they hoped “the jury’s verdict would help bring some closure to the injured.”

The men, aged 47 to 74, experienced “seizure-like symptoms” and died from fatal brain damage after air was injected into their arterial lines.

The court heard that the four men Mr. Davis killed had initially recovered well from their operations and that doctors did not know how their condition deteriorated so quickly.

Authorities said that only once doctors saw the CT scans showing air in the patients’ brains did they realize something was wrong.

Dr. William Yarbrough, a Dallas-based pulmonologist, told the jury he had never seen a case like this in his decades of medicine.

During the trial, security footage of Davis entering the room of one of the patients was played, whose heart monitor alarm sounded only three minutes later. He later died from the injection.

Davis’ attorney, Philip Hayes, said during the trial that there was no evidence that the men had died from foul play and suggested that Davis had become a scapegoat for a hospital with severe procedural problems.

Speaking during the trial, Jacob Putman, the Smith County District Attorney in Texas, said that “it turns out that a hospital is the perfect place to hide a serial killer.”

Prosecutors will now demand the death penalty for Davis, who they say “enjoyed” carrying out the murders and “loved killing people.”

Davis will remain in custody at the Smith County Jail with a $ 8.75 million bond.