On February 15, 1996, Edward Skwira, a 68-year-old decorated World War II veteran, was admitted to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northampton, Massachusetts, for treatment of chronic alcoholism. Three days later, on February 18, he died unexpectedly. His death certificate listed "dissecting aneurysm," "inferior wall myocardial infarction," and "arrythmia" as the immediate causes of death, and initially, it was believed he had died of natural causes.
By the time of Skwira's
admission, the nursing staff on his ward were already on high alert due to a suspicious number of deaths. A nurse named Kristen Gilbert was being closely watched by her colleagues, who had noticed a significant increase in patient deaths during her shifts. When Skwira's heart stopped on February 15, Gilbert was the only nurse on duty in the ICU, and he was her only patient. Another nurse had noted three ampules of the heart stimulant epinephrine in the medicine cabinet before Skwira went into cardiac arrest; after the event, the vials were missing, though his medical file showed no legitimate administration of the drug. This, along with other incidents, led several nurses to report their suspicions to authorities, prompting a federal investigation.
The investigation into the unusually high number of deaths at the VAMC began in the spring of 1996. In October of that year, investigators approached Skwira's family for permission to exhume his body. The subsequent autopsy and toxicological tests revealed that Skwira had not died from a heart attack, as his family had been told, but from a lethal dose of epinephrine. Investigators also discovered the unexplained presence of ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, in his system.
In November 1998, Kristen Gilbert was indicted on multiple counts of murder and attempted murder. Prosecutors argued that Gilbert had intentionally injected Skwira and other patients with epinephrine to induce cardiac arrest, creating medical emergencies for the thrill and attention they brought her. Following a lengthy trial, in March 2001, a federal jury convicted Gilbert of the first-degree murder of Edward Skwira and two other patients, as well as the second-degree murder of a fourth. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
