In the quiet town of Chillicothe, Missouri, the life of 75-year-old Fern Franco came to a sudden and unexpected end on May 18, 2002. A patient at Hedrick Medical Center, she was being treated for pneumonia and was expected to recover. However, she died under mysterious circumstances, sparking a two-decade-long quest for answers and justice for her family.
An autopsy would later reveal the sinister truth behind Franco's death: she had been administered lethal doses of the muscle relaxant
succinylcholine and the pain reliever morphine. Neither of these drugs had been prescribed by her doctors. The combination of these substances led to her suffocation. For years, her death was one of nine suspicious fatalities that occurred at the hospital between December 2001 and May 2002, a period that coincided with the employment of a respiratory therapist named Jennifer Ann Hall. During Hall's time at the medical center, there was a significant and alarming spike in 'code blue' events, or cardiac emergencies.
Suspicion fell on Hall, who was present at many of these emergencies. Staff members at the hospital grew wary of her, noting her proximity to the patients who suffered cardiac collapse and her access to potent medications. Despite these concerns, no immediate charges were brought against her, and she was placed on administrative leave three days after Franco's death.
The case grew cold, leaving Franco's family in a painful state of limbo. However, a renewed investigation in the 2010s brought fresh eyes to the case. In May 2022, nearly twenty years after Fern Franco's death, Jennifer Ann Hall, then 41, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. The break in the case came after a new analysis of Franco's tissue samples confirmed the presence of the unprescribed drugs.
In April 2023, the long wait for justice came to a resolution, though not in the way some had anticipated. Hall reached a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of first-degree involuntary manslaughter in the death of Fern Franco. She also pleaded guilty to the same charge in the death of another patient, David Wesley Harper, and to one count of second-degree assault. The plea deal brought a close to a chilling chapter in the small town's history, finally providing a measure of accountability for the untimely death of Fern Franco.
