In the summer of 1974, a shadow fell over Petersburg General Hospital in Petersburg, Virginia, as a series of baffling and sudden deaths began to plague the coronary care unit. Among the victims was John Wesley Wray, an 85-year-old White male. His passing on June 29, 1974, initially appeared to be another unfortunate loss in a ward accustomed to grave illness, but it would soon become a key piece of a much larger and more sinister puzzle.
Wray, a farmer who had been admitted the day before with breathing difficulties, was not considered to be in imminent danger. His unexpected death, along with a dozen others in a short span, raised alarms among the hospital administration and medical staff.
An internal investigation was quietly launched as the number of fatalities continued to rise, all occurring during the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. "graveyard shift." Suspicion began to center on a 21-year-old nurse's aide, Lee Roy Hargrave Jr. A review of hospital records revealed an unsettling pattern: Hargrave was on duty during every one of the suspicious deaths. On the night of John Wesley Wray's death, a supervising nurse, Joyce Lee Andrews, reportedly witnessed Hargrave yelling at the elderly patient. Shortly after, when intravenous feeding was ordered for Wray, Hargrave was said to have made a chilling comment, expressing hope that the same thing wouldn't happen as it had to the last patient on an IV. Within a half-hour, Wray was dead, and a vial of the heart medication lidocaine was discovered missing from a medicine chest. For Nurse Andrews, this was the final piece of evidence; her suspicion hardened into certainty.
Following Wray's death and the mounting evidence, Hargrave was laid off from his position. The investigation intensified, leading to the exhumation of the bodies of several patients who had died under his care, including John Wesley Wray. Autopsies revealed that these patients had not succumbed to natural causes but had been injected with lethal doses of lidocaine, a drug used to regulate heart rhythms. In August 1974, Lee Roy Hargrave Jr. was arrested and subsequently charged with the first-degree murders of five patients: John Wesley Wray, Josephine L. Thomas, John E. Harris, Martha Avery, and Robert Wyche.
The prosecution decided to first proceed with the case of Josephine L. Thomas, a 73-year-old retired schoolteacher. During the trial in May 1975, evidence of Hargrave's alleged involvement in the other deaths, including the circumstances surrounding John Wesley Wray's final hours, was introduced to establish a pattern of conduct. The testimony of Nurse Andrews was a crucial part of the prosecution's case. After a six-day trial and two hours of deliberation, the jury found Lee Roy Hargrave Jr. guilty of the first-degree murder of Josephine Thomas, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Following this conviction, prosecutors elected not to try Hargrave for the murders of John Wesley Wray and the other three victims, as he was already facing a life sentence. Hargrave was released on parole in 2010 after serving 35 years.
