On November 22, 1994, 85-year-old White / Caucasian female Ola May Redenbarger passed away under suspicious circumstances while a patient at the Vermillion County Hospital in Clinton, Indiana. Her death occurred during a frighteningly lethal period at the small rural medical facility, coinciding with the employment of a licensed practical nurse named Orville Lynn Majors. Although her passing was initially recorded as one of many occurring in the Intensive Care Unit, it later became a focal point in a massive investigation into a spike in patient mortality that plagued the hospital between 1993 and 1995.
Redenbarger was one of dozens of elderly patients who died while under the care of Majors, a popular nurse who was often praised for his attentive bedside manner but secretly harbored a disdain for patients he viewed as demanding or whiny. Following a series of alarming reports from nursing supervisors regarding the correlation between Majors' shifts and the high number of patient deaths, the Indiana State Police launched a criminal probe in 1995. Investigators discovered that the death rate at the hospital had jumped dramatically during Majors' tenure, with an epidemiologist later testifying that a patient was nearly 43 times more likely to die when Majors was on duty.
The investigation, dubbed "Operation Breathing Stop," involved the exhumation of 15 bodies to test for evidence of foul play. Toxicology reports revealed that victims had been injected with lethal doses of potassium chloride and epinephrine, drugs that would cause cardiac arrest and leave little trace unless specifically looked for. While prosecutors believed Majors may have been responsible for as many as 130 deaths, including potentially that of Redenbarger, they focused their case on a smaller number of victims to ensure a manageable trial.
Orville Lynn Majors was arrested in December 1997 and charged with seven counts of murder. The subsequent trial, which took place in 1999, drew national attention to the small town of Clinton. Witnesses testified to seeing Majors with syringes and noticing that patients would often die shortly after he entered their rooms. In October 1999, a jury convicted Majors on six counts of murder. He was sentenced to 360 years in prison, effectively a life sentence, bringing a measure of closure to the community and the families of the many victims who died during his shift, ending one of the most prolific serial killer cases in Indiana history.
