Russell Ross Posey Sr., a 92-year-old White/Caucasian man, was a World War II Navy veteran whose final hospitalization at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, West Virginia, became part of a much larger investigation into deliberate insulin poisonings of veterans. Posey had been admitted in June 2018 and treated for pneumonia, spending several days in intensive care before improving.
On Father’s Day, June 17, his family found him alert, talking and reminiscing, and he was moved out of intensive care because his condition appeared to be improving. The following morning brought a dramatic and unexplained change. Posey, who was not diabetic, suffered an extreme drop in blood sugar. His glucose level fell to approximately 14, leaving him unconscious and unresponsive. His family said doctors initially could not explain how he had gone from improving to a profound hypoglycemic crisis overnight.
Investigators ultimately determined that former VA nursing assistant Reta Mays intentionally administered insulin to Posey on June 18, 2018, with the intent to kill him. Court reporting from her sentencing described Posey’s last documented interaction with a healthcare worker before his blood sugar collapsed as an encounter with Mays in the early morning hours, when she offered him breakfast and a bath. By about 5:30 a.m., his glucose had fallen catastrophically. The June 17 date associated with Posey’s case was therefore not his death date; online records identify it as the Father’s Day on which his family saw him doing well. Posey survived the hypoglycemic episode for roughly another two weeks and died at the VA medical center on July 3, 2018. His obituary likewise records his death at 1:50 a.m. on July 3.
Within days of Posey’s death, federal investigators told his family there were suspicious circumstances surrounding what had happened. His body was exhumed on July 17, 2018, and an autopsy was performed as investigators tried to determine whether an unauthorized insulin injection had caused his death. Posey became part of a disturbing pattern on Ward 3A: patients who were improving or moving toward discharge suddenly developed profound hypoglycemia during overnight shifts, often despite having no medical reason to receive insulin. Investigators eventually concluded that Mays had taken insulin from hospital medication supplies and injected patients even though, as a nursing assistant, she had no authority to administer medication. In Posey’s case, however, prosecutors said they could prove that Mays intentionally injected him with insulin intending to kill him, but could not establish beyond the necessary legal standard that the injection itself caused his eventual death. That distinction is why the federal charge involving Posey was assault with intent to commit murder rather than second-degree murder.
The investigation expanded far beyond Posey’s case. After hospital personnel raised concerns about repeated unexplained hypoglycemic events, the VA Office of Inspector General and FBI began a criminal investigation in June 2018. Investigators ultimately conducted more than 300 interviews, reviewed thousands of pages of medical records, examined telephone, computer and social-media information, consulted forensic specialists and endocrinologists, studied hospital staffing and visitor records, and exhumed some of the veterans for additional examination. Mays was identified as a person of interest in early July 2018 and was removed from direct patient care. She remained employed in a different capacity for several months before being fired in March 2019. Investigators determined that she had been present during the series of suspicious hypoglycemic events and developed medical and circumstantial evidence linking her to intentional insulin administration. Authorities said she initially denied involvement, and the sentencing judge later stated that she had lied to investigators during the 2018 investigation. Federal investigators never established a clear motive. Prosecutors rejected suggestions that the deaths were mercy killings, while investigators and prosecutors believed that exercising control over vulnerable patients may have played a role.
The criminal case finally became public on July 14, 2020. Mays was formally charged in federal court with seven counts of second-degree murder involving other veterans and one count of assault with intent to commit murder involving Posey. She pleaded guilty to all eight charges that same day. After the plea she was taken into custody, eliminating the need for a trial. Her admissions established that she deliberately administered insulin to veterans in her care with the intention of causing their deaths. The government charged Posey’s case separately from the seven murders because it could establish the intentional insulin assault but not prove that the insulin was the legal cause of his death. No accomplice was charged in connection with Posey’s attack, and the publicly reported federal prosecution identified Mays as the sole person criminally responsible for the insulin injections.
On May 11, 2021, U.S. District Judge Thomas S. Kleeh sentenced Mays to seven consecutive life sentences for the seven murders and an additional 240 months—20 years—for the assault with intent to commit murder involving Posey. Because there is no parole in the federal system, the sentence ensured that she would remain imprisoned for the rest of her life. The court also ordered restitution totaling $172,624.96 to victims’ families, the VA hospital, Medicare and insurance companies. During sentencing, prosecutors emphasized that the veterans had been vulnerable but were not terminal patients awaiting death; many had improved and were preparing for discharge or transfer before Mays intervened. The judge also noted evidence that after beginning the killings Mays watched material about nurses who killed patients and conducted internet searches involving female serial killers, circumstances the court viewed as inconsistent with an accidental course of conduct.
Posey’s family also pursued a civil claim against the federal government, alleging that serious failures at the VA hospital allowed the insulin attacks to continue. The VA Office of Inspector General later concluded that the Clarksburg facility suffered from significant clinical and administrative deficiencies involving employee screening, medication security, communication, patient-safety reporting and oversight, and that those failures contributed to Mays’ conduct going unidentified and unstopped for too long. A proposed settlement for Posey’s family was reported at $700,000 as part of settlements involving several veterans’ families. The criminal responsibility for the deliberate insulin injection, however, rested with Mays. What began for Posey as treatment for pneumonia and apparent recovery ended with an unexplained overnight collapse, weeks of uncertainty for his family and, eventually, proof that a caregiver entrusted with vulnerable veterans had deliberately tried to end his life.
