The 90-year-old male resident — Gerald R. Shrum Sr. — had been admitted to Sunnyview Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, after mobility problems made independent living difficult. Family members visited the 90-year-old male daily, and his daughters later described him as a lifelong farmer, U.S. military veteran and active church member who had earned a private pilot’s license.
According to civil-court filings and subsequent criminal evidence, the 90-year-old male was first given an excessive dose of insulin late on March 24 2023, which left him “foaming at the mouth.” Early the next morning, licensed practical nurse Heather Pressdee, a 41-year-old female caregiver twice flushed air into Mr. Shrum’s IV line, causing a fatal air embolism on March 25 2023.
Pressdee was taken into custody on May 24 2023 and initially held without bail at Butler County Prison. Investigators alleged that she had used unnecessary or massive insulin doses — often during understaffed overnight shifts — to silence or kill frail patients in multiple western-Pennsylvania nursing facilities. The May arrest covered two earlier deaths and one serious injury; in November 2023 prosecutors linked the 41-year-old female nurse to 19 additional insulin attacks, including the homicide of 90-year-old male Gerald Shrum Sr.
On May 2 2024, Pressdee pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder — among them the killing of 90-year-old male Gerald Shrum Sr. — and 19 counts of attempted murder. Butler County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Kubit imposed three consecutive life sentences plus 380 to 760 additional years. During the hearing, Mr. Shrum’s daughters called the 41-year-old female nurse “evil personified” and recounted learning from the state Attorney General that their father had been murdered rather than dying of natural causes.
