Nathanial J. Watson, a 65-year-old Black man, died on April 8, 1986, while a patient at Drake Memorial Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. His death was later identified as one of the killings committed by hospital orderly Donald Harvey during a years-long series of murders of patients under his care. Accounts cataloging Harvey's crimes state that Watson was deliberately suffocated when Harvey placed a wet plastic garbage-can liner over his face, forcing the material into his mouth and nostrils. Harvey reportedly had made several unsuccessful attempts to kill Watson before finally causing his death that day.
At the time Watson died, there was no immediate arrest connected to his death. Harvey was working at Drake Memorial Hospital during a period in which numerous seriously ill patients died under circumstances that initially attracted little criminal scrutiny. His methods varied significantly from victim to victim, including suffocation and the administration of poisons such as arsenic and cyanide. Because many of the people he targeted were already gravely ill, their deaths could appear medically explainable, allowing the pattern to remain hidden. Watson's killing occurred amid this broader series at Drake, where Harvey would ultimately acknowledge responsibility for numerous patient deaths.
The investigation that eventually exposed Watson's killer began almost a year later. In March 1987, another Drake patient, John W. Powell, died after cyanide was placed in his gastric feeding tube. An autopsy detected an unusually large amount of cyanide, turning what might otherwise have appeared to be another hospital death into a homicide investigation. Investigators focused on Harvey, who had access to Powell and had previously worked in other medical facilities where questions had arisen about his conduct. Harvey was apprehended in April 1987 and initially faced charges arising from Powell's poisoning.
As investigators and journalists began examining earlier deaths at Drake, the scope of the case expanded dramatically. Nurses had reportedly noticed an unusual number of deaths during Harvey's employment and later provided information that helped investigators examine additional patients. Confronted with the growing investigation, Harvey began admitting that Powell was far from his only victim. His admissions eventually encompassed dozens of killings committed at hospitals in Ohio and Kentucky, including Watson's suffocation in April 1986.
Prosecutors ultimately negotiated a plea agreement designed to resolve the large number of Ohio killings while avoiding a death-penalty trial. On August 18, 1987, Harvey pleaded guilty in Cincinnati to 24 counts of aggravated murder, along with attempted aggravated murder charges and a felonious-assault charge. Contemporary reporting said he was sentenced to multiple consecutive life terms, leaving him ineligible for parole for decades. The Ohio prosecutions covered the series of killings associated primarily with Drake Memorial Hospital, including the period in which Watson was murdered. Harvey later entered additional guilty pleas for killings committed while he had worked at Marymount Hospital in Kentucky.
There is no indication in the available online material that investigators identified another suspect in Watson's death or that anyone besides Harvey was arrested or prosecuted for killing him. Watson's case instead became one part of the much larger prosecution of Harvey, whose access to vulnerable hospital patients allowed him to kill repeatedly before the cyanide found in Powell's body finally exposed the pattern. Harvey was received into the Ohio prison system in October 1987 and remained incarcerated for the crimes.
