Reta Mays

Reta Phyllis Mays (born June 16, 1975) is an American serial killer who murdered at least seven elderly military veterans over a span of eleven months, between July 2017 and June 2018, by injecting them with lethal doses of insulin while she was employed as a nursing assistant at the Louis A. Johnson Veterans Medical Center, in Clarksburg, West Virginia. On May 11, 2021, Mays was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences for the murders, plus 20 years for one count of assault with intent to commit murder.

Background Mays was born in Reynoldsville, West Virginia, In 2013, Mays was one of several defendants in a lawsuit that was brought by an inmate incarcerated at the jail who alleged that he had been repeatedly beaten by Mays and other correction officers. The lawsuit was dismissed on summary judgment.

Mays was a longtime member of Monroe Chapel United Methodist, a small church approximately twenty minutes outside Clarksburg in Lost Creek.

Murders and investigation In June 2015, Mays began working as a nursing assistant at the Louis A. Johnson Veterans Medical Center in Clarksburg, West Virginia, with no certification or license to care for patients. Nursing assistants at the VAMC are not qualified or authorized to administer any medication to patients, including insulin. Mays was assigned to work overnight shifts on Ward 3A of the hospital's medical surgical unit in July 2017, when elderly patients began suffering mysterious acute drops in their blood sugar level. He was stabilized by staff, only to die after another plummet of his blood sugar a short time later. Mays was fired from the hospital in June 2018, and the investigation was turned over to the Inspector General for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. in which she bemoaned having to sit with a patient that she wanted to "freaking strangle." Investigators stated that call had been made the morning after one of the blood sugar episodes. During another call to her husband, Mays complained of soreness in her arms from having to do compressions on a patient who, she felt, had "no quality of life", adding that if the staff "would have just said DNR (Do Not Resuscitate), he would have went to sleep when his sugar dropped down to 30." An interview with Mays after her guilty plea was included in a report, released after the sentencing by the Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Inspector General, that detailed deficiencies at the hospital. In it, she stated she administered that insulin to patients that she believed were suffering so that they could pass away "gently." She also stated that she had great stress and chaos in both her personal and professional life and that her actions gave her a sense of control.

On May 11, 2021, Mays was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 20 years, during a three-hour-long hearing at the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia in Clarksburg by U.S. District Judge Thomas Kleeh. Mays is ineligible for parole.

During the sentencing, Mays, in tears, gave a brief statement: "There’s no words I can say that can offer the families any comfort. I can only say I’m sorry for the pain I caused them and my family." In addition to her sentence, Mays was ordered to pay 172,624.96 to the victims' families, the VA Hospital, Medicare, and insurance companies.

In July 2021, Mays was transferred to the low-security Federal Correctional Institution, Aliceville in Alabama. U.S. District Judge Thomas Kleeh had recommended that Mays be placed at Federal Medical Center, Carswell, in Fort Worth, Texas, so that she could receive mental health treatment there; the BOP ultimately assigned her to Aliceville. Since Mays' guilty pleas, the federal government has settled civil lawsuits with the families of 10 victims. July 19/20, 2017: Robert Edge Sr., 82, a United States Navy veteran of the Korean War January 28/29, 2018: Robert Kozul, 89, a United States Army veteran of the Korean War March 25/26, 2018: George Shaw Sr., 81, a United States Air Force veteran April 3 or 4, 2018: William Holloway, 96, a United States Army veteran of World War II April 8 or 9, 2018: Felix McDermott, 82, a United States Army veteran of the Vietnam War June 3/4 2018: Raymond Golden, 88, a United States Army and United States Air Force veteran of the Korean War and the Vietnam War June 17 or 18, 2018: Russell R. Posey Sr., 92, a United States Navy veteran of World War II. Posey later died at a nursing home on July 3, 2018. The medical examiner could not conclusively confirm that the insulin with which Mays injected him had been the direct cause of death. Mays was convicted on one count of assault with intent to commit murder in connection with the assault on Posey.