Genene Jones, Ex-Texas Nurse Accused Of Killing Dozens Of Babies, Charged Again In Infant's Death

A San Antonio grand jury convicted a former Texas nurse, Genene Jones, on Wednesday on a new murder charge for the second time in recent weeks, as the prosecutors claimed she may be responsible for the murder of 60 infants. Jones was first indicted in 1984 for killing a child, and was labeled as “angel of death." She was sentenced to 99 years in prison for murdering the 15-month-old girl in Kerrville, Texas by injecting her with powerful drugs.

In the latest indictment, the 66-year-old former nurse has been convicted in a murder case that dates back to more than three decades. The two-year-old child named Rosemary Vega died in 1981. Jones was said to have injected the infant with “a substance unknown.” Vega’s mother told the Texas Monthly she remembered watching Jones “push a drug into her daughter’s IV line shortly before she went into cardiac arrest.”

Jones was also recently charged with a separate count of murder in May for the killing of an 11-month-old boy, Joshua Sawyer, by injecting the child with a toxic level of Dilantin in December 1981.

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The former Texas nurse is suspected of killing more than a dozen infants while she worked at the pediatric intensive care unit at San Antonio’s charity hospital during the early 1980s. Jones was not charged with any of the murders at that time as she was sentenced to 99 years in prison for the death of the child in Kerrville and it was likely she would never leave prison after receiving the sentence. She has also been serving a 60 year sentence in prison for the case, along with another one for the sickening of a 4-week-old boy in 1982. However, she was expected to be released from prison in March 2018 under a Texas law aimed at reducing overcrowding in prisons that was in place when she was convicted, the Associated Press reported.

Prosecutors have linked her to several other deaths that happened during her stint at the San Antonio charity hospital and other places in Texas, as there were reports of infants dying of unexpected seizures and other complications. Prosecutors conducted investigations to bring new charges to Jones in order to halt her from being released from prison and it led to the May 25 indictment in the death of Sawyer. This charge was likely to have kept Jones in prison until her new trial.

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In May, Bexar County District Attorney Nicolas “Nico” LaHood vowed to bring further charges on the ex-Texas nurse. “My goal is not to leave one baby behind,” he declared. “In a perfect world, we believe she’d be held accountable for every baby we believe she stole from their families.”

LaHood also said earlier Jones might have killed some or all of the children because they died of unusual circumstances. “I believe Genene Jones is an evil woman. I think her conscience is seared. I don't think she looks at the world the way we do,” LaHood said at a press conference, according to CBS affiliate KENS.

Following the conviction, Wednesday, LaHood said: “Our focus is to hold Genene Jones accountable for as many children's deaths as the evidence supports.”

LaHood also added the news of the charges was “surreal” for the parents of the two children — Vega and Sawyer. “It's bittersweet, because they've been cheated out of a life with their precious baby,” LaHood said. “But they're hoping she will be held accountable.”