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Interrogation Raw Season 1 Episode 9
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00:00New information tonight on murders inside the VA Medical Center in Clarksburg.
00:11There were these unexplained deaths.
00:14He's not a diabetic. Why would his sugar drop?
00:19Veterans who risked their lives to protect their country, dying mysteriously.
00:24This couldn't be occurring naturally.
00:26Something's not right.
00:27Investigators say those killings were, in fact, deliberate.
00:31We did not want another death on our hands.
00:34Investigators searching for answers.
00:37How do you feel?
00:38I don't know.
00:39In the interrogation room.
00:42Are you saying I did something?
00:43Every suspect accused of a crime has the right to remain silent.
00:59Many agree to be interrogated anyway.
01:01But they can stop the interview at any moment, making it a race against time.
01:08Justice hangs in the balance.
01:10They put their lives at risk for us.
01:15They served their country.
01:17And they deserve the very best.
01:19And they didn't get it.
01:20The medical center director contacted our 24-7 duty phone number and indicated that the facility
01:47had reviewed multiple instances, going back to January of 2018, had identified inpatients who had suffered severe low blood sugar,
02:00all of which, with the exception of one, had passed away shortly thereafter.
02:05The victims in this case were all elderly males.
02:14They all had various health conditions.
02:16However, the clinical expectation was that they were all supposed to be discharged.
02:21Death did not appear to be imminent.
02:22Some of the medical doctors found it unusual, first of all, that there were multiple non-diabetic patients that were dying of these severely low blood sugars.
02:32There was no logical reason why their blood sugar plummeted to such dangerously low levels.
02:40We didn't really know what we were looking at.
02:50Did we have a bad actor or multiple bad actors at play here?
02:54And in what capacity?
02:56Were they employees?
02:57Were they civilians?
02:59Were they fellow veterans or fellow inpatients?
03:01Or were there some sort of rational explanations from a medical perspective?
03:12In less than 24 hours, there was a team of agents from literally all over the country converging on Clarksburg to launch the investigation.
03:31Within a day of opening their investigation, they contacted the local FBI office, and we got involved.
03:39These veteran inpatients not only suffered these instances of severe low blood sugar, but when the countermeasure medication was administered,
03:57they basically went into spikes of peaks and valleys because the blood sugar could not normalize.
04:04That was the major tipping point.
04:06It shows that someone might have actually killed someone by administering insulin.
04:13Either someone was accidentally doing this or they were doing it on purpose.
04:19We also learned all of these patients were in an inpatient setting all on the same ward, Ward 3A.
04:28We were on the clock at that point, and we really took it upon ourselves.
04:32We did not want something bad happening or another death on our hands.
04:37We did not want something bad happening or another death on our hands.
04:43losing archie is really hard he was really kind-hearted and just really generous
05:11I just didn't understand
05:14he wanted to go home that's it says you know don't leave me here take me home
05:22and I didn't do I left him there that was a lot of guilt over that and I died
05:26he always loved the military he loved the lifestyle he told us that if anything happened
05:44to him where he wanted to be was the VA he got to feeling better he was talking and everything I
05:50mean he was doing really good we go in there and they told us that the sugar had bottomed up
05:57dad wasn't a diabetic so it's like okay why is the sugar bottoming up
06:03I didn't think that somebody had actually done something to him or anything I thought it was
06:27just dad dad's time you know
06:47George was a wonderful husband a wonderful father
06:54so he was being treated for his congestive heart failure he was supposed to come home on Monday
07:01his elbows dropped they plummeted and I said something's not right he's not a diabetic why
07:08would his sugar drop that low I said daddy it's okay it's okay you go see your mom and dad now
07:18but it was my father and he was suffering
07:22we did not have a suspect and we really had a broad scope of what we
07:45were trying to look at here we more or less kicked it into high gear 24 7 around the clock
07:51we interviewed all the employees that worked on 3a and also the physicians that had treated the victims
07:56and through time cards work schedules and other records that helped narrow down the possible list of
08:03subjects or suspects that could be involved in the case it quickly became apparent there were a total of
08:10four individuals at the hospital out of 1200 employees who were there at each of the dates
08:16um for these events
08:26Rita Mays was an uncertified nursing assistant who worked in the medical surgical unit they referred to as
08:38ward 3a she was responsible for taking the vitals of patients intake and outtake as well as taking glucometer
08:47or finger stick readings of blood sugar levels of patients
08:51uh it is uh 8 17 p.m special agent earl gilliam here with miss
09:06in the initial interview you really just want her to do as much talking as possible so then go back
09:16later and impeach the information that she gave us our team was directly across the hall to just
09:22listen in we were putting the pieces together to see what we could make of of what she had to say
09:29are you ever administered insulin to patients no not at all no the aids are not to give any type of
09:39meds and what about the med room do you go to the med room where to keep the medications the only time
09:45that i've gone in there is when i've been with a um with a nurse she denied being in the medication room
09:53alone which we knew was contradictory with what witnesses told us previously and what's important
10:01there is that the insulin was stored in the medication room some of rita mays's co-workers
10:08on 3a had various accounts that stuck out to us as far as red flags she more or less did not act
10:18normal when compared to the rest of her co-workers there were some instances where she held patients
10:24hands uh while crying bedside with them as well too which a lot of the staff indicated to us was was
10:31abnormal would anybody ever question you about anything as far as being in the patient's room
10:38in any form of fashion i'm happy to ask these questions you you are exhibiting the demeanor of a
10:44person that's not being totally forthright and honest with me about something so what is it that
10:50you could be omitting that's making you feel the way you feel now i'm not admitting anything okay okay
10:57so you so you haven't done anything you don't know if anybody has done anything wrong no i don't know
11:01of anyone who has done anything and i haven't done anything i'm not going to find that what you're
11:08telling me i'm not going to find that part of it's not true all of it's not true no sir i will swear
11:17swear to it hey and you don't know i will swear to it if we had to go to court i would swear to it
11:25would you be able to take a polygraph concerning this and pass it i will not take a polygraph
11:38did dad dive on his own or did somebody kill him i was just blown away and you were angry and sad
11:48we would have never ever thought that he was not safe there he should be taken care
11:52of in the hospital and he was murdered i don't understand why would someone want to kill dad
12:08why not why not i'm asking because i am in i have a torn acl and i have constant pain and i
12:33wouldn't pass it okay the pain would make you not pass it yes the team of investigators had
12:56identified rita may as a subject and removed her from patient care we felt there was a lot more work
13:04to be done not only confirming her but also confirming that others were not at play could
13:10there have been anyone else involved or were we wrong we had to be sure there are three other employees
13:16in the whole hospital during each of these events or when we believe they took place so we traced back
13:22their whereabouts so we looked at access records using that we were able to determine that they
13:28couldn't have been in ward 3a during all of those events we learned that rita mays was the only 3a
13:38staff member that was working in and around when these hypoglycemic events occurred we then tried to
13:46take it a step further and do a blind review for all of the glucometer readings for all staff on ward 3a
13:54what was alarming was rita took a disproportionate amount of severe low blood sugar readings as
14:00compared to other staff members
14:19we learned that rita may's husband had been in jail during the times in which the murders took place
14:26rita may's husband would call her almost every morning after her overnight shift ended
14:35three nights what is it oh yeah during some of these calls with her husband rita indicated her
14:44struggles with her interactions with these patients at four o'clock in the morning i had to take over
14:51one of the one-on-one and the one i was sitting with i wanted to freaking strangle what we couldn't keep
14:59you in bed they had given him howled all and that didn't work so they gave him two shots of howled all
15:08and he still was wound up
15:24when she returned the following shift after having placed that call and made those comments the same
15:29patient suffered uh low blood sugars again indicative of this patient being administered insulin two
15:37different occasions the patient george shaw ultimately died from this
15:55mr raymond golden had another nurse who was sitting with him and rita mays came in and offered
16:02to give her a lunch break and so she sat with mr golden for 30 minutes while the other nurse took
16:08lunch following that is when he started to experience the symptoms of hypoglycemia and then ultimately
16:15never recovered and passed away a few days later it confirmed and consolidated the investigative team's
16:24stance that rita mays was the only suspect
16:39phony
16:50nice to be joined here is carrie hi carrie we had a special agent from the fbi behavioral analysis unit
16:58come out they offered for special agent carrie robbins to participate and to conduct the interview
17:04we had been prepping her for it just one interviewer in the room my understanding is
17:11did you win the nurse the year award um the year before last nurse's aid yeah and i've heard that
17:19and i've heard that you're the go-to person you do exemplary work the interviewer does pay
17:27compliments to maize that would really allow maize to agree with her and engage her in talking it
17:34builds a little bit of rapport but it also makes rita feel that she has the power in the conversation
17:40so the patients we're talking about what is it that you're understanding um we're all talking
18:00about my understanding is that they think that somebody is doing something to make these people
18:09sugar dropped is what i understand was mr holly one of the patients you were those two
18:14um no not really he was kind of a
18:21on the grumpy old man you know one of them you don't really
18:27you want to be around there but you don't want to be around there
18:31was he uh one of the patients that being referred to as being one of the sugar incidents
18:40i don't know if he wasn't on i do remember that we didn't check his sugar that night and it wasn't
18:47low i don't remember the exact amount it was you have an amazing memory i didn't even know that
18:53she indicated that this patient wasn't really significant she wasn't really close with this
18:59patient however she then proceeds to go into a lot of detail that's where special agent robbins
19:07cued in on she's looking really nervous something else was going on here
19:17unauthorized injections of insulin proved fatal so far investigators said they don't know motivation
19:27for killing veterans
19:28do you think something had happened to him
19:56i think he was he was done i mean his body gave that night i think
20:04okay it was his birthday and all these kids had come in and that's one of the things that makes
20:10us mad you know you remember certain things you kind of do certain things
20:14have you been present when many other patients had passed yeah i was with um we sat one on one and
20:25for this gentleman's veteran you were there with him yeah
20:29i was
20:30what we saw for hours on end it's more or less this very subtle back and forth
20:39rita began crying spontaneously at different points during the course of the interview
20:53she also did not directly answer the questions that were posed to her it was another indicator of unusual behavior or behavior that made no sense unless you were somehow involved in the patient's death or if you were trying to hide something
21:05for whoever may have had a role involvement in this you think there's ever a justification
21:20you're doing something i don't know why it would be crazy
21:35to do something like that
21:38that's
21:40basically taking a life
21:43and that's not
21:46that that's not a good thing
21:50not at all
21:53then you're here to listen
21:56and to one to understand you
22:00and what happened
22:03are you saying i did something
22:06is that what you're trying to say
22:11because i didn't do anything
22:15whatever you did
22:27it doesn't change who you are
22:29it doesn't
22:32you're still that person
22:34i didn't do anything
22:35there's a lot of people saying
22:37can you tell me what happened
22:44i told you what happened
22:47i told you what happened
22:49i told you what happened
22:59after today
23:00i cannot give that promise to you
23:04you can see she's hunched her shoulders and and drawn her arms across her body as um pretty defensive
23:19so to me i think she was panicking a little bit
23:23i think before you're accusing me
23:27i'm here i'm out i need a lawyer
23:29you'd like to stop talking to me
23:40right after the interview
23:59there was a major payoff
24:01because uh within a few hours
24:04of that end of the second interview
24:07she actually buys a book
24:09called i'm dead now what
24:11indicating that she's having
24:12potentially some suicidal thoughts
24:14why because she's just been told she is the prime suspect in all of these cases
24:19it almost gave us more fuel to figure this out we're going to get to the bottom of this
24:26questions continue to be raised after the death of a vietnam veteran was ruled a homicide at the va hospital in clarksburg
24:35the autopsy revealed the non-diabetic had been injected with insulin and died from hypoglycemia
24:57between the second interview
25:00in august of 2018 and october of 2019
25:04the bulk of the investigative work was complete during that time period
25:07the investigation involved a review of hundreds of thousands of va employee emails
25:13years worth of internet browsing activity a review of hundreds of hours of recorded phone calls
25:20a review of other electronic media and electronic evidence as well
25:27what we learned at that point in the investigation was
25:31that rita would talk with other staff members on facebook messenger and they would in real time
25:38be discussing patients and what was going on on the ward and rita was referring to
25:44some of our victims what happened to this patient who was in this room and what about this patient so
25:51she was following up to see essentially did they live or did they die
26:06this occurred at the state barracks and rita had an appointment there to pick up
26:19some property that the state police had of hers for an unrelated reason
26:24for the two weeks leading up to this interview we had been preparing when she came into the station
26:33special agent liza ludovico approached her and asked if she would like to sit down and and hear some updates on the case
26:47when it came time for the third interview we wanted to let her know we have now been able
27:09to confirm that nobody else did it but you we need some answers
27:18i understand what my rights are at this time i am willing to answer questions without a lot of
27:26if you'd like to sign you can if you don't want to that's okay too
27:30a lot of time and effort went into preparing for this hoping that she would confess we were in an
27:36joining the room with the investigative team and the prosecutors listening and watching to the
27:42entire interview if there was anything that needed to be followed up on the team was ready for that
27:47this interview was conducted by special agent liza ludovico a former army nurse currently with the
27:54fbi and this was the perfect interviewer this was someone who was a registered nurse herself
28:01she was also a veteran and she was a trained polygrapher so it was kind of the best recipe for
28:06an interviewer in this particular case about two weeks prior to this interview we were working with
28:12her to start explaining the case to her putting charts together putting files together that would
28:16be presented to rita here is my business card so if you ever do need to get in touch with me as you can
28:21see i'm not from here with the new court news virginia and obviously
28:23you're going to get in touch strategically we placed a map of the floor with the victims laid out
28:32and that was there to elicit an emotional response for her to look at the people she killed
28:38you like sports um what do you like i'm a boxing fan really i used to watch it i used to watch uh
28:49why will the boxing with my dad every sunday cbs cbs about the nnn
28:56liza spent a lot of time in the beginning of this interview sharing information about her that she felt
29:02rita could relate to asking rita about herself and um her background her family just hours of
29:09of them talking about nothing related to this case other than maybe some of her work up at the
29:16hospital but not touching on any of these topics
29:19i'm not giving you everything because i'm not authorized to do that but they wanted to make sure
29:43that i was um equipped to at least show you some of the documentation so you ready to take that for
29:50for a spin okay thank you all right so the first patient that got everything started was mr posey
30:06and this was dr phillips wondering if it was divine intervention or something else that led
30:11someone to perform a finger stick that revealed the patient's more blood sugar level and advised
30:17that that person that actually did that finger stick was you
30:24mr edge let's talk about him real quick all right we've got you sitting as a sitting log from midnight
30:33until seven and you're certainly sitting in a window where he has one of these critically low
30:40blood sugar we've been
30:46the investigators went and uh they actually had a recording of the phone conversation between you
30:52and your husband talking about this patient you're talking about how bad your day was and again stress
30:59what the one i was sitting with i wanted to freaking strangle what i don't think you wanted to
31:06strangle the patient it's just showing stress so they're coming here telling my i don't want to
31:13strangle somebody because i'm frustrated against me it here's where the issue is that you don't understand
31:21completely i think this is a patient that you were not taken care of the long and short of it is
31:28it's almost either it's probably because and i talk all the time but it almost looks like
31:36stocking i'm just trying to fix
31:38this is my point miss rita is this is why we got to talk about this i was concerned about him
31:47i know this is i mean he he could be a royal thing but he could also be a sweetheart
31:54do you see what it looks like
32:12you
32:24i think i can help you to explain this but it starts with at least the acknowledgement
32:39the glucose is going to fall out of the sky i know they don't fall out of the sky
32:46okay i did finger sticks when i was told to do finger sticks whether they were a diabetic or not
32:54if i was told to do a finger stick by a nurse i did a finger stick that's my job
33:00that's not enough to scoot
33:04you're missing kind of a point you're still alive when you're in your room
33:11you're already watching the patient the whole entire night 30 minutes
33:16you're already leaving him for lunch and the maximum onset window after everything's given
33:22his body i did not give him insulin i have never given a patient insulin i have never injected anyone with
33:36insulin that i will swear on my grandchild's life that i have never given anyone an injection of insulin
33:46watching her swearing before her grandchild's life and that was really indicative of a move of desperation
33:57that the walls were closing in i know you're upset i'm sorry i shouldn't be telling you
34:04what would you say what would you say if you were the prosecutor
34:23because everything that you're showing me looks like i did it
34:26you are a brave strong woman but if you walk out on me i can't help you
34:40tell me my head i'm kidding people will understand it okay help me help me the hardest time in the world you need help
34:54that's the first time
35:10i just
35:13there's actually been videos that you've watched
35:17and far from that you've researched
35:21that's just a very different picture than what i've been trying to talk about here
35:28They have been very busy for the last 18 months.
35:49Nurses who killed.
35:50Either before she was going on shift or shortly thereafter, she watched various episodes of this Nurses Who Kill, docu-series on Netflix.
36:11There was one episode that detailed how essentially a healthcare provider was killing patients using insulin.
36:18Well, like I said, because if they look at George's history, she'll have some of those in there, too.
36:26Yeah, but George is not the one that's present for nine majors, two of which happened on the same night.
36:33Nursing documentation is in a room that's showing your babysitting patient one-on-one and blood sugars bottom-out.
36:41The atmosphere was tense. We were watching on the edge of our seats, sitting down the hall, oh, she's going to do it. This is the time. Nope, it's going to happen.
37:03What's going to happen?
37:04I'm going to look first. I'm going to look what happened to you.
37:07It can also hear.
37:09It's okay.
37:11It's okay.
37:13It's okay.
37:16I disagree.
37:18You have a story telling me, see.
37:22Liza placed a Bible on the table in front of Rita, just based on some of her activity with her local church.
37:46We thought that might lead her to want to talk about it, to feel bad about what she had done.
37:53What do you want to do, though?
37:55I didn't have to ask her to try the next temple.
37:57I'll be fine with Rebecca.
37:59What?
38:00I'm sorry.
38:02We can't get rid of those outside.
38:03We're getting rid of those outside, so we wouldn't let you know.
38:05The same thing as with the universe is coming!
38:07We've still got out.
38:09We're going through Nara.
38:10We're going through Nara.
38:12We're going through Nara.
38:13We've seen golden days of the entire house.
38:14We're going through Nara.
38:15We're going through Nara.
38:17We're going through Nara.
38:19We're going through Nara.
38:21It was obviously discouraging, no direct admission or confession.
38:32So after that third interview, the investigative team spent their time and effort on ensuring every loose end was tied up.
38:43What we were really focused on was strengthening the medical evidence against her.
38:49One of the strongest pieces of evidence that we obtained was from our endocrinologist.
38:58Her analysis that in all of her years doing this, she hadn't seen some of these severely low blood sugar readings.
39:06It really cemented it for us.
39:19I approached the defense counsel and we started to talk about a potential plea resolution.
39:32She was ultimately charged by what we call an information in July of 2020.
39:39An information is different from an indictment, which is returned by a grand jury.
39:43An information is filed by the U.S. attorney.
39:46So that means you've reached an agreement without a charge that you will file this charge and she will plead guilty to it.
39:53I think Rita Mays accepted the plea deal because she was seeing that the evidence was mounting against her.
39:59She walked in off the street, pled guilty to these murders, was put into custody, never to be released again.
40:05Today, a former nursing assistant admitted to killing seven veterans and attempting to kill an eighth.
40:13Federal prosecutors say Mays gave unauthorized injections of insulin to these patients, even though most were not diabetic.
40:21The interviews were important, despite not obtaining a confession.
40:41There was no eyewitness, no surveillance camera footage, no murder weapon, no DNA, no fingerprint.
40:48Therefore, the culmination of the interviews strengthened the investigation.
40:54Although we did not get the verbal answers and the confessions that we were looking for,
41:01just to be able to tap into the mindset of Rita was just as important.
41:18Tuesday, it ended for serial killer Rita Mays with seven consecutive life sentences plus 20 years for taking the lives of veterans with insulin.
41:31Mays sat in an orange jumpsuit as Judge Thomas Klee called her a monster of the worst kind.
41:37That provided some sense of closure for the family, although it never was going to bring their loved ones back.
41:50There is that finality that not only is she behind bars, but that she herself uttered those words, that she did it to each of their loved ones.
42:02The agents were phenomenal.
42:04They updated us constantly, and they worked feverishly on this case.
42:10They turned over every stone.
42:11We want him to be remembered for how he lived, the type of person he was.
42:33It's little things, you know.
42:36I miss that phone call saying, hey, come to eat supper.
42:39He made the stew and I made chili.
42:41So, you miss that.
42:42I miss seeing him.
42:44George was my life.
42:47I was 18 when I met him, and we were together for 59 years.
42:54It was...
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