The proceedings\u00a0are expected to include impact statements from Shaw and other\u00a0family members, as well as arguments from the defense that Mays should receive less than life in prison.<\/p>\n
In March 2018, Mays was assigned to sit one-on-one with Shaw’s husband of nearly 59 years to monitor his vital signs during an overnight shift. Instead, she gave the Air Force veteran, who wasn\u2019t diabetic, a lethal dose of insulin. His blood sugar cratered. Hospital staff scrambled to raise it, but George Nelson Shaw\u00a0Sr., 81, lingered for nearly three weeks before dying.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hung on the longest of any of them. That was his will; he was so strong, he wanted to live,\u201d Norma Shaw recalled in an interview Monday. \u201cBut he was just trapped in his body. He wanted to tell us something and he couldn’t talk, he couldn\u2019t eat, he couldn’t walk.\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/08\/28\/USAT\/28408fab-8423-4fac-9bff-a18ce95e9aba-Dad_and_Max.jpg?width=540&height=&fit=bounds&auto=webp\")
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Air Force veteran George Nelson Shaw Sr., died on on April 10, 2018, at the VA hospital in Clarksburg, W. Va. His death, ruled a homicide by an Armed Forces examiner, is one of 10 under investigation by federal authorities. He was 81. (Photo: Family of George Nelson Shaw Sr.,)<\/span><\/p>\n His daughter Mary\u00a0said she wishes Mays could receive a punishment equal to the suffering\u00a0he and the others went through. Medical records show\u00a0another victim struggled to breath as his blood sugar dropped, white foam oozed from his mouth and\u00a0he faded away.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLet her feel everything her victims felt but not die \u2013\u00a0the shutting down of organs, one by one by one by one,” Mary Wood said. “Daddy lasted two weeks suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019ll get hers,\u201d Norma Shaw said Monday. She recorded a statement for the hearing, unsure if she would live to see it because she’s in poor health. But she\u2019s going in person, along with Mary and her grandchildren.<\/p>\n Robert Kozul, 89, died January 30, 2018. Former nursing assistant Reta Mays pleaded guilty to killing him and six other elderly veterans with lethal doses of insulin at the U.S. Veterans Affairs hospital in Clarksburg, West Virginia. (Photo: Courtesy Kozul family lawyer)<\/span><\/p>\n The son of Robert Kozul, 89, said he simply wants answers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have wondered and wondered and wondered about the \u2018whys\u2019 \u2014\u00a0why this happened and was able to happen,\u201d James \u201cForrest\u201d Kozul said in an interview.<\/p>\n His father, known to family and friends as Pappy,\u00a0died in January 2018, the second of the seven murder victims outlined in court documents. \u201cIt shouldn’t have happened at all,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then Dad. And nobody really realized the fact that this all was going on within the walls of the hospital, and it should have been caught.\u201d<\/p>\n The Clarksburg chapter of the Fraternal Order of Eagles is down the street from the local VFW. At the members-only lounge, friends sit\u00a0on leather chairs pushed up against an oval-shaped bar and chat about current events.<\/p>\n On Monday afternoon, that was the\u00a0sentencing of Reta Mays.<\/p>\n Angela Insani\u00a0is the daughter of an Army veteran who gets care at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center. What\u2019s so frustrating, Insani said, is that veterans were victimized at the very place they thought they would be protected.<\/p>\n \u201cShe took a strike at the red, white and blue,\u201d Insani said, her voice cracking. \u201cShe took a strike at America.\u201d<\/p>\n Nearly two years after news broke about the insulin deaths, even after a global pandemic,\u00a0the wounds remain fresh. That’s because\u00a0the community has such a deep connection to the military, said local talk radio host Hoppy Kercheval.<\/p>\n “The story still resonates because it is so horrific, almost unimaginable,\u201d Kercheval said. \u201cWest Virginia has a high rate of people who have served in the military, and many depend on the VA for their care. The murders at the VA hospital feel like a betrayal.”<\/p>\n After the sentencing, the inspector general at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is expected to release the results of an investigation into failings at the hospital that allowed the deaths to go undetected.<\/p>\n Mays was assigned to work overnight shifts on Ward 3A, the hospital’s\u00a0medical surgical unit, in July 2017\u00a0when patients began suffering mysterious, acute drops in blood sugar.\u00a0<\/p>\n A USA TODAY investigation in 2019 found that\u00a0a string of oversights at the hospital may have cost\u00a0veterans\u2019 lives. Insulin wasn\u2019t adequately tracked, and there were no surveillance cameras on Ward 3A. Staff didn\u2019t conduct key tests to figure out why patients were experiencing severe episodes of low blood sugar. Nor did they file reports that could have triggered investigations.<\/p>\n This photo released July 14, 2020, by the West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority shows Reta Mays. Mays, a former nursing assistant at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, W.V., is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, May 11, 2021, for her guilty plea to intentionally killing seven patients with fatal doses of insulin. (Photo: West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority via AP)<\/span><\/p>\n Insulin can be crucial in keeping diabetics\u2019 blood sugar in check, but for non-diabetics and those who aren\u2019t prescribed the medication, it can be deadly, driving blood sugar too low.<\/p>\n By the time doctors alerted hospital leaders in June 2018 to the string of suspicious deaths, at least eight patients had died. Many had been embalmed and buried. One had been cremated.<\/p>\n How it started:<\/strong>Authorities investigating 10 suspicious deaths at VA hospital<\/span><\/p>\n Federal investigators zeroed in on Mays.\u00a0They exhumed bodies and gathered evidence.<\/p>\n In July, Mays entered her guilty plea. She admitted to killing the seven veterans and administering insulin to an eighth who later died, too. \u00a0<\/p>\n The Department of Veterans Affairs said in a statement last week that the agency has made a number of\u00a0improvements in response to the investigation by the inspector general, an independent watchdog. They include steps to increase care coordination between medical providers, bolster endocrinology referrals and evaluations and better train nursing staff on diabetes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center grieves for the loss of each of these veterans and extends our deepest condolences to their families and loved ones,\u201d the agency said. What happened \u201cwas unacceptable, and we want to ensure veterans and families know we are determined to restore their trust in the facility.\u201d<\/p>\n The Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, W.Va., serves 70,000 veterans. (Photo: Donovan Slack, USA TODAY)<\/span><\/p>\n The Clarksburg VA draws patients from across the region, serving about 70,000 veterans in north-central West Virginia and nearby Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n In December, the VA replaced the hospital director and chief nursing executive and retrained staff on critical incident reporting after an internal review identified problems\u00a0with patient safety. The hospital conducted a \u201csafety stand-down\u201d in which noncritical patients weren’t admitted for several weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are satisfied now,\u201d said John Aloi, senior vice commander of VFW Post 573 in Clarksburg.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wearing a black “United We Stand” mask after wrapping up a Monday night meeting at the post, Aloi said veterans want a measure of justice from the court hearing. Equally important, he said, are safety reforms at the VA hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut the real test is how things go in the future,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce you lose trust, it\u2019s hard to get it back.”<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2021\/05\/10\/USAT\/43b1006e-52d1-4563-ae6f-24e29836e40f-Robert_Kozul_-handout_family_lawyer_Tony_ODell.jpg?width=180&height=240&fit=bounds&auto=webp\")
<\/p>\nVA hospital murders ‘feel like a betrayal’<\/h2>\n
VA inspector general to release report on what happened<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nVA pledges improvements<\/h2>\n
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