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Crime News Snapped

“Angel of Death” Nurse Convicted of Killing Patients by Injecting Bleach: “Can’t Imagine the Pain"

“What it probably felt like to my mom was being burned on the inside out,” Wanda Havard said on Snapped of her mother’s death at the hands of her dialysis nurse, Kimberly Saenz.

By Caitlin Schunn

Fran Metcalf was rushed to the hospital during a routine dialysis treatment at DaVita clinic in Lufkin, Texas on April 1, 2008.

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“Her blood pressure dropped drastically,” Wanda Havard, daughter of Fran Metcalf, said on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen. “Then the alarms and alerts started going off.”

Just 30 minutes later, dialysis patient Clara Strange also went into cardiac arrest.  

“To have two patients die on the same day, the odds of that are astronomically low,” Clyde Herrington, former Angelina Co. District Attorney, said on Snapped.

Fran Metcalf’s daughter was immediately suspicious at her mother’s death.

“I reached down and I kissed her on the cheek,” Havard said. “When I did, there was a horrible smell that burned my eyes and my nostrils. It smelled like bleach.”

Meanwhile, a nurse at the dialysis clinic, Kimberly Saenz, was searching the powerful cleaner on her home computer.

“The terms ‘bleach’ and ‘bleach poisoning’ were done on April 1 before she went to work. People died on that day,” Stephen Abbott, former Lufkin Police Sergeant, said on Snapped.

Over the next 27 days, more than 30 more patients would be taken to the hospital while receiving dialysis treatments at the clinic. Keep reading to learn how Kimberly Saenz was eventually caught and stopped.

DaVita dialysis clinic opens an investigation after patients die of cardiac arrest

Five more patients suffered from cardiac arrest while at DaVita within the next week, but they all lived. The clinic opened an investigation but was unable to pinpoint the cause behind the cardiac arrests. Then, on April 16, 2008, two more patients went into cardiac arrest, including Garlin Kelley Jr., who later died. Just six days later, another two patients suffered from cardiac events, including Cora Bryant, who ultimately passed away.

“What Ms. Bryant experienced that day was way outside the norm,” Abbott said. “Before Ms. Bryant coded, she asked, ‘What did you give me?’ That was overheard by multiple people around her.”

As more patients went into cardiac arrest in the coming days, Opa May Few was among those who died. Near the end of April 2008, DaVita contacted the Centers for Disease Control for help, and they came to a startling conclusion.

“Their analysis of the statistical likelihood was that one of the employees might be killing people,” said prosecutor Layne Thompson on Snapped.

Two patients see Kimberly Saenz inject bleach into another patient's dialysis line

By the end of April 2008, five patients were dead within weeks at the clinic, and the patients were on edge.

Fran Metcalf featured on Snapped Season 35 Episode 3

“They were already nervous, alert, and scared because of the number of deaths. They were paying attention,” Abbott said.

Two patients then witnessed something terrifying while receiving treatment.

“[One] watched as a nurse walked over to a bleach solution bucket on the floor, and crouched down, and drew up that solution into a syringe,” Jessica Savage, former reporter for Lufkin Daily News, said on Snapped. “From there, she watched, incredibly, as that nurse walked over to another patient who was sleeping and then injected that solution into the lines.”

The patients identified licensed vocational nurse Kim Saenz as the person who injected the bleach.

“They didn’t feel comfortable making an outcry because they were still hooked to machines,” Abbott said.

But the patients alerted another member of the staff to what they saw, and police arrived to investigate.

Police find evidence that Kimberly Saenz was purposely killing patients with bleach

Police looked into Kimberly Saenz’s background and learned she never graduated from high school, but after attending school for nursing, she developed a drug addiction.

“We learned she was fired from Woodland Heights Hospital for suspicion of stealing patient medications,” Herrington said. “During the time that she went to work at the DaVita dialysis facility, she was under investigation by the Texas Board of Nurse Examiners for the alleged theft of patient medication.”

Police took the sharps containers with several weeks worth of discarded syringes from the facility as evidence for testing. Some tested positive for bleach, confirming the patients’ story. When questioned, Saenz told police the machines were cleaned with bleach, and wondered if that could sicken the patients.

“That brings up red flags in and of itself because we hadn’t told her what the allegations were,” Abbott said. “And here she is already trying to prepare a ready-made explanation.”

Police got a break in the case when Saenz’s husband, who had filed for divorce, contacted them.

“He advised that he worked on a computer she’d been using and that he had found she had a search history for the word ‘hemo[dialysis],’” Abbott said.

Opal Few featured on Snapped Season 35 Episode 3

Police got a warrant and searched her computer.

“They found searches on the computer about the effect of bleach on patients,” Herrington said. “And she had tapped in the question on her computer, ‘Can bleach be detected in the dialysis line?’”

Knowing bleach was possibly what was used to kill the patients, police learned of another story from a worker at DaVita, who was with Garlin Kelley Jr. when he died.

“One of the patient care techs was standing near his machine and witnessed, what she described, it looked like a black ball of hair that went through his line and into his system,” Herrington said. “What we believe is that the patient care technician witnessed the result of Kimberly Saenz injecting bleach. Red blood cells … when they encounter bleach, they explode. If enough blood cells explode or burst, it causes cardiac arrest.”

A police handout of Kimberly Clark Saenz

Bleach can’t be detected during an autopsy or through blood testing, but police reached out to an expert at the CDC.

“This expert explained that if bleach had been introduced in significant amounts, into the bloodstream of the patient, they should have an amino acid called chlorotyrosine that should be at a very high level within their system,” Thompson said.

Every blood sample from a suspected victim of Saenz’s bleach poisonings showed the presence of chlorotyrosine.

“I took all the time sheets and the dates that people had been hurt and found that the only person that was there for every one of those events was Kim Saenz,” Herrington said.

Saenz was first arrested on April 9, 2009, but didn’t go on trial until March 2012. A jury found her guilty of murdering five people and wounding three others, and she was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

“There was a sense of relief that she can’t do it to anyone else,” said Linda Few-James, daughter of victim Opal May Few, on Snapped.

Investigators believe Saenz could be responsible for several other patient deaths as well, but no further charges were brought due to lack of evidence.

“The only real question is why, and everybody wants to know that,” Abbott said. “The only one who knows it is her. Until she explains it, nobody will know. It seemed like she was killing just indiscriminately for no reason.”

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