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The daughter of bestselling authors Kelly Moore and Daniel Reed, known for their 1988 true crime book Deadly Medicine based on Genene Jones, was sentenced to 75 months in prison for the murder of her uncle, Shane Patrick Moore.
This grim revelation comes to light in a recent episode of Dateline NBC episode titled Killer Role, which not only delves into the tragic story of aspiring actor Tucker Reed but also touches upon one of the most notorious female serial killers in U.S. history.
Genene Jones, also dubbed as Texas Killer Nurse or Angel of Death, was a licensed vocational nurse during the 1970s and 1980s who used fatal dosages of a cocktail of drugs such as digoxin, heparin, and succinylcholine to induce Code Blue emergencies at the Bexar County Hospital and a Kerrville clinic.
Kelly Moore and Daniel Reed's true crime read titled Deadly Medicine focused on crimes by Genene Jones encouraged by the gaps in the administration of San Antonio's Medical Center Hospital. Deadly Medicine remained on the list of New York Times bestsellers for seven weeks.
Who was Genene Jones? Details explored
Genene Jones, born on July 13, 1950, in Texas, was adopted by a couple from San Antonio - Richard "Dick" Jefferson Jones and his wife, Gladys. Dick Jones was a professional gambler and an entrepreneur. He had invested in a nightclub, a restaurant, and then a billboard business but all led to failures. After the death of her father due to cancer and an accident involving her younger brother Travis, Genene married her sweetheart, James “Jimmy” Harvey DeLany Jr in 1968.
Jimmy joined the Navy in 1970 which brought out a s*xually voracious side of Genene as she engaged in affairs with multiple men. Around this time, she trained to be a beautician at Mim’s Beauty School and also gave birth to her first child Richard Michael DeLany. As a beautician, she started working at the Methodist Hospital beauty parlour where she got to be close to medical professionals.
While the couple ended up getting a divorce in 1974, they reconciled in 1977 and birthed their second child, Heather. Around this time, Jones was enrolled in the San Antonio Independent School District’s School of Vocational Nursing. She started working at the Methodist Hospital after she graduated with 200 points above the passing grade, per Texas Monthly.
Genene Jones subsequently worked at the obstetrics-gynaecology ward at Community Hospital, the pediatric intensive care unit at Bexar County Hospital (known as Medical Center Hospital since 1981), and Dr Kathleen Mary Holland's clinic in Kerrville, Texas.
Why was Genene Jones arrested?
Genene Jones was first sentenced to 99 years in prison for the murder of 15-month-old Chelsea McClellan with succinylcholine in 1985. Another 60 years were added to her sentence for the murder of Rolando Santos with heparin. Jones was suspected to have murdered up to sixty babies during her years of service at the three-to-eleven nursing shift at Bexar County Hospital.
Fearful of a lawsuit and poor publicity, the Bexar County Hospital refrained from raising alarm regarding the unexplained deaths during the Death Shift. While the medical health professionals in the pediatric ICU were adamant about Jones' involvement in the mysterious deaths of the babies, the hospital did not fire her but transferred all licensed vocational nurses to other parts of the hospital keeping back registered nurses only.
A private investigation conducted by the medical institution pointed towards the coexistence of the high numbers of Code Blue in Genene Jones's shift and the report concluded reading,
“This association of Nurse Jones with the deaths of the ten children could be coincidental. However, negligence or wrongdoing cannot be excluded.”
By the time the report was published, Jones had moved to Kerrville to work at Dr. Kathleen Holland's clinic where seven patients had eight emergencies in 31 days. Throughout her career, she injected lethal doses of anti-seizure drugs and muscle relaxants such as digoxin, heparin, and later succinylcholine.
Dr Holland had eventually discovered two needle holes in a heavily diluted bottle of succinylcholine kept in the drug storage to which only Jones and she had access. Upon the discovery, Jones overdosed herself with Doxepin and had left a one-page handwritten suicide note in her office drawer in an attempt to frame Holland as investigators got involved by the time.
Where is Genene Jones now?
According to prison records from May 2016, Jones was incarcerated at the Lane Murray Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice till she was scheduled for release in 2018 to prevent overcrowding in Texas prisons.
To prevent Genene Jones' release, five murder indictments were made against Jones including the 1981 murder of 11-month-old Joshua Sawyer to which she pleaded guilty in January 2020. As part of her plea bargain, the four other charges were dropped and she was sentenced to life in prison.
