Nurse Sentenced to 380 Years in Prison for Killing 17 Patients: A Chilling Case of Insulin Overdoses

In a spine-chill­ing case, a Penn­syl­va­nia nurse has been sen­tenced to hun­dreds of years in prison for killing at least 17 patients under her care. 

Heather Press­dee, 41, received three con­sec­u­tive life sen­tences and an addi­tion­al 380 to 760 years for attempt­ed mur­der after plead­ing guilty to her hor­ri­fy­ing crimes.

The nurse’s reign of ter­ror last­ed from 2020 to 2023, dur­ing which she admin­is­tered lethal or poten­tial­ly lethal dos­es of insulin to patients, often dur­ing night shifts when staffing was low. Her vic­tims ranged in age from 43 to 105, and their fam­i­lies have been left dev­as­tat­ed by the loss of their loved ones.

Heather Press­dee plead­ed guilty to three counts of mur­der and 19 counts of attempt­ed mur­der. Cred­it: Penn­syl­va­nia Office of Attor­ney General

Dur­ing a hear­ing in Feb­ru­ary, Press­dee made a chill­ing state­ment when asked why she want­ed to plead guilty, admit­ting: “Because I am guilty.” The nurse lat­er apol­o­gised for her actions, stat­ing, “I’m very sor­ry. I’m sor­ry for what I’ve done.”

Near­ly 40 fam­i­ly mem­bers of Press­dee’s vic­tims attend­ed the sen­tenc­ing at the But­ler Coun­ty cour­t­house, with many shar­ing emo­tion­al state­ments about the impact of her crimes on their lives. Eliz­a­beth Simons Ozel­la, whose moth­er, Irene Simons, was one of Press­dee’s vic­tims, declared that she would ‘nev­er for­give [her] for what she did.’

Melin­da Brown, whose broth­er Nicholas Cym­bol also died from an insulin over­dose admin­is­tered by Press­dee, described the nurse as “pure evil.” Anoth­er fam­i­ly mem­ber stat­ed, “She is not sick. She is not insane. She is evil per­son­i­fied. I looked into the face of Satan myself the morn­ing she killed my father.”

Press­dee’s plea deal allowed her to avoid a tri­al and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion. Her sen­tenc­ing serves as a reminder of the impor­tance of hold­ing med­ical pro­fes­sion­als account­able for their actions, par­tic­u­lar­ly when they abuse their pow­er and betray the trust placed in them by patients and their families.