Nurse faces trial over lethal doses
Nocona, Texas Many in town who saw and chatted with Vickie Dawn Jackson thought the nurse was sweet, patient and kindhearted. Her family saw it differently.
Jackson goes on trial this week, charged with injecting elderly patients with lethal drug doses, killing 10 and injuring another.
The case, according to Jackson’s family, offers a glimpse of a woman who had one face for the world and a very different one for those close to her.
“I don’t know if she did it or not, but she’s perfectly capable of it,” Jackson’s daughter, Jennifer Carson, told the Associated Press.
According to Carson and her father, Leroy Carson – Jackson’s second husband – Jackson was angry and verbally abusive at home, though to everyone else she appeared caring and compassionate.
Jackson, 38, will be tried this week on capital murder charges for two of the deaths at a hospital in this rural north Texas town southeast of Wichita Falls, and faces up to life in prison if convicted.
The case began to unfold in early 2001, when officials realized there were twice as many deaths as usual in recent months at the 38-bed Nocona General Hospital; officials said they traced the deaths to Jackson’s shifts.
Justice arrested in drunken driving case
Columbus, Ohio A state Supreme Court justice pulled over for alleged drunken driving urged a police officer not to arrest her and cited her rulings in drunken driving cases, according to police videotapes.
Justice Alice Robie Resnick, 65, of Toledo, is scheduled to appear court today, one week after police pulled her over on Interstate 75 in northern Ohio. Her attorney, Sheldon Wittenberg, filed a request last week indicating she wants to change her innocent plea, but he did not say what the new plea would be.
In the video, shot by a camera on the dashboard of the patrol car and released Friday, a police sergeant questioning Resnick in the front seat tells her he can smell alcohol on her breath.
Resnick assures the officer that she can drive safely, but he asks her to take a portable breath-analysis test. She then lowers her voice and says, “I did have something to drink.”
Resnick also repeatedly asks to be let go, saying, “My God, you know I decide all these cases in your favor. And my golly, look what you’re doing to me.”
Police: Mom admits she starved her kids
Huntsville, Ala. The mother of three children found dead in a Huntsville apartment has confessed to starving her children, police said Saturday.
Nathshay Yvonne Ward, 33, was charged with capital murder Friday in connection with the deaths of her son and two daughters. She was being held without bail.
Officers found the bodies of Shanieka Y. Ward, 11; Latricia Ward, 9; and Christopher O. Ward, 8, on the floor in three bedrooms Friday, police spokesman Wendell Johnson said.
Officials said the children had been dead for at least several days.
Investigators would not elaborate on the details of Ward’s confession.