Vickie Dawn Jackson

Case record: Vickie Dawn Jackson

Vickie Dawn Jackson was a former nurse who received a life sentence after pleading no contest to capital murder involving the deaths of patients at Nocona General Hospital in North Texas.

Authorities did not offer a motive for the slayings.

The offence

Jackson was accused of killing patients at Nocona General Hospital by injecting them with a drug that was used to temporarily halt breathing and to allow insertion of a breathing tube. Prosecutors said the deaths occurred during her night shifts at Nocona General Hospital in 2000 and 2001.

Jackson was charged with killing 10 patients, including her third husband’s grandfather.

Jackson was also accused of trying to kill an 11th patient in late 2000 and early 2001.

During the relevant period, additional deaths occurred among patients at the hospital. The deaths were described as occurring in suspicious circumstances from December 2000 to February 2001.

Traces of the paralyzing drug were found in some victims’ bodies.

Investigation

Eight deaths in 11 days among patients at Nocona General Hospital were described as having initially looked like “a run of bad luck” to the then-attending physician. Dr. Chance Dingler said he would not have suspected a serial killer roaming the halls at the small-town hospital in late December 2000 and early January 2001, and that “That never crossed my mind.”

Hospital officials suspected a connection only after confronting a total of 15 dead patients in the 38-bed hospital. The suspicion involved missing vials of a paralyzing drug.

A former nurse, Vickie Dawn Jackson, was indicted on two counts of capital murder and was accused of killing four patients. Traces of Mivacron, a paralyzing drug, were found in the bodies of the victims cited in that indictment.

Nocona hospital officials maintained that they alerted authorities as soon as they realized there was a problem on Feb. 6, 2001, and followed all rules and procedures.

The hospital’s pharmacist told the State Board of Pharmacy two days later that “at least 10 vials of Mivacron injection” were either lost or stolen.

A review of hospital records and depositions obtained through a lawsuit filed by the family of one who may have been injected with the drug suggested the drug might have been missing nearly two months before police were called.

The after-hours pharmacy log at the hospital showed that Mivacron was replaced on the crash cart, the cabinet containing equipment needed when a cardiac arrest occurs, four times between Nov. 23, 2000, and Jan. 9, 2001, without any corresponding charges to patients. Hospital officials said those records did not mean that Mivacron was missing, only that it was replaced on the crash cart.

Len Dingler, the hospital’s chief of staff and Chance Dingler’s brother, said the crash cart was “the most likely place for the drug to have been swiped” and would have been the easiest place for Vickie Jackson, as a licensed vocational nurse, to obtain the drug. He said hospital officials knew that one Mivacron vial was taken from the crash carts on the overnight shift Jan. 30-31, 2001, and that this realization triggered the facility’s internal investigation.

Austin lawyer Donna Bowen, representing the family of Donnelly Reid, gave a statement about the scale of the hospital and the likelihood of unnoticed deaths: “It’s crazy to think they’re sitting there and don’t know anybody is dying — this is a teeny little hospital.”

In relation to the case of Donnelly Reid, the report said Donnelly Reid lost consciousness Feb. 18, was revived, and later died.

The bodies of 10 people who died at the Nocona hospital during the period were exhumed to check for traces of mivacurium chloride, described as the muscle relaxant that Jackson was charged with using in the four deaths cited by the indictment.

A district attorney said further indictments might be issued as tests were carried out on exhumed bodies over the next few months.

Arrest and charging

A Texas grand jury charged Jackson with killing four elderly patients by injecting them with lethal doses of a muscle relaxant. The charge was capital murder.

The deaths occurred about 75 miles northwest of Dallas at Nocona General Hospital, where as many as 20 other people also died in suspicious circumstances from December 2000 to February 2001.

The indictment against Jackson was returned on a Tuesday, and it charged her with capital murder. The district attorney said he was not sure whether he would seek the death penalty.

Jackson was later accused of additional deaths, with prosecutors presenting a case involving 10 patient deaths.

Trial and plea

Jackson pleaded no contest on Tuesday to capital murder. In a no contest plea, a defendant did not admit guilt. A sentencing hearing followed after prosecutors presented evidence to a judge in a brief hearing.

Jackson showed no emotion. When District Judge Roger Towery asked if she was waiving her right to appeal and if she was satisfied with her attorneys, Jackson quietly answered “yes” twice.

Defense attorney Bruce Martin said Jackson decided to enter the plea because her adult daughter was on the state’s witness list. Martin said: “She has never admitted guilt and she was never convicted by a jury,” Martin said. “And her daughter never had to testify against her. Those things meant something to her.”

Prosecutors were surprised by the plea, which came less than a week before Jackson’s trial was scheduled to begin. District attorney Jack McGaughey said: “Frankly, I’ve never been so surprised in a case in my life,” said Jack McGaughey, district attorney for Montague, Clay and Archer counties, who had planned to call 58 witnesses. “The end result is as good as we could have gotten".

Sentencing

Jackson was sentenced to life in prison on October 5, 2006.

A life sentence was automatic because prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty.

In the sentencing context, the maximum sentence she faced if she had been convicted by a jury was life in prison.

Appeals

During the sentencing hearing, District Judge Roger Towery asked if Jackson was waiving her right to appeal; Jackson answered “yes” twice to the questions.

Other details

Jackson was described as a licensed vocational nurse.

FBI Special Agent David Burns testified that Jackson was angered by patients when other nurses were compassionate and showed humor.

One report stated that Jackson had told her daughter she talked to a psychiatrist who diagnosed her with bipolar disorder. Jackson’s daughter, Jennifer Carson, said: “I said, 'What is that?' She said, 'I could kill you and get away with it,'” Jennifer Carson said.

Jennifer Carson also said about her mother: “a baby face on the outside but hell on the inside,” said her daughter, Jennifer Carson, 18.

Jennifer Carson said: “I don't know if she did it or not, but she's perfectly capable of it,” Carson said.

Jackson was described as having moved with her family from Indiana to Nocona when she was a child. Jennifer Carson said she moved to Nocona, a rural North Texas town of about 3,000 people.

The report described Jackson meeting Leroy Carson and marrying him after she got pregnant in 1984, with one son and later a daughter, Jennifer. It said the children were still in diapers when Jackson started attending nursing school at night.

The report stated that after earning a degree and certification, Jackson worked at several nursing homes and hospitals. It also said she would say she was tired of a job and quit.

The report described allegations from Leroy Carson that at home Jackson nagged and yelled at her husband and the children, and that she “had a bad habit of slapping them.”

The report stated that after 12 years of marriage, Leroy Carson divorced his wife in 1996. It said Jackson remarried for a third time to Kirk Jackson, obtained custody of the kids, and that the kids were abused by their stepfather so they moved back with their father.

The report said that in 2000 Jackson lost custody of her children, a close relative died, and she suffered a miscarriage after fighting with her husband.

The report said Jackson was charged with killing 10 patients by administering lethal drug doses and trying to kill an 11th patient in late 2000 and early 2001, and that her capital murder trial in nearby Archer City centered on two of the deaths and she faced up to life in prison if convicted.

A news conference described Montague County District Attorney Tim Cole addressing the media with Montague County Sheriff Chris Hamilton, FBI Special Agent Dale Ensley and Texas Ranger Richard Johnson.

A pre-trial hearing reference stated that Jackson, age 38, was escorted to a courtroom for a pre-trial hearing at the Archer County Courthouse in Archer City, Texas, on February 9, 2005.