A “mandatory release” law in Texas is setting free a nurse who was convicted in 1984 of killing a baby and suspected of murdering dozens more, even though her 99-year sentence is far from finished.
The law requires those with good behavior to be freed after serving a certain percentage of their sentences, ABC reported.
The nurse, Genene Anne Jones, is now 63 years old. She was found guilty of killing 15-month-old Chelsea McClellan, a patient at the pediatric clinic where she worked, on May 14, 1984. The mother described how she watched the death of her baby, in an ABC News report.
“I was holding Chelsea, she was facing me, and Jones gave her the first shot in her left thigh. Immediately, Chelsea had trouble breathing. Chelsea was trying to say my name, but she couldn’t,” she said, in ABC.
The nurse then began shooting a lethal dose of a muscle relaxant into the baby’s body, court records said.
Jones was also found guilty in 1984 of injuring another child in her medical care and was sentenced to 60 years in prison for that charge. But the judge allowed that 60-year sentence to run concurrently with the 99-year sentence for murder. Prosecutors, meanwhile, always believed Jones was responsible for as many as 46 infant deaths between 1978 and 1982.
Jones is scheduled for release on Feb. 24, 2018, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice reported. She will have served 35 years behind bars.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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