A nurse in Texas was convicted of capital murder Tuesday.
Prosecutors said William Davis, 37, killed four patients recovering from heart surgery by injecting air into their arterial lines while he was working as a nurse at Tyler’s Christus Trinity Mother Frances Hospital.
A jury in Tyler, Texas, convicted Davis of capital murder after about an hour of deliberation.
Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty. The sentencing phase is expected to start Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
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Davis, who was fired in 2018, was accused of killing John Lafferty, Ronald Clark, Christopher Greenaway, and Joseph Kalina, who died of neurological problems, between 2017 and 2018. He also allegedly injected three other patients.
Philip Hayes, a defense attorney for Davis, said his client was being used as a scapegoat for mistakes made by the hospital. “I don’t know if there’s any evidence to show that it was foul play,” he said, according to The New York Times.
Dr. William Yarbrough, a pulmonologist, testified that brain scans demonstrated the injected air traveled to the victims’ brains via the arterial system, causing their demise.
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Prosecutor Jacob Putman said the hospital had not altered its methods and had no comparable disturbances since Davis was fired. Davis “liked to kill people,” prosecutor Chris Gatewood added in closing arguments.
Davis is being held in custody at the Smith County Jail on an $8.75 million bond.
