Killer Nurse: Genene Jones | The Nurse Who Cried Wolf | 2

This episode contains descriptions and details that some listeners might find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. It's just after 9 p.m.

on December 12th, 1981. On the pediatric ICU at Bear County Hospital, nurse Patricia Alberti watches on as two doctors bend over the tiny figure of an 11-month-old boy. They're trying desperately to save him.

Joshua Sawyer has been fighting for his life ever since he was admitted four days ago. He suffered severe smoke inhalation and a house fire, and he's been on heavy sedatives to prevent the seizures he kept having.

Yesterday, he seemed to be turning a corner, but now... Patricia's not sure she'll ever get used to just how fast things can go south here on the PICU when your patients are all so small and so defenseless.

Joshua first went into cardiac arrest around 7 p.m. this evening, seemingly out of nowhere. The doctors managed to stabilize him, but now he's flatlining.

As she watches the doctors work, Patricia's haunted by the conversation she overheard last night between Joshua's mother and Genene Jones, another nurse who works on the PICU.

Genene had said that Joshua would be brain damaged if he ever regained consciousness, and that he'd be better off dead. And she said it with such confidence, almost as if she knew something that nobody else did.

And now, less than 24 hours later, Joshua's heart is failing. Patricia shivers at the memory. It's as if Genene put a curse on the little boy.

And then, suddenly, it's over. The attending physician calls the time of death, 922 p.m. Half in shock, Patricia reaches over and switches off Joshua's heart monitor.

The room empties out. Everybody keeps their eyes to the ground. These are the moments that don't get easier, no matter how long you've been in the job.

As Patricia walks into the hallway a few minutes later, she feels a little unsteady on her feet. Heading towards the nurses' station, she's surprised to see the PICU's medical director, Dr. Jim Robitham, waiting for her.

Dr. Robitham takes her aside and quietly asks if he can trust her to be discreet. Then he instructs her to collect a sample of Joshua's blood and send it down to the laboratory.

He wants them to run a full drug panel, including tests for any medication that might have been administered in the hospital. Patricia nods, keeping her expression deliberately calm. Inwardly she's reeling.

She knows there's only one reason the doctor would be asking for this. If he suspects Joshua Sawyer didn't die from natural causes. Dr.

Robitham seems to hesitate, like he's debating whether to speak again. Then he leans in close to Patricia and murmurs, keep an eye on Genene Jones. From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

In 1977, Genene Jones felt like she'd finally found her place in the world.

5:19

Genene Early Career

She ditched her no good husband, moved back to her hometown with her young son, and settled into a comfortable life as a single mom. Even better, after years of feeling directionless and dependent on other people, she was pursuing a real career path.

She'd been obsessed with medicine for years, and now she was studying to be a nurse. After passing her licensing exam with flying colors, Genene sailed right into a position on a pediatric ward at one of the largest hospitals in San Antonio.

She quickly impressed her supervisors with her knowledge and dedication. She also endeared herself to the parents of sick children, making a real effort to bond with them.

But beneath that confident, hardworking exterior, a dark compulsion was brewing. Genene's interest in disease and death was born out of two huge foundational traumas, the sudden losses of her brother and her dad while she was still a teenager.

So to her, the only interesting kind of medicine was the catastrophic kind, where the chances of recovery were slim to none.

She got a thrill out of cherry-picking the most critical and desperate cases, and then making a big emotional scene when she lost the patient. But before long, even that wasn't enough for Genene.

She was no longer content to just wait around and hope for a disaster. So she started creating them for herself. This is episode two in our four-part series about Genene Jones, the nurse who cried wolf.

It's a quiet afternoon in the spring of 1978 in San Antonio, Texas. 28-year-old Genene Jones walks briskly through the hallways of Methodist Hospital.

Her shift on the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit doesn't start for another 15 minutes, but Genene always makes a point of arriving early. As far as she's concerned, on time is late.

She's only been in her job as a licensed vocational nurse or LVN for seven months, but Genene feels like she's worked here her entire life. She knows the ward like the back of her hand, and she feels more at home here than she does anywhere else.

In fact, if it weren't for her two children at home, she'd probably never leave the hospital. After dropping off her purse at the staff locker room and changing into her uniform, Genene clocks in for her shift and begins making her rounds.

The first patient she needs to check on is Ellen, a woman in her 60s who just came out of bypass surgery. But Ellen's room is empty. Genene's heart begins to pound.

Something terrible must have happened while she was off shift. She knew it. She can't trust anybody else to take care of her patients.

Most of the other nurses are incompetent, and none of them care as much as she does. She looks around wildly, then grabs the chart that's clipped to the end of Ellen's bed.

It looks like everything went smoothly during the operation, so where is her patient? She strides back out into the hallway and towards the nurses' station, ready to raise hell. But on her way, she passes the patient lounge and stops in her tracks.

She can't believe what she's seeing. Ellen's in there, surrounded by family members, and she's smoking a cigarette. Genene storms into the lounge and orders Ellen to put out the cigarette.

Startled by her tone, Ellen obeys. But Genene is furious about way more than the smoking. Ellen shouldn't be out of bed at all.

During her procedure, the surgeon had grafted a healthy blood vessel from her leg into her heart, and she needs to keep her leg elevated to reduce swelling and promote circulation while she heals. Genene tells Ellen all of this.

Then, she pulls up a chair and snaps at her to elevate her leg on it, now. Ellen's still a little groggy from the surgery and takes a while to react. But Genene isn't in a waiting mood.

She lets out a growl of frustration and grabs hold of Ellen's leg herself, hoisting it onto the chair. Ellen yells in pain, which Genene ignores.

As she takes Ellen's blood pressure, she tells the older woman that if she doesn't do what she's told, she could lose her leg. It's up to her. Ellen's terrified, not just by the threat of amputation, but by the fury in Genene's voice.

As her leg throbs with pain, she apologizes. She didn't realize. Nobody told her about her leg.

As the red haze clears, Genene takes a moment to compose herself. Of course they didn't tell you, she thinks. Everybody else around here is asleep at the wheel.

This thought calms her down. In a gentler voice, she tells Ellen that she needs to go back to her room immediately. Watching all of this happen, Ellen's family has no idea that Genene is an LVN, one of the lowest ranking members of staff on the unit.

Given how domineering she is, they assume she's in charge, and they're too intimidated to stand up to her. That's exactly how Genene wants it. Genene truly believes that she's the best nurse at Methodist Hospital.

It doesn't matter that she's been qualified for less than a year, or that this is her first job out of school. She's sure that she's head and shoulders above her colleagues. And to be fair, that confidence isn't totally unearned.

Despite being pregnant with a second child throughout her LVN program, Genene was a star student and graduated with honors in May of 1977.

Shortly afterwards, she aced her licensing exam, and secured her first nursing job just two months after giving birth. Her mom was more than happy to help out with child care, relieved to see Genene finally applying herself.

In the fall of 1977, she started work at Methodist Hospital, where she was assigned to the cardiac ICU. And initially, Genene's superiors were impressed by her enthusiasm and commitment.

She was always the first to volunteer for extra shifts, and given how short staff the hospital was, that earned her a lot of points.

Plus, her knowledge of medicine and anatomy were way beyond that of an average nurse, never mind a newly qualified one. Seems all those years of reading medical textbooks in her spare time have served her well.

This expertise and confidence has also earned her respect from some colleagues, who see her as a steady pair of hands. But all of this has also contributed to Genene's growing arrogance.

During her first performance review, a supervisor noted that Genene had a tendency to make judgments that she was neither experienced enough nor authorized to make. But Genene brushes off others' criticism and concerns.

In her mind, anyone who complains about her must be insecure or jealous. After all, doctors and RNs don't like it when a lowly LVN catches them in a mistake. But it's not just colleagues who chafe at Genene's domineering attitude.

Her bedside manner is unpredictable at best. With the patients she likes, she's gentle. Caring and endlessly devoted.

But if she sees you as difficult or resistant to medical advice, then God help you. Ellen, with her elevated leg, isn't the first patient Genene has ever yelled at. But she will be the first one to fight back.

After she returns to her room and has finally come round from her general anesthetic, Ellen keeps dwelling on what happened in the patient lounge.

How Genene barked orders at her and physically manhandled her just hours after a life-threatening surgery just doesn't sit right with her. And so, the next morning, Ellen makes a formal complaint.

When Genene arrives for her shift that afternoon, her supervisor takes her aside and tells her about the complaint. And of course, Genene's shocked.

She says she was only trying to take care of the patient's health and minimize her chances of post-op complications. She asked to speak to Ellen in person to straighten the whole thing out, but her supervisor forbids it.

She's not to go near the patient under any circumstances. Genene nods, then walks out of the supervisor's office and heads straight for Ellen's room anyway. When she barges in, Ellen looks up from her book, astonished.

Shaking, with anger, Genene demands to know why Ellen's trying to get her fired. And then she bursts into tears. Thankfully, a passing RN sees what's going on and orders Genene out of the room.

After Genene's gone, the nurse notices that Ellen's heart rate is spiking and her blood pressure is high. Since Ellen is just two days out from a bypass surgery, any unnecessary stress on her heart could be dangerous.

The nurse orders sedatives to calm Ellen down, and then reports what's happened to the shift supervisor. After the way Genene doubled down on her bad behavior, the hospital has no choice but to fire her.

15:12

Bexar County PICU

The official reason given is unprofessional conduct, which doesn't look good on her record, in theory. But Genene's job prospects are still bright. Like many parts of the US at the time and today, San Antonio is experiencing a severe nurse shortage.

Hospitals just can't afford to be that picky about who they hire. And so after taking the summer off, Genene walks right into a new job in the fall of 1978. Bexar County Hospital is a different beast than her last workplace.

Methodist had been the largest and most well-equipped facility in the area, the flagship hospital of San Antonio. Bexar County is large, too, but it's also significantly underfunded and primarily treats low-income and uninsured patients.

The 1970s have been an especially rough time for the hospital because a recent expansion has let personnel stretch thinner than ever.

All of which is to say, Bexar County needs all the help it can get, even from nurses with a history of unprofessional conduct. Genene is assigned to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, working with severely ill babies and toddlers.

Once again, she quickly endears herself to her superiors by being willing to work more over time than anybody else. Desperate parents love her too because she's so relentlessly dedicated to their children's care.

She's also unusually good at certain tricky tasks, like inserting an IV line into the tiny veins of a baby. And, unlike many of her colleagues, Genene doesn't seem to get burned out by the emotional toll of working with sick infants.

If anything, she thrives on it. But Genene also makes several major errors during her first year at Bear County. She often seems to misunderstand or disregard instructions from doctors and more experienced nurses.

And while most of her mistakes are easily corrected, one is life-threatening. When she's administering medication to a baby, she accidentally triples the dose.

Luckily, her attending physician spots the mistake and corrects it in time to avert disaster. But it's a near miss and one that results in a written warning. Genene's colleagues also start to notice a weird pattern.

She seems determined to see the worst in every situation, often making grim predictions about an infant's prognosis. These children will die, she insists.

She'll claim to have spotted a serious problem that everybody else has missed, suggesting unnecessary tests that she doesn't have the authority to order. And then, when she's proved wrong, she'll refuse to admit she made a mistake.

Behind her back, people start calling her the nurse who cried wolf. But the PICU's head nurse, Pat Belko, adores Genene and sees her as indispensable.

As far as Pat's concerned, Genene's catastrophizing is just extreme caution, and that's a good quality for a nurse to have. But unfortunately, for everyone at Bexar County, Genene's dire predictions are about to start coming true.

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22:09

Unprofessional Conduct

It's a little before dawn in September of 1979. The pick you at Bear County Hospital is unusually quiet this morning. The infant patients are all still and relatively peaceful.

In the waiting room, their exhausted parents sit in silence, waiting for news. Nobody looks twice at 29-year-old Genene Jones when she walks onto the ward and heads straight towards one of the patient's rooms.

She's in full uniform and just looks like any other nurse. But her supervisor, Sherlyn Penegraaff, notices. Confused, she checks the staff schedule and confirms her suspicions.

Genene's not supposed to be here. She just finished a shift at 11 p.m. last night, and she's not due back at work for another 10 hours.

And this isn't the first time this has happened. Just last month, Genene received a formal warning for refusing to leave the hospital at the end of a double shift. Sherlyn just doesn't understand it.

After working a 16-hour day, she can't wait to get away from this place. But Genene seems addicted to the hospital. Concerned, Sherlyn quickly ends her phone call and walks briskly across the foyer to catch up with Genene.

She finds her at the bedside of an unconscious child, fiddling with the patient's IV line. Sharply, Sherlyn asks her what she's doing. Without turning around, Genene says that she's taking care of her patient.

This child is under her care. Sherlyn takes Genene by the shoulder, forcing her to turn around. She reminds Genene that she's not due to start her shift until 3 p.m.

this afternoon. More importantly, this patient has already been seen by the attending physician. No adjustments need to be made to her medication.

So, what exactly is Genene doing? Before Genene can respond, Sherlyn notices a strange smell, like it's a stringent, almost like cleaning fluid. And then, with horror, she realizes what it is, alcohol.

Genene is drunk, and Sherlyn calls her on it. Of course, Genene tries to deny the accusation, but the smell on her breath is unmistakable. Sherlyn tells Genene to leave the room immediately, but Genene ignores her and turns back to the patient.

Now aware that she's out of her depth, Sherlyn pages for backup. When two doctors arrive in the room, Genene claims that she was just making sure the patient's IV line was properly inserted. It's her specialty, after all.

But the doctors aren't interested in her explanation, and they order her to leave. Genene has a little more respect for doctors than for other nurses, so she finally relents, but she's not happy about it.

After Genene's gone, Sherlyn and her colleagues are gobsmacked. They can't believe what they've just witnessed. A drunk nurse trying to tend to a patient.

Thankfully, the infant is fine, but Sherlyn is haunted by the possibility of what could have happened if she hadn't spotted Genene. She resolves to do whatever it takes to make sure this never happens again.

Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. By this point, the red flags have been accumulating in Genene's file for some time.

She's received multiple written warnings for medication errors over the past few months, and has been forced to repeat a training on drug administration.

But head nurse Pat Belko has always stood by her, insisting that these are understandable mistakes for a young nurse to make.

It also helps that Genene is beloved by the parents of her patients, who see her as a beacon of hope during the darkest time of their lives. In contrast to the revolving door of doctors, Genene is a constant, reassuring presence.

She goes above and beyond in taking care of their babies, and she always makes time to bond with the parents themselves too. But she's not so popular with her colleagues. They see Genene as a liability.

Sure, she works more overtime than anybody else, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Medicine should prioritize the quality of care, not the quantity of hours.

And unlike with stressed parents, Genene doesn't go out of her way to make friends with her co-workers.

In fact, she's quick to question other nurses' opinions, and has a habit of constantly calling doctors with minor questions, or raising the alarm over non-existent problems.

During downtime, she talks openly about her sex life and tells dramatic stories about her past, claiming that she once spent weeks in a coma after a car accident. Some staffers find her entertaining, but generally people are wary of her.

She seems to be constantly seeking attention in whatever form she can get it. Just last month, Genene was assigned to care for a 10-month-old girl whose heart was failing. The girl's prognosis was terminal, and everybody knew it.

After working a double shift, 3 p.m. to 7 a.m., Genene didn't clock off. She stayed in the little girl's room, watching over her alongside her parents.

When Genene's supervisor, Sherlyn, found out, she took her aside and ordered her to go home. There are strict rules in place about how many hours medical staff can work before a break. And 16 hours is the upper limit for an LVN.

But Genene said no. She told Sherlyn that she'd bonded with the girl's parents and they needed her. More importantly, the child needed her.

When Genene kept refusing to go home, a senior administrator was forced to intervene and order her to leave. Sherlyn wanted Genene written up for insubordination. But once again, Pat Belko defended her.

Yes, Genene's behavior was misguided, but it was rooted in concern for her patient. Despite Pat's advocacy, too many higher ups at the hospital were aware of what Genene had done.

So Pat was forced to place Genene on notice, which meant that any future insubordination would get her suspended if not fired. But Genene had no reason to take the warning seriously.

She knew that she was an indispensable asset and felt confident that Pat would continue to shield her, no matter what she did. Now, just weeks later, she'd shown up on the pick you at 5 a.m. after staying up all night drinking with a friend.

Sherlyn goes directly to Pat and tells her everything. Surely, this has to be the final straw. Genene knowingly endangered the health of a patient by tinkering with her IV while under the influence of alcohol.

If that's not enough for her to be fired, what is? Pat admits that this is a fireable offense, but she still refuses to actually get rid of Genene. She won't even suspend her.

There's a bigger picture to consider here, she argues. The PICU is going through a severe staffing shortage, and Genene has worked dozens of extra shifts to help make up for the shortfall. Without her, the unit wouldn't be functioning at all.

So Pat figures they can't afford to get rid of her. Instead, she issues Genene a final warning. Sherlyn is speechless when she learns this is Genene's only punishment, and she requests to be transferred to a different department.

Partly it's because she doesn't want to work under Pat anymore. But mostly, she's sure it's only a matter of time before something truly awful happens, and she wants no part of it. None of this bothers Genene, though.

She doesn't care what her colleagues think of her. Never has. She just seems determined to spend as many waking hours as she can inside a hospital, whether as a nurse or a patient.

Her anxiety about her own health is laying dormant for a while, but as she settles into a role at Bear County, it emerges again.

She's a regular at various walk-in clinics and ERs in the area, where she presents with a smorgasbord of different symptoms, stomach trouble, shooting pains in her chest, dizziness, itching, pain all over her body.

At one point, she shows up to the ER at Bear County, claiming that over the past few weeks, she's been losing strength in her legs and arms.

She reports that she can no longer lift a hair dryer or play the piano, and that she started parking in a disabled space because she can't manage the walk from the regular lot.

Genene is quick to inform the doctor that she works at the hospital and she's already diagnosed herself. It has to either be brain cancer or multiple sclerosis.

Genene is admitted to the hospital's neurology department, and over the course of a week, she undergoes a battery of tests, which all come back clear. They also reveal that there's no objective weakness in Genene's muscles.

Her strength and range of motion are normal, but the neurologist in charge of her case doesn't believe she's faking it. From what he can tell, Genene's symptoms are real. To her, they're psychosomatic, probably brought on by stress.

So he advises her to reduce her hours at work. But Genene tells him that's not gonna happen. Her patients need her.

She's the most important nurse at Bayer. She'll just have to tough it out, she says. But the truth is that the whole experience has been enough to soothe Genene for now.

She's received detention and had her fears allayed. So, the day after she's discharged from Bayer County, she's right back on the ward as usual, doing her rounds, seemingly back to full strength.

Diana and Crescencio-Hogada are thrilled to see Genene back. Ever since their baby Chris was admitted to the PICU four months ago, she's been a lifeline for them.

She's the only member of the staff who's really made the effort to get to know them, even having heart-to-hearts with them long after her shift is supposed to end. Now, Genene embraces Diana warmly and approaches Chris in his hospital bed.

She checks his vitals, reviews his charts, and then lets out a long sigh. She looks right at the couple and tells them, I don't think Chris has much longer to live. The Hogadas are confused.

They've known from the start that Chris's chances aren't great. He's spent half his young life in the hospital thanks to a severe congenital heart defect, and it's been touch and go at times.

Still, as far as they're aware, he's been improving recently. The last doctor they spoke to even told them that there's a chance he could go home soon. But they trust Genene.

She knows Chris's case better than anyone. And so, they listen meekly as she tells them that she has a sick sense about these things. And it's never been wrong yet.

They should start preparing for the worst, she says. Their son's days are numbered.

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35:06

Chris Hogueda Case

It's an ordinary evening in May of 1981 when Diana and Crescencio-Hogueta get the call.

They've just finished dinner, and Diana's about to start the dishes when the phone rings. It's Genene Jones, and she doesn't mince her words. She tells Diana, Chris has gone to play with the angels.

Diana sinks to the floor and calls for her husband. It's not a surprise, not really. Their 15-month-old son's condition has been getting worse and worse over the past couple of months, just as Genene predicted.

A few weeks ago, he developed a severe infection which ran rampant through his tiny body. The doctors did everything they could, even though everyone knew he was living on borrowed time.

But now that the worst has actually happened, the couple are in shock. The Hogeidas quickly gather a few belongings, get in the car and drive as fast as they can to Bexar County Hospital.

They live more than 200 miles away in West Texas, and commuting back and forth has been exhausting. That's partly why they're so grateful to Genene.

She's so devoted to Chris that they feel less guilty about not being able to be at the hospital every day. When they get to the PICU, Diana and Cresencio immediately go to their son's room, expecting to visit his body and say a final goodbye.

But when they arrive, they can't believe their eyes. Chris is alive. He's lying in his little bed just like normal.

The beeping of his heart rate monitor is fast and irregular like it has been for weeks, but his heart is definitely beating. He looks just like he did when they left him.

Once they get over their shock and relief, the Hogeidas ask to see Genene, but she's not here. Her shift ended an hour ago. They're bewildered.

They can't make sense of why Genene would scare them like this. She wouldn't have made that phone call if she didn't truly believe that Chris was already dead. But why would she think that?

In the end, the Hogeidas never get an explanation for Genene's false alarm. No one does. But it soon becomes unimportant.

As it turns out, she was only a few days early. Late in the evening of May 14th, Genene and the other PICU nurses are giving their end-of-shift report before handing over to the next rotation.

Suddenly, they all hear a deafening crash coming from Chris' room. Genene and her colleagues run to see what's happened.

As they reach the room, they see Chris lying halfway out of his hospital bed, hanging in midair from the tubing of his respirator. The guard rails on his bed have been left down, allowing him to roll sideways and fall.

As they all rush to lift Chris back into his bed and make him comfortable, Genene admits that she was the last person who checked on him. And she seems genuinely horrified by what she's done.

It was a mistake, of course, an absent-minded slip at the end of a long shift, but it's still a pretty big mistake that could have killed the patient. But as usual, Genene gets away with it.

Pat Belko takes her side in the matter, giving her yet another toothless written warning. She's even allowed to keep caring for Chris right up until the moment he goes into fatal cardiac arrest just a week later.

38:37

Suspicious Deaths

This time, the Hogeidas know that it's not a false alarm when Genene calls. And they're so enamored with Genene that they ask her if she can stay with Chris until they can get to the hospital.

Despite everything that's happened lately, she's still the only person they truly trust with their son's care. Genene tells them she won't leave his side.

After hanging up the phone, she disconnects Chris from the various tubes and machines that have been keeping him alive for months. She bathes his limp body, singing quietly to him as she does.

Then she wraps him in a blanket and settles down into a chair in the corner of the room, cradling him close to her chest and crying. That's how Diana and Crescencio find her when they arrive more than an hour later.

Genene is openly devastated by Chris' death. For weeks afterwards, she'll become tearful anytime the child's name comes up. This doesn't strike anybody as unusual.

Every nurse or doctor has certain patients they get attached to. Deaths they take harder than others. Pat Belko, the head nurse, offers to lighten Genene's caseload for a while by assigning her more straightforward patients who are unlikely to die.

But Genene is horrified by this suggestion. She actually seems a little offended by it. Instead, she asks Pat to make sure that the very sickest patients get assigned to her.

Getting her hands on the most dire cases becomes Genene's new obsession. She starts arriving even earlier than usual for her shift, so that she can get the pick of the new admissions.

Without fail, she always scoops up the most complex and critical cases, the kids who have all the odds stacked against them.

This means that Genene sees more and more of her patients die, and every time, she goes through a version of the same macabre ritual that began with Chris Hogaeda.

After the time of death is called, Genene asks the attending doctor to give her a few moments alone with the infant. Then she picks up the body and cradles it close to her chest, speaking or singing quietly to the departed child.

All of this before anyone has told the parents. To onlookers, the whole thing seems a little pathological. Genene seems genuinely emotional.

She breaks down and sobs openly whenever a patient dies on her watch, which again is a lot. But in the fall of 1981, it's not just the critical patients who are dying at Bear County Hospital.

Kids who were admitted with relatively treatable conditions are suddenly deteriorating without warning. On the one hand, this is all just part of life in the PICU.

Sometimes things are missed during admission and any patient can take an abrupt turn for the worse. But on the other hand, Genene Jones is at the center of these cases every single time.

She's always there when a child codes, whether it's her patient or not. And she always volunteers to take each body down to the morgue herself, carrying them in her arms rather than on a gurney. A self-appointed Angel of Death.

In October of 1981, six-month-old Jose Antonio Flores is admitted with vomiting and diarrhea. This is a pretty routine presentation, and he's expected to make a full recovery after getting fluids and antibiotics.

But as she's getting Jose settled into his hospital bed, Genene quietly tells a colleague that she thinks Jose is a lot more sick than he looks. She just has a feeling about him. A few days later, Jose unexpectedly has a seizure.

Genene is tasked with taking him to the basement for a brain scan. She's down there, alone with the infant, for more than an hour. Shortly after he returns, Jose goes into cardiac arrest and begins bleeding uncontrollably.

Mystified, doctors spend a frantic hour trying desperately to save him. They get him stabilized, but it's only temporary. Jose goes into cardiac arrest again the next day, and despite everyone's best efforts, he dies.

It's a devastating day for everyone involved. This is a child who's died on their watch, but it's also a cause for suspicion, because this came out of nowhere. And look, nobody can prove anything, not yet.

But to a few staffers who are paying attention, it's beginning to feel like something is terribly, dangerously wrong inside the pick you. Like there's a devil in their midst. And there's no telling when they'll strike next.

From Airship, this is episode two in our series on the crimes of Genene Jones. On the next episode, a spade of suspicious infant deaths on the pick you finally draws attention to Genene. We use many different sources while preparing this episode.

A few we can recommend are The Death Shift by Peter Elkin. Elkin's August 1983 article of the same name published in Texas Monthly. And an episode of the TV series Murder by Medic.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details. And while in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research. American Criminal is a co-production of airship and evergreen podcasts.

It's hosted, edited, and produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz. Audio editing and sound design by Sean Ruhl-Hoffman. Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Emma Dipton, managing producer Emily Burke. Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson, and Lindsey Graham.