[music playing]
The Medical Center Director contacted our 24/7 duty phone
number and indicated that the facility had reviewed
multiple instances going back to January of 2018
and had identified inpatients who had suffered
severe low blood sugar, all of which,
with the exception of one, had passed away shortly thereafter.
[music playing]
The victims in this case were all elderly males.
They all had various health conditions.
However, the clinical expectation was that they were
all supposed to be discharged.
Death did not appear to be imminent.
[beeping]
Some of the medical doctors found it unusual, first of all,
that there were multiple non-diabetic
patients that were dying of the severely low blood sugar.
[music playing]
There was no logical reason why their blood sugar plummeted
to such dangerously low levels.
[beeping]
[music playing]
Within a day of opening their investigation,
they contacted the local FBI office and we got involved.
Through time cards, work schedules and other records
that helped narrow down the possible list
of subjects or suspects that could be involved in the case.
It quickly became apparent there were a total of four
individuals at the hospital out of 1,200 employees
who were there at each of the dates for these events.
[music playing]
Reta Mays was an un-certified nursing assistant who worked
in the medical surgical unit that
they referred to as "Ward 3A."
She was responsible for taking the vitals of patients, intake
and outtake, as well as taking glucometer
or fingerstick readings of blood sugar levels of patients.
[music playing]
In the initial interview, you really just want her
to do as much talking as possible to then go back later
and impeach the information that she gave us.
Our team was directly across the hall to just listen in.
We were putting the pieces together to see what we could
make of what she had to say.
[music playing]
She denied being in the medication room alone, which
we knew was contradictory with what
witnesses told us previously.
And what's important there is that the insulin was
stored in the medication room.
Some of Reta Mays' coworkers on 3A
had various accounts that stuck out to us as far as red flags.
She, more or less, did not act normal when compared
to the rest of her coworkers.
There were some instances where she held patients hands
while crying bedside with them as
well too, which a lot of the staff indicated to us
was abnormal.
[music playing]
- Why not? - Why not?
I'm asking.
[music playing]
We learned that Reta Mays' husband
had been in jail during the times in which
the murders took place.
Reta Mays' husband would call her almost every morning
after her overnight shift ended.
[music playing]
During some of these calls with her husband,
Reta indicated her struggles with her interactions
with these patients.
[music playing]
When she returned the following shift after having placed
that call and made those comments,
the same patient suffered low blood sugars again,
indicative of this patient being administered insulin
two different occasions.
[music playing]
We had a Special Agent from the FBI Behavioral
Analysis Unit come out.
They offered for Special Agent Carrie Robbins
to participate and to conduct the interview.
We had been prepping her for it with just
one interviewer in the room.
The interviewer does pay compliments
to Mays that would really allow Mays to agree with her
and engage her in talking.
It builds a little bit of rapport,
but it also makes Reta feel that she has
the power in the conversation.
[music playing]
You can see she's hunched her shoulders
and drawn her arms across her body as pretty defensive.
So, to me, I think she was panicking a little bit.
[music playing]
Right after the interview, there was a major payoff
because within a few hours of that end
of the second interview, she actually buys a book
called "I'm Dead, Now What?"
indicating that she's having potentially
some suicidal thoughts.
Why?
Because she's just been told she is the prime suspect
in all of these cases.
[music playing]
It almost gave us more fuel to figure this out,
we're going to get to the bottom of this.
[music playing]
Between the second interview in August of 2018
and October of 2019, the bulk of the investigative work
was complete during that time period.
The investigation involved a review of hundreds of thousands
of VA employee emails, years worth of internet browsing
activity, a review of hundreds of hours of recorded phone
calls, a review of other electronic media
and electronic evidence as well.
[music playing]
What we learned at that point in the investigation
was that Reta would talk with other staff members on Facebook
Messenger and they would, in real time,
be discussing patients and what was going on the ward.
And Reta was referring to some of our victims.
What happened to this patient, who was in this room, and what
about this patient?
So she was following up to see, essentially, did they live
or did they die.
[music playing]
The interviews were important, despite not
obtaining a confession.
There was no eyewitness, no surveillance
camera footage, no murder weapon, no DNA, no fingerprint.
Therefore, the culmination of the interviews
strengthened the investigation.
Although we did not get the verbal answers
and the confessions that we were looking for,
just to be able to tap into the mindset of Reta
was just as important.
[music playing]