Former Nurse’s Murder Trial to Begin
Posted/updated on: September 6, 2011 at 2:53 pm
ANGELINA COUNTY — The capital murder trial of a Lufkin nurse accused of killing five dialysis patients by injecting them with bleach begins today. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty for Kimberly Clark Saenz, 37, a former nurse at DaVita Dialysis, where she worked for eight months.
Federal health officials became involved in a massive health investigation in late April 2008 after a series of patient deaths and illnesses at the Lufkin dialysis center. The center closed for nearly two months as investigators spent weeks combing through patient documents and preserving dialysis equipment for forensic testing. Lufkin Police linked Saenz to some of the center’s patient complications May 30 of that year when they charged her with aggravated assault. DaVita fired her a day before police filed charges. Police say two witnesses saw Saenz fill a syringe with bleach and inject the substance into two patients’ dialysis lines. Both of those patients survived.
