Supreme Court Refuses Appeal of Nurse in Bleach Deaths

WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. Supreme Court has denied an appeal from an East Texas nurse sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing five dialysis patients by injecting them with bleach. Justices on Monday let stand, without comment, a 2015 appeals court ruling that upheld the conviction and sentence for Kimberly Saenz. She was convicted in 2012 of capital murder in the deaths of patients at a Lufkin clinic where the licensed vocational nurse worked. Saenz also received three 20-year terms for aggravated assault in the cases of several injured patients. Attorneys for Saenz challenged the jury instructions and said she was denied due process of the law. Saenz was fired in 2008 after a rash of illnesses and deaths at a clinic in Lufkin.