Agency- No rule violation in nursing home deaths

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A review of five deaths at an Ashland nursing home in 1990s did not find any rule violations, but a state official said Friday the information would be shared with a prosecutor handling the multiple murder case of former nurse Richard Williams.

Williams faces 10 first-degree murder charges for the 1992 deaths of patients under his care at the Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital in Columbia. He is accused of killing the patients with the drug succinylcholine, a powerful muscle relaxant that causes a person to stop breathing. The drug typically is used before inserting a breathing tube for surgeries.

Williams also worked as director of nursing at Ashland Healthcare from July 1993 to July 1994. In that 12-month period, about 30 patients died at the nursing home. In the 10 months following his dismissal, just six patients died. He is not charged in any of those deaths.

But after Williams was charged earlier this month in the hospital deaths, the state Division of Health Standards and Licensing initiated a review of some of the nursing home deaths.

"As a result of that review, we have not found that the facility violated any regulations dealing with nursing homes," said Darrell Hendrickson, deputy director of the division that licenses nursing homes and hospitals.

Nonetheless, Hendrickson is to meet next week with Boone County prosecutor Kevin Crane to share information and "discuss the next steps."

Crane said he was interested in the health division's information and stressed that additional charges remain a possibility.

"We're pursing the investigation, be it at the VA or elsewhere," Crane said. "And Darrell, by virtue of being in that regulatory agency over nursing homes, has access to information that is more easily obtained by him. We've been talking. We're going to continue to talk."

The state review looked for inconsistencies or anomalies in patient care, such as notations that a person was doing well before suddenly becoming ill and dying, Hendrickson said. He declined to identify the patients or say whether Williams was directly supervising their care.

The state Board of Nursing previously investigated Williams' employment at the Ashland home and found that an abnormal number of deaths occurred.