Nurse admits she overmedicated hospice patients to death – but no murder charges filed

Brad Harris, CEO of hospice agency Novus

A Texas hospice nurse admitted she overmedicated two patients at the direction of her company’s CEO in order to speed their deaths, court records reveal.

But at this point, no one has been charged with murder.

Nurse Taryn Stuart is expected, instead, to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. The 34-year-old is one of 16 total defendants in a criminal case against them and their employer, Novus Health Services Inc. and Optim Health Services Inc.

Court documents obtained by the Daily News — and first reported on by the Dallas Morning News — say that Stuart acted out the instructions of Novus’ CEO Bradley Harris to “intentionally overmedicate” patients with drugs like hydromorphone and morphine “with the intent to hasten their deaths.”

The records show that Harris – who isn’t medically trained — texted Stuart that one of their patients “better not make it tomorrow. Or I will blame u.”

Harris routinely advised several nurses on patient care that included overmedicating and changing end-of-life directives and had doctors falsify prescription and death records, authorities allege. His instructions were carried out by registered nurses and licensed practical nurses or the staffers were swiftly replaced with someone, often Stuart, who would “do it right,” according to the documents.

A number of texts were discovered to be linked to the deaths of patients referred to as J.J and B.R in the court filings.

“I told this chick if she would just give her 1ml of Ativan and turn her she would die,” Harris wrote to Stuart about a lethal dose of a sedative is quoted in the documents.

“Yeah I bet a good few hours of 1ml Ativan and 2ml morphine q1hr would help that right along,” Stuart agreed with the CEO, using the medical shorthand “q1hr” to refer to each or every hour.

Similar texts about medications and doses that worked “like a charm” between Stuart and her supervisor-turned-co-defendant, Jessica Love, were noted in the report as well.

“turn off o2 (oxygen) or down to nothing if family at bedside… give 2 mg Ativan – 20 of morphine and start fresh with meds,” Love messaged Stuart.

“Those are the same things I always do…” Stuart replied. “Great minds think alike.”

At this point, the only pleas made by defendants in the case are in connection to fraudulent activity, not the deaths. It remains unclear why no murder charges have been brought against Stuart, Harris, Love or any other defendant.

"It's not the nature of law enforcement to ignore a higher and greater offense," criminal defense attorney Barry Sorrels told the Dallas Morning News.

The penalty for murder could be life in prison – regardless of the health status of the deceased, including hospice patients who likely didn’t have much time left to live.

"This has murder and conspiracy to commit murder all over it,” medical malpractice lawyer Jack Walker told the news site. “All of the distribution of controlled substance allegations stem around murder.”

"These intentional acts? This is horrific," Walker added. "This is probably the worst that you could see because all of this is for a business purpose."

Stuart’s conspiracy plea says that between June 2012 and September 2015, she defrauded Medicare and Medicaid by “admitting patient beneficiaries to Novus hospice service who were not eligible,” and later billing the government health offices for services that were never provided to anyone.

Her plea agreement states that she cannot be imprisoned for more than a maximum of 10 years and that the court can grant her a term of “supervised release” of just three years or less. The government, in turn, agrees that it “will not bring any additional charges against (Stuart)” based on the facts laid out in her plea agreement.

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Nurse admits she overmedicated hospice patients to death – but no murder charges filed