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Genene Jones

Also known as: Angel of Death

Active
1981–1982
Region
Kerrville and San Antonio, Texas, USA
State
TX
Kind
Serial
Status
Convicted
Victims
2

Genene Jones, a licensed vocational nurse, worked in the pediatric intensive care unit at Bexar County Hospital in San Antonio, where an unusual number of children died or suffered emergencies on her shifts, and then at a new pediatric clinic in Kerrville. In 1984 she was convicted of murdering 15-month-old Chelsea McClellan with an injected drug at the Kerrville clinic and sentenced to 99 years. When she was due for mandatory release in 2018, Bexar County prosecutors charged her with five more murders; in January 2020 she pleaded guilty to the 1981 murder of 11-month-old Joshua Sawyer and was sentenced to life in prison. She is suspected in many more deaths.

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Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

Timeline of locations

  1. 1978
    Bexar County Hospital (now University Hospital) (Workplace)

    Jones worked in the pediatric ICU here until 1982. Joshua Sawyer died in the unit on December 12, 1981; in 2020 she pleaded guilty to his murder. The hospital ousted her after internal reviews without alerting police.

  2. September 17, 1982
    Pediatric clinic, Kerrville (Crime scene, approximate area)

    At a new pediatric clinic in Kerrville, several children stopped breathing within weeks of Jones's arrival. Chelsea McClellan was given a fatal injection of a muscle relaxant at the clinic and died that day.

  3. February 1984
    McClellan murder trial, Georgetown (Court / trial, approximate area)

    The trial was moved from Kerrville to Georgetown. A jury convicted Jones of murder in February 1984, and she was sentenced to 99 years.

  4. 2020
    Dr. Lane Murray Unit, Gatesville (Prison)

    Jones is serving her sentences at the Lane Murray Unit, a women's prison in Gatesville.

  5. January 16, 2020
    Bexar County court, San Antonio (Court / trial, approximate area)

    Jones pleaded guilty to Joshua Sawyer's murder before Judge Frank Castro and was sentenced to life in prison; four other murder counts were dismissed.

Watch, listen, read

Read

  • The Death Shift: The True Story of Nurse Genene Jones and the Texas Baby Murders (1989, Peter Elkind)

Sources

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.