Inside the Story of Nurse Heather Pressdee — How she killed her patients with Lethal Insulin

The story of nurse Heather Pressdee

By Rare StoriesPublished 13 days ago • Updated 13 days ago • 3 min read

Insulin is a drug used in the management of diabetes. It reduces the blood glucose level. When given in excess, it causes excessive low levels of blood glucose level and eventually leads to the patient's death.

Heather Pressdee was a Pennsylvania nurse who worked at several nursing homes where she carried out a series of killings that put her in prison for the rest of her life.

The Beginning

Heather Pressdee was born between 1981 and 1982 in Natrona Heights. The details of her early life have not been made public, but between 2003, and 2004, she attended the Community College of Allegheny County, but she never graduated. When she left the community college, Pressdee took up a job as a veterinary technician at the Pittsburgh Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Center. At this facility where she worked for 14 years, she cared for critically ill animals, gave them anesthesia, and sometimes euthanized them.

In 2016, she returned to the school where she graduated with an associate’s degree in nursing and received her on July 31, 2018.

She had worked in several facilities where she was either fired or disciplined before taking up a job at Quality Life Services, a nursing facility in Butler County, Pennsylvania.

She worked at six different nursing homes in less than three years and was working at the seventh facility when her crimes were first noticed leading to her being charged with two counts of murder following the mysterious deaths of two patients at Quality Life Services in Chicora, Pennsylvania.

Catching the Killer

Pressdee who was arrested in May 2023 began killing her patients in 2020. She administered fatal doses of insulin to no less than 22 patients at the facilities where she had worked in Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler, and Westmoreland counties. Seventeen of the patients died from the lethal doses of the insulin she gave them.

Following a report of questionable conduct, a comprehensive investigation ensued and revealed the numerous deaths" caused by Pressdee's actions.

Trial and Sentencing

Following her arrest, Pressdee was charged with two counts of homicide, one count of attempted murder, one count of aggravated assault, three counts of neglecting a care-dependent person, and three counts of reckless endangerment. These charges were related to a series of incidents occurring over four months.

The reports indicated that, apart from Quality Life Services, Pressdee's employment history, as revealed by court documents, included several facilities located throughout Western Pennsylvania. These include:

Orchards of Saxonburg, Butler
Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital, Harmarville
Allegheny Valley Hospital, Natrona Heights, Harrison
UPMC Passavant, McCandless
Concordia at Rebecca Residence, West Deer
Guardian Healthcare, operating as Belair Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, Lower Burrell
Woodhaven Care Center, Monroeville
Platinum Ridge Center for Rehabilitation & Healing, Brackenridge
Orchards of Saxonburg, Butler
Premier Armstrong Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, Kittanning
Sunnyview Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, Butler

Pressdee told investigators that she gave the lethal doses of the drug to the patients for many reasons such as the way they stared at her or when she believed that their quality of life was poor.

In an attempt to escape the death penalty, Pressdee pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and 19 counts of attempted murder. The nursing homes were not let off the hook as some of the families of the deceased filed civil lawsuits against them for being negligent and ignoring the red flags or for covering up the suspicious deaths.

For her guilty plea, Pressdee escaped a death sentence by lethal injection. Recently, on May 2, 2024, she was given three consecutive life sentences and an additional 380 to 760 years for the nineteen counts of criminal attempts to commit murder.

During the status conference, which evolved into a plea hearing before Butler County Common Pleas Judge Joseph E. Kubit, Pressdee remained mostly silent.

Why are you pleading guilty? attorney James DePasquale asked her.

“Because I am guilty,” Pressdee answered.