Fatal Females: Genene Jones Trivia Quiz

Answer: Texas

Genene Jones was born in Texas on July 13, 1950, and was immediately given up for adoption. Perhaps as many adopted children are, she was very sensitive about this, feeling unwanted and referring to herself as the "black sheep" of the family. Overweight and unattractive, she was bossy and had few friends.

Interestingly in view of later events, she often feigned illness to get attention. It may be significant that when she was 16, her 14-year-old brother died in a tragic accident, after which it was said that Genene was inconsolable.

Answer: licensed vocational nurse (LVN)

Before embarking on a career as a nurse, Genene Jones was a beautician. Strangely enough, she feared getting cancer from the chemicals used in hair dyes, so she decided to change careers. As she worked in a hospital beauty salon, this was perhaps not such a drastic move.

She became certified as a licensed vocational nurse, or LVN, in 1977. She was fired from her first job, at San Antonio's Methodist Hospital, for overstepping her boundaries by making diagnoses and being rude to patients.

Answer: all of them

Genene's employment at Bexar County Medical Center did not start off well. The bossy nurse soon proved to be more trouble than she was worth, second-guessing and often overruling doctors' orders, and generally being difficult to get along with. Early in her employment she became extremely upset over a child who had died, exhibiting what the other nurses considered bizarre and excessive grieving procedures.

She would insist on accompanying the bodies to the morgue, often singing to them. She made many serious mistakes in dosing drugs, some of which could have been fatal; one wonders if this was the start of her murderous experimentation. Even more ghoulish was her practice of "betting on" or predicting which babies would die, which disturbed the other staff.

Despite all of these behaviors, Genene was never fired, even when babies started dying mysteriously...

Answer: False

Many people began to grow suspicious of Genene early on; the correlation between the number of patient deaths and Genene's shifts did not go unremarked upon. In fact, other nurses jokingly referred to Genene's 3-11 PM shift as "the death shift". Doctors found that a few children, one of whom died, had been given an overdose of heparin, an anticoagulant, by Nurse Jones; however, no doctor had ordered heparin. One would think that this would have been sufficient cause to fire Genene, but this was not to be; she had several defenders who successfully made the points that people die in this business, and Genene was simply unlucky enough to be around often when it occurred.

Answer: False

Actually, Genene did have two children with her husband of four years, James DeLany Jr. According to most sources, she never abused or harmed them, although some thought that she neglected them while she worked long hours. Interestingly, Genene told several people that she had been abused as a child, although there seems to be no basis to these claims.

Answer: Dr. Kathleen Holland

Dr. Kathleen Holland was the pediatrician in Kerrville, Texas, who set up her own clinic in 1982 and was unlucky enough to hire an experienced nurse named Genene Jones to assist her. Although she had been warned by others in the medical community about hiring Nurse Jones, Dr. Holland dismissed these claims as some sort of vindictiveness on the part of the (mostly male) doctors from which they came; to her, Genene appeared to be a competent and able nurse who was experienced in caring for children. Genene's downfall proved to be that while cardiac arrests and other such medical emergencies weren't exactly uncommon in the pediatric unit of a hospital, they were in a small clinic. No parent expected their healthy child to suddenly become gravely ill while going for a routine check-up or immunization, which is exactly what happened...

Answer: a routine check-up

Chelsea McClellan was eight months old when her mother took her and her older brother to Dr. Holland's clinic in Kerrville. Mrs. McClellan watched as the new nurse, Genene Jones, gave Chelsea what she said was a routine immunization. Immediately afterwards, however, the little girl began to seize and seemed to have stopped breathing. En route to nearby Sid Peterson Hospital, Chelsea died.

It was a doctor at Sid Peterson who would ask the questions that eventually led to Nurse Jones.

Answer: succinylcholine

Autopsy revealed that it had been an injection of succinylcholine, a powerful muscle relaxer, that caused Chelsea's death. It was later proven that Genene killed patients by injecting succinylcholine into them, which effectively killed by paralyzing the lungs and heart. To her dismay, Dr. Holland found that her bottles of "succs", as it was known, had been punctured, although she had never ordered the use of this possibly deadly drug.

By the way, Genene was suspected of killing a child with a massive dose of Dilantin, an anticonvulsant, in the fall of 1981.

Answer: to appear as a "hero" for saving children

According to the prosecutors in the case, Genene Jones had a "hero complex" in which she thrived on the attention she received from saving a child from the brink of death (which, of course, she had initiated herself). It was postulated that she had not intended for the children to die but only to reach critical status so that she could "save" them.

Answer: 1

While Genene was suspected of killing nearly 50 children, there was only evidence to charge her with one death: that of eight-month-old Chelsea McClellan, who died from an injection of succinylcholine in September, 1982. On February 15, 1984, Genene Jones was convicted of Chelsea's murder and given the maximum sentence of 99 years. In October 1984, she was convicted of assaulting Rolando Santos by injection. Although sentenced to 159 years, Genene will be eligible for parole in 2009.