Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / NICU NURSE FROM HELL TAKES SWEETHEART PLEA DEAL AFTER BREAKING BONES OF MULTIPLE NEWBORNS

Transcript

NICU NURSE FROM HELL TAKES SWEETHEART PLEA DEAL AFTER BREAKING BONES OF MULTIPLE NEWBORNS · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is the last thing
0:08
Speaker 1: I want to see hovering over my bed if I
0:10
Speaker 1: had to be in the hospital. This intensive care nurse,
0:13
Speaker 1: the one accused of abusing newborn babies. Now cops a deal.
0:22
Speaker 1: I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to
0:25
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us, an intensive care nurse.
0:28
Speaker 1: I see you in Virginia, accused of abusing infant babies.
0:33
Speaker 1: Newborns pleads no contest to nine counts felony, child abused.
0:38
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have let her plead no contest,
0:40
Speaker 1: no low contender. In other words, I'm not saying I
0:43
Speaker 1: did it, and I'm not saying I didn't do it.
0:46
Speaker 1: Oh no, woman, you are gonna confess up under oath.
0:50
Speaker 1: Uh uh hu Lno, You're gonna tell the truth. That
0:55
Speaker 1: said they let her plead no lo Aaron Elizabeth and
1:00
Speaker 1: Truckman twenty seven. Thank goodness they got her. She's got
1:05
Speaker 1: a whole lifetime of abusing infants ahead of her. If
1:07
Speaker 1: they hadn't arrested last year, after multiple newborns in the
1:13
Speaker 1: neonatal intensive care unit nick You were left with unexplained
1:19
Speaker 1: fractures to their tiny bodies. Can you imagine, Oh, fur
1:24
Speaker 1: would fly if my little babies and nick You got
1:28
Speaker 1: fractures to their legs. Oh, my stars, and the babies
1:31
Speaker 1: couldn't even say anything. Ooh. The hospital closed its nick
1:36
Speaker 1: You when police started their investigation, and then what came
1:40
Speaker 1: was a long list of crimes alleged against Strautmann. This
1:45
Speaker 1: is what we know crime stories, with Nancy Grace, a
1:53
Speaker 1: so called angel of pain, stalking the halls of the
1:58
Speaker 1: Nicku the newborn I see You unit, that's the suspicion.
2:04
Speaker 1: After seven kneeborns, just tiny baby infants suffer unexplained broken
2:12
Speaker 1: bones while in the hospital. Joining us tonight the father
2:19
Speaker 1: of two of those babies, I'm Nancy Grace. This is
2:23
Speaker 1: crime stories. Thank you for being.
2:25
Speaker 2: With us nick You nightmare infants with broken bones? What
2:29
Speaker 2: happened to these premi babies? Premature babies?
2:33
Speaker 1: I know I had two of them, and they survived
2:37
Speaker 1: only because of the nurses and doctors in the nick You.
2:42
Speaker 1: They would have died if it had not been for
2:45
Speaker 1: the North Side Hospital nick You unit after an emergency delivery.
2:50
Speaker 1: Sadly that was not the case with many many other
2:56
Speaker 1: parents that one particular hospital who would take a baby's bones,
3:02
Speaker 1: an infant, a newborn, and break and fracture their bones
3:08
Speaker 1: as they lie there helpless. First of all, take a
3:13
Speaker 1: listen to this.
3:14
Speaker 3: It is a burden and a huge responsibility and also
3:19
Speaker 3: a privilege to be able to care for these children
3:22
Speaker 3: at their most vulnerable states. And these families in their
3:26
Speaker 3: most vulnerable states. Many many of them have gone through all.
3:30
Speaker 4: Kinds of toil and trouble just trying to get.
3:33
Speaker 3: Pregnant and then to deliver early or to have complications
3:37
Speaker 3: during delivery.
3:37
Speaker 1: It's just heart wrenching for.
3:39
Speaker 3: These families to not be able to go through a
3:42
Speaker 3: natural birth process and take your child home with you
3:45
Speaker 3: believe them in the care of others who you really
3:48
Speaker 3: don't know.
3:49
Speaker 4: You have to trust them, you do.
3:51
Speaker 1: You have to trust them, And sadly that trust was
3:54
Speaker 1: misplaced in the case of at least seven newborns we know.
4:00
Speaker 1: I think about it. A newborn baby premature, lying there, defenseless.
4:07
Speaker 1: Mom and dad have gone home, no one there to
4:10
Speaker 1: care for them except for the staff in the nick
4:14
Speaker 1: U Did an angel of pain stalk the halls preying
4:20
Speaker 1: on defenseless infants? Listen?
4:24
Speaker 5: Henraiko County Police Detective Megan Lynch responds to Henriiko Doctor's
4:28
Speaker 5: Hospital in reference to a five month old male in
4:31
Speaker 5: the nickqu found to have a fractured left femur. When
4:33
Speaker 5: the child is examined further, it is determined he also
4:36
Speaker 5: has a fracture of the right tibia and multiple rib fractures.
4:40
Speaker 5: The detective has told the injuries are similar to injuries
4:42
Speaker 5: suffered by four males in the nickqu in the summer
4:45
Speaker 5: of the previous year.
4:46
Speaker 1: Oh my stars, there were other infants that had mysterious
4:52
Speaker 1: broken and fractured bones before, and nobody did anything adjoining me.
4:59
Speaker 1: The father Dominic Hackey is with us. Mister Hackey, thank
5:05
Speaker 1: you for.
5:06
Speaker 6: Being with us, Thanks for having me.
5:07
Speaker 1: When you first of all, tell me how did you
5:10
Speaker 1: learn about the injuries, It.
5:13
Speaker 6: Was seemingly normal Sunday. Me and my wife walked into
5:18
Speaker 6: the nick You expecting from my wife to be able
5:21
Speaker 6: to do skin to skin with our son for the
5:23
Speaker 6: second time, and that's when we were told that a
5:29
Speaker 6: nurse had observed discoloration in his left leg. He wasn't
5:33
Speaker 6: moving it quite as much as the right one, so
5:36
Speaker 6: they had gotten an X ray and determined that he
5:38
Speaker 6: had a tibia fracture.
5:40
Speaker 1: Mister Hackey, when you learned almost stars, I'm looking at
5:45
Speaker 1: the video you gave us Control room. Can I see
5:48
Speaker 1: that video again? This looks just like my John, David
5:53
Speaker 1: and Lucy when they were in Nicki. They had all
5:57
Speaker 1: these chords, all these going in some of them the
6:04
Speaker 1: tubes go in the nose and come out the foot.
6:07
Speaker 1: They are completely helpless. Dominique, when you learned your baby boy,
6:17
Speaker 1: your infant, your PREMI had a fracture of the leg
6:22
Speaker 1: and that one of the legs wasn't moving, did you
6:26
Speaker 1: think someone had done that to your baby or that
6:30
Speaker 1: somehow this happened during childbirth.
6:32
Speaker 6: I knew it didn't happen during childbirth. My wife had
6:35
Speaker 6: an emergency he section, like yourself. I watched every minute
6:39
Speaker 6: of that. I watched how he was pulled out, I
6:42
Speaker 6: watched everything after that. He wasn't pulled out by his legs.
6:47
Speaker 6: Nothing that in childbirth would have caused this. But it
6:52
Speaker 6: did take a minute for us to process what was happening.
6:56
Speaker 6: Our other son, Micah, was very, very sick. We had told,
6:59
Speaker 6: we were being told that we were going to lose
7:01
Speaker 6: him twice at that point, so we were just overwhelmed
7:06
Speaker 6: with emotions. We had talked to the doctor on staff
7:10
Speaker 6: that day, we weren't really given any answers on to
7:12
Speaker 6: how this happened. And honestly, after we were told what
7:16
Speaker 6: we were told and spoke to the doctors on staff,
7:18
Speaker 6: I told my wife we need to we need to
7:20
Speaker 6: leave because I needed to take time outside of that
7:24
Speaker 6: hospital to process what was happening. And I had already
7:27
Speaker 6: at that time reached out to my mom, who was then,
7:30
Speaker 6: you know, texting me a million times back to back.
7:33
Speaker 6: This isn't right. You need to call Child Protective Services.
7:38
Speaker 6: This shouldn't be happening. I don't feel safe with my
7:40
Speaker 6: grandson in there. So I needed to get out of
7:43
Speaker 6: the hospital, call her, and kind of get my feet
7:47
Speaker 6: to where we needed to go next. So so it
7:50
Speaker 6: was a lot in that moment to process.
7:52
Speaker 1: Mister Hackey, you stated they had already told you what
7:56
Speaker 1: twice that.
7:57
Speaker 6: Our son, Micah was going to pass away due to
8:01
Speaker 6: the complications with my wife's pregnancy. He had low fluid
8:04
Speaker 6: at sixteen weeks, which caused him to have a lot
8:07
Speaker 6: of respiratory distress. So at that time, Micah was on
8:10
Speaker 6: a ventilator, an oscillator hooked up to so many different machines.
8:15
Speaker 6: But Noah was our strong baby. He was perfect from
8:20
Speaker 6: the moment that he came out. He needed very little
8:23
Speaker 6: respiratory help. So we had hope. He was our hope,
8:29
Speaker 6: I should say, because he came out so strong and
8:32
Speaker 6: nothing wrong with him, and you know, we just wanted
8:35
Speaker 6: the same for our other son as well. So we
8:39
Speaker 6: were very heartbroken to learn that our healthy baby now
8:43
Speaker 6: is not healthy and nobody can tell us why.
8:46
Speaker 1: And when you talk to the doctor, mister Hackey, the doctor,
8:51
Speaker 1: did he he she avoid the fracture or did they
8:56
Speaker 1: try to say, hey, maybe it was this, maybe it
8:58
Speaker 1: was that, we don't know what happened, or are they
8:59
Speaker 1: just not talk about it.
9:00
Speaker 6: They initially told us that it could have been done
9:03
Speaker 6: from an injection that was given, maybe too too rough
9:07
Speaker 6: or too hard. So they were going to implement some
9:10
Speaker 6: trainings so that the nurses could be able to give
9:14
Speaker 6: injections correctly. And that's kind of the only explanation that
9:18
Speaker 6: was given. And I want to make it perfectly clear.
9:21
Speaker 6: Bone density, vitamin deficiency brittle bone syndrome was never ever
9:27
Speaker 6: brought up in our case. It was never questioned. It
9:31
Speaker 6: was never. It was never a factor for us. So
9:37
Speaker 6: that it's without without a doubt that somebody at this
9:40
Speaker 6: hospital did it, because as soon as we were told
9:43
Speaker 6: that there was a fracture, I declined to hold him
9:47
Speaker 6: because I didn't want to be blamed for that. The
9:49
Speaker 6: first time i'm holding my son, you're telling me that
9:52
Speaker 6: he has a fracture. The day before we were at
9:55
Speaker 6: the hospital, my wife was not allowed to hold him.
9:58
Speaker 6: The day that we both come. Now that he has
10:00
Speaker 6: a fracture and we're aware of it, now we're allowed
10:02
Speaker 6: to hold him. It didn't seem.
10:04
Speaker 1: Right to me, mister Hackey. They told me the same
10:07
Speaker 1: thing about Lucy, my baby girl, when I was still
10:13
Speaker 1: carrying her. When doctor told me I had to do
10:16
Speaker 1: selective termination, you know how crazy I went. Other doctors
10:22
Speaker 1: came running into the room. I was yelling so much.
10:25
Speaker 1: I was not going to selectively abort Lucy. Then they
10:31
Speaker 1: were born and they told me that Lucy may not
10:34
Speaker 1: make it. It was horrible, horrible, And what you're saying,
10:38
Speaker 1: John David. My son came out healthy. Everything was fine,
10:42
Speaker 1: except very premature. Not Lucy. Mister Hackey joining me right
10:49
Speaker 1: now is a pre eminent physician. It's doctor William Marony
10:56
Speaker 1: Weight now medical examiner or pathologist, author of American Narcan
11:02
Speaker 1: and so much more, who has dedicated his life to
11:07
Speaker 1: helping other people. And I'd like to point out specifically
11:11
Speaker 1: for you, mister Hackey, that he is a devoted father
11:17
Speaker 1: like yourself, Doctor Moroney. You know, I'm just a trial lawyer.
11:22
Speaker 1: Sometimes as a trial lawyer, and you're questioning a physician
11:26
Speaker 1: like yourself, you really don't even know where to start.
11:31
Speaker 1: But it's my understanding that injuries that occur during delivery
11:36
Speaker 1: are typically at the joint. And when i'm again, I'm
11:40
Speaker 1: just reading the tea leaves here, but when I look
11:42
Speaker 1: at that X ray that doesn't look like the fracture
11:46
Speaker 1: is at the joint, doesn't know.
11:48
Speaker 7: And the idea of where injuries sometimes happen are statistically
11:54
Speaker 7: based on our past experience as hospitals record injuries. The
12:00
Speaker 7: only other dominant fracture collarbones fracture all the time because
12:07
Speaker 7: a baby has to fit through the birth canal, and
12:12
Speaker 7: the shoulders and the neck and the chest are the
12:16
Speaker 7: widest part. Legs don't break in delivery. I've never twenty
12:25
Speaker 7: five years, I've never heard of any kind of broken armor,
12:30
Speaker 7: leg in delivery, collarbones or joint disclocations. The collarbones the
12:37
Speaker 7: big one, because you're trying to squeeze this wide baby
12:40
Speaker 7: through this tiny little birth canal. So that's the first
12:46
Speaker 7: thing you would look at and have as where do
12:50
Speaker 7: you start your investigation? How did a fracture happen in
12:56
Speaker 7: that bone? In a collarbone? Somebody would say, oh, well,
12:59
Speaker 7: you know what's fracked. Sure it'll grow back, we'll line
13:02
Speaker 7: it up everything. I'm okay, and you understand that because
13:04
Speaker 7: you're trying to squeeze the baby. But these other things
13:10
Speaker 7: right away, they're very highly suspicious and they need an investigation.
13:19
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last days, a
13:27
Speaker 1: former nurse's plea deal has gone down. Catch this. The
13:33
Speaker 1: plea deal allows Strutman to be sentenced to no more
13:36
Speaker 1: than three years in prison. Oh my goodness, she's going
13:42
Speaker 1: to be out by twenty nine. She'll probably change her name,
13:45
Speaker 1: get fake credentials, go to another jurisdiction, become a nurse
13:49
Speaker 1: and start abusing children again. And this was breaking their bones.
13:55
Speaker 1: The plea deal, what a deal? Oh? I feel like
13:59
Speaker 1: I'm eating a dirt sand much drops charges of malicious wounding,
14:03
Speaker 1: which would require evidence of intent. Okay, wait, she gets
14:08
Speaker 1: the baby, waits for a moment to be alone, and
14:10
Speaker 1: then breaks its bones. That shows intent. What were these
14:15
Speaker 1: prosecutors thinking, Dear Lord in Heaven. Now it's part of
14:21
Speaker 1: this deal. She will never be able to practice nursing. Okay, no,
14:26
Speaker 1: she should be in jail or any healthcare related work. Again.
14:31
Speaker 1: But wait a minute, she can just go to another
14:33
Speaker 1: jurisdiction on the other side of the country. Change your name.
14:35
Speaker 1: She'll be right back at it. This is what we
14:38
Speaker 1: know happened, mister Hackey. I had an emergency cesaian, just
14:44
Speaker 1: like your wife did, and I was awake the whole time.
14:49
Speaker 1: I could see the baby's being lifted up, and it's
14:53
Speaker 1: just like you just said. They weren't pulled out by
14:56
Speaker 1: their legs or by you know, in a normal birth,
15:00
Speaker 1: head normally comes out first. They were lifted up, and
15:05
Speaker 1: I saw John David come out first. I saw Lucy
15:08
Speaker 1: come out second, and I was told they're breathing, and
15:12
Speaker 1: they were looking at me and blinking their eyes. I
15:16
Speaker 1: remembered distinctly, And when you tell me they were not
15:19
Speaker 1: pulled out by their legs, I believe you, that's something
15:22
Speaker 1: you never forget. When your wife learned that her baby
15:30
Speaker 1: her newborn, how much did they weigh? Four pounds?
15:34
Speaker 6: Noah was three pounds eight ounces, and like it was
15:37
Speaker 6: two pounds eight ounces.
15:38
Speaker 1: John David was five pounds. Lucy was two pounds like
15:42
Speaker 1: a kitten. For Pete's sake, When your wife found out
15:48
Speaker 1: this four pound baby had a fractured leg, how did
15:53
Speaker 1: your wife take it?
15:55
Speaker 6: She I don't think she could process it at that moment. Honestly,
15:58
Speaker 6: she was dealing with Like I said, it was an
16:02
Speaker 6: end to a long, very long pregnancy, which actually wasn't
16:05
Speaker 6: very long, but it felt long. We were going to
16:08
Speaker 6: ultrasounds once a week, sometimes twice a week, so she
16:12
Speaker 6: was very much out of it, which is why she's
16:16
Speaker 6: kind of letting me speak because I remember it so clearly.
16:21
Speaker 6: She was dealing with postpartum at that time as well,
16:24
Speaker 6: So all that she really could do was cry. And
16:28
Speaker 6: all that I could do was tell my wife that
16:31
Speaker 6: you know, our boys are going to be okay. That's
16:34
Speaker 6: all we could do.
16:35
Speaker 1: I don't know how you guys managed to leave them there.
16:39
Speaker 1: I mean, you couldn't take them home. They needed to
16:41
Speaker 1: be hooked up to all those machines, so you couldn't say,
16:44
Speaker 1: to hell with you, I'm taking the children home. You
16:47
Speaker 1: had to leave them there. Oh how did you do it?
16:52
Speaker 1: How did you leave your child there knowing? I mean,
16:55
Speaker 1: think about it, I'm sure you have. Somebody had to
16:58
Speaker 1: take your little and cracket.
17:02
Speaker 6: I guess it was the hospital gas led us into
17:08
Speaker 6: thinking that this was isolated incident, that they were really
17:13
Speaker 6: working to figure out who did this. And at that
17:16
Speaker 6: point we kind of had to trust the hospital because
17:20
Speaker 6: me and my wife, we were very blessed with the
17:22
Speaker 6: type of jobs that we have. We were able to
17:25
Speaker 6: be at the hospital all day every day. We just
17:28
Speaker 6: couldn't be there at night because we have animals at
17:31
Speaker 6: home and stuff at home that we have to attend to.
17:34
Speaker 6: But I mean we just had to trust them and
17:39
Speaker 6: with us at that time only thinking that you know,
17:42
Speaker 6: this was just our son. It could have been an
17:45
Speaker 6: injection that was given wrong. They're going to train people
17:48
Speaker 6: so that they get this right. It was like at
17:52
Speaker 6: that time, it felt like the hospital was doing what
17:55
Speaker 6: they were supposed to do, even though they were telling
17:58
Speaker 6: us that we may never find and the person who
18:00
Speaker 6: did this, because unless somebody confesses, it's going to be
18:05
Speaker 6: hard to say that this person actually did it.
18:07
Speaker 3: Some of these premature babies are so sick, their little
18:10
Speaker 3: organs are not developed enough to be functioning outside the
18:14
Speaker 3: womb yet, and we are basically assisting them by artificial means.
18:19
Speaker 1: So we do see.
18:21
Speaker 4: Death and I see you.
18:23
Speaker 3: We see a lot of children who have issues with
18:27
Speaker 3: their lungs, with their heart, with their vision. So any
18:31
Speaker 3: instance where something happens that is unexpected.
18:35
Speaker 4: We're going to watch and try and see what happened.
18:37
Speaker 1: But all of that problems with the lungs, or the heart,
18:41
Speaker 1: or with the vision, those occur or originate prior to birth.
18:49
Speaker 1: This kneeborn infant child, this little baby boy, was born
18:57
Speaker 1: without a fracture in his leg. So how did that happen?
19:01
Speaker 1: To doctor William Moroney, I know that infants bones are malleable,
19:07
Speaker 1: but to fracture or break a baby's bone, it had
19:13
Speaker 1: to hurt. It had to be horrific pain for the
19:16
Speaker 1: child to endure. And even though the bones are somewhat
19:20
Speaker 1: malleable at the time of birth, there's still bones. How
19:24
Speaker 1: much force would you have to affect in order to
19:27
Speaker 1: break or fracture a child's leg, probably.
19:31
Speaker 7: Just a little bit less than like trying to break
19:34
Speaker 7: a broomstick, or more than break some pasta.
19:39
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, wait, break a broomstick with your bare hands.
19:44
Speaker 1: I can break a broomstick with my bare hands, even
19:47
Speaker 1: though I cracked it over my knee.
19:49
Speaker 8: No, yes, what do you say?
19:52
Speaker 7: But the other what I want to make clear is
19:56
Speaker 7: the rare condition that a baby is born with b
20:00
Speaker 7: good bones only happens when the mother is in a
20:04
Speaker 7: car accident. If these mothers do not have any history
20:09
Speaker 7: of being in recent like right before the hospital car accidents,
20:16
Speaker 7: all these bones are perfect. All these babies are born
20:21
Speaker 7: with completely healthy bodies. But we have seen broken bones
20:26
Speaker 7: in babies after they've been delivered in emergency deliveries, when
20:30
Speaker 7: the mothers had car accidents.
20:32
Speaker 1: Mister Hackey, had your wife, I already know the answer
20:34
Speaker 1: to this. Your wife had not been in any type
20:37
Speaker 1: of an accident, Hatchie. Okay, doctor Maroney, I hate to
20:41
Speaker 1: call a medical doctor of your eminence on the carpet,
20:46
Speaker 1: but that's really not what I asked you. I didn't
20:49
Speaker 1: ask you about carrecs because there's no car wreck or
20:52
Speaker 1: no accident, nothing like that. No violent injury on the
20:56
Speaker 1: mom prior to birth. I'm asking you the degree a
21:00
Speaker 1: force you're telling me a little less or the same
21:05
Speaker 1: amount as trying to crack a broom over your knee.
21:09
Speaker 7: The physical amount of force would equal something hitting a
21:15
Speaker 7: wall at twenty miles an hour, and the other thing
21:18
Speaker 7: that was really real.
21:19
Speaker 1: Baby. How can you be so calm? Marony? How many
21:25
Speaker 1: children do you have? For Pete's sake, don't you remember
21:27
Speaker 1: when they were born someone using that amount of force
21:32
Speaker 1: like cracking a broomstick to break fracture this baby's leg.
21:36
Speaker 7: And I don't want to make pictures in people's minds
21:39
Speaker 7: that would make them even more disgusted. But broken ribs
21:44
Speaker 7: are very difficult. You either crush a baby's chest or
21:50
Speaker 7: you swing the baby like a baseball bat and hit
21:53
Speaker 7: a wall. Those are how you break ribs. I've done
21:58
Speaker 7: the positions for child abuse in local counties. That's a
22:04
Speaker 7: tremendous amount of force. So broken bones in the chest,
22:08
Speaker 7: broken legs, this is serious dominic hackey.
22:12
Speaker 1: I know you're hearing Dr Maroney speaking when you hear
22:16
Speaker 1: him describe how much force it would require to break
22:22
Speaker 1: your kneeborn's leg to fracture it. I mean, I feel
22:28
Speaker 1: sick just hearing it. When you think about your infant
22:33
Speaker 1: and the force required, like swinging the infant against a
22:38
Speaker 1: wall or breaking their leg like a broom handle, it.
22:43
Speaker 6: Hurts, its heartbreaking.
22:46
Speaker 7: It.
22:46
Speaker 6: Honestly, it feels like my son was in this world
22:49
Speaker 6: for a week and I failed to protect him, and
22:54
Speaker 6: it keeps me up at night. But I won't feel
22:59
Speaker 6: my son again. I won't fail these other babies again.
23:02
Speaker 6: What they've been through and all that they had to
23:05
Speaker 6: endure is sick that we were in the room with
23:10
Speaker 6: the devil and we had no idea.
23:13
Speaker 1: Guys, it all starts here.
23:17
Speaker 9: Listen, an infant in a nick youwit Inraightko doctor's hospital
23:20
Speaker 9: suffers a horrible leg injury that isn't easily explained. Babies
23:24
Speaker 9: breakbones during birth, It's not uncommon, but this is different.
23:28
Speaker 9: As the hospital begins to investigate, three other babies have
23:32
Speaker 9: unexplained fractures.
23:33
Speaker 1: Okay, let me understand something. Joining me Dave Matt crime
23:35
Speaker 1: online dot com investigative reporter who has intensely researched this
23:39
Speaker 1: case and conducted his own interviews. Dave mac Wait a minute,
23:45
Speaker 1: so when this little baby mister Hackney's baby has a
23:52
Speaker 1: fractured leg. Before that, they were already three other babies
24:01
Speaker 1: that had quote unexplained fractures.
24:04
Speaker 8: Yes, Nancy, there were four babies in this in the
24:11
Speaker 8: time around mister Hackney's child that all had unexplained fractures.
24:17
Speaker 8: One of the babies was actually hurt four days after
24:21
Speaker 8: mister Hackney's baby.
24:22
Speaker 1: Okay, I am actually without words, Dave mac I didn't
24:27
Speaker 1: understand the events chronologically, mister Hackney, did anybody tell you, Oh,
24:35
Speaker 1: by the way, we've already had multiple babies that have
24:38
Speaker 1: unexplained fractures. When they were telling you your baby somehow
24:42
Speaker 1: has a broken leg, did they think to say and oh, yeah,
24:47
Speaker 1: there were three babies before and then right after that
24:49
Speaker 1: there's another baby. Did anybody tell you that? I guess not.
24:52
Speaker 6: Nobody had told us until after we were out of
24:55
Speaker 6: the hospital. Henryko Police department told us that there were
24:58
Speaker 6: other victims that suffered similar factors around the same time
25:02
Speaker 6: as my son, and that's when we first learned about it.
25:04
Speaker 1: The police department had to tell you that. Let me
25:07
Speaker 1: ask you a question. Okay, I'm a criminal lawyer, but
25:10
Speaker 1: I know this much about civil law. I hope you
25:13
Speaker 1: and your wife have a good lawyer. So at no
25:17
Speaker 1: point when the doctor is explaining to you, your baby
25:20
Speaker 1: has a fractured leg and it took the forces. Maroney
25:23
Speaker 1: just said of cracking a broomstick to do it. They
25:27
Speaker 1: didn't say, and we've had that problem before. They hid
25:29
Speaker 1: that from you until police told you that you had
25:32
Speaker 1: no idea. There is no way hell would freeze over
25:37
Speaker 1: before I would have my children in a nick YOU
25:40
Speaker 1: unit where other babies had had fractured bones. Oh no,
25:45
Speaker 1: but you didn't know that, did you?
25:47
Speaker 6: No idea? Nobody. None of the other families knew as well.
25:50
Speaker 6: We all thought that we were isolated incidents, and honestly,
25:54
Speaker 6: that's why a lot of us kept quiet for so long.
25:56
Speaker 6: We didn't know that there were other people out there
25:59
Speaker 6: who went through similar experiences with the hospital.
26:03
Speaker 10: Dominique and Tori Hacke start speaking out after Virginia Child
26:07
Speaker 10: Services informed them that their newborn baby, Noah, had been
26:10
Speaker 10: abused by an employee at the NICKU when he suffered
26:13
Speaker 10: a fractured leg following his premature birth. Noah was one
26:17
Speaker 10: of the four babies who suffered unexplained injuries.
26:20
Speaker 1: This would not be the first time, and of course
26:23
Speaker 1: you know, Dominie Hackey was looked at long and hard
26:28
Speaker 1: because parents of an injured or missing child are always
26:32
Speaker 1: the first suspect. Statistically, he could be the angel Gabriel
26:37
Speaker 1: that came down from heaven and sat down in front
26:39
Speaker 1: of the police. He would still be the number one
26:42
Speaker 1: suspect statistically. Again, it's not the first time that a
26:48
Speaker 1: hospital employee has inflicted pain, suffering, even death on an
26:54
Speaker 1: innocent knee born. Does the name Lucy let Be ring
26:59
Speaker 1: a bell because that's the name that echoes in my
27:02
Speaker 1: mind all the time. Listen.
27:04
Speaker 11: Registered nurse Lucy Leppe gets her dream job in the
27:07
Speaker 11: neonatology unit at Countests of Chester Hospital. Working many extra
27:11
Speaker 11: shifts in the small unit, let Be says she enjoys
27:14
Speaker 11: watching the infants progress and supporting their families, but patients
27:18
Speaker 11: under her care experience an unusual amount of medical emergencies
27:23
Speaker 11: and even death. After years of other doctors and nurses
27:26
Speaker 11: expressing their concerns, the hospital finally launches an investigation, finding
27:31
Speaker 11: that seven babies were injured and seven babies died under
27:34
Speaker 11: Leppi's care. Handwritten notes indicate the nurse injected air into
27:39
Speaker 11: the infants bloodstream, or gave them lethal doses of insulin
27:43
Speaker 11: minutes before consoling their grieving parents.
27:46
Speaker 1: Oh my stars. Okay, doctor Moroney, I got to ask
27:49
Speaker 1: you what that means injecting air or insulin. But two,
27:53
Speaker 1: doctor John DELATORI, we all need a shrink right now.
27:58
Speaker 1: Licensed psychologist who specializes in forensic psychology, Doctor Delatory, did
28:05
Speaker 1: you hear that last bit about Lucy let be made
28:08
Speaker 1: she wrought in hell she would console the parents who
28:14
Speaker 1: are grieving after their kneeborn infant, just like mister Hackney's
28:20
Speaker 1: babies die. So she kills them and then she comforts
28:28
Speaker 1: the parents. That is freaky.
28:31
Speaker 12: Yeah, it's absolutely freaky and it's extremely dangerous. And I
28:34
Speaker 12: think there are two complicating aspects to this.
28:38
Speaker 1: The first part is.
28:39
Speaker 12: She wants the attention that she gets for being this
28:42
Speaker 12: grand nurse who's there to console, but in reality, she
28:45
Speaker 12: hates these children. In reality, she wants nothing more than
28:49
Speaker 12: to be than to get rid of them. That's the
28:52
Speaker 12: level of anger and animosity that need to be there
28:57
Speaker 12: in order to inflict pain on a vulnerable child. This
29:01
Speaker 12: level of hate and anger and annoyance is complicating this
29:04
Speaker 12: idea that she also wants the attention of being the
29:08
Speaker 12: person that is there to quote unquote care for them.
29:11
Speaker 12: And it's the attention that she really wants, but in reality,
29:15
Speaker 12: she hates that she has to deal with these children
29:17
Speaker 12: in order to get it.
29:18
Speaker 1: We investigated the Lucia let the case. Listen to investigative
29:22
Speaker 1: reporter Alexis Terreschak.
29:24
Speaker 4: First time it was a tragedy, but immediately the way
29:27
Speaker 4: that she reacted was a red flag. She wanted to
29:31
Speaker 4: come back to work immediately, while everybody else was devastated
29:34
Speaker 4: and crushed by this. Each time a child died, each
29:38
Speaker 4: time a baby died and she was there, she wanted
29:40
Speaker 4: to come back to work and insisted on She remember
29:43
Speaker 4: that many of them were twins or triplets, she wanted
29:46
Speaker 4: to work with the other sibling immediately, and that really
29:49
Speaker 4: raised the red lights of the doctors and the nurses
29:52
Speaker 4: really complained about her and that this is really very
29:56
Speaker 4: very suspicious.
29:57
Speaker 1: You think it's weird that she would console the parents
30:00
Speaker 1: after killing their kneeborn, that's not all. Listen.
30:06
Speaker 9: After the death of a fifth baby on her unit,
30:08
Speaker 9: Lucy let me wants to go to the funeral, but
30:10
Speaker 9: is working at the time and unable to attend, so
30:13
Speaker 9: she sent a condolence card to the family titled your
30:16
Speaker 9: loved one will be remembered with many smiles. Inside, let
30:19
Speaker 9: Be wrote, there are no words to make this time
30:22
Speaker 9: any easier. She will always be a part of your
30:24
Speaker 9: lives and we will never forget her. Thinking of you
30:27
Speaker 9: today and always lots of love, Lucy. Let me then
30:31
Speaker 9: took a picture of the card and kept it as
30:33
Speaker 9: a keepsake.
30:34
Speaker 1: Okay, Dominic Hackey is joining us. His twins were in
30:40
Speaker 1: the nick queue when he and his wife learn after
30:43
Speaker 1: a very difficult pregnancy and delivery an emergency c section
30:49
Speaker 1: that astonishingly, one of their babies has a fractured leg.
30:56
Speaker 1: Out of nowhere, you're hearing about, Lucy, let be, who
31:02
Speaker 1: would murder the infants and then console the parents and
31:07
Speaker 1: help them plan the funeral. Did any of the nurses
31:13
Speaker 1: seem odd or act in an unusual way to you
31:18
Speaker 1: or to your wife?
31:20
Speaker 6: None of the nurses really talk to me. There were
31:23
Speaker 6: very few of them. A lot of them talked to
31:26
Speaker 6: my wife and directed a lot of care questions to
31:30
Speaker 6: my wife. It was almost as if I was incapable
31:32
Speaker 6: of making decisions for my kids and that she was
31:36
Speaker 6: the only capable one, So I didn't form a lot
31:39
Speaker 6: of relationships with a lot of the nurses.
31:44
Speaker 1: Well, they probably suspected you, frankly, mister Hackey. They probably
31:48
Speaker 1: thought you were responsible because all the nurses think they
31:51
Speaker 1: know each other and they would never do anything to her.
31:53
Speaker 1: The baby and the dad or the mom is typically
31:58
Speaker 1: the purp. So now what do they gave you the
32:01
Speaker 1: cold shoulder? They probably gave you the stinky.
32:03
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm sure once they learned because I was very
32:06
Speaker 6: open with my mom reporting the incident to Child Protective
32:09
Speaker 6: Services and things like that, that they were very cautious
32:15
Speaker 6: abound that.
32:21
Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace and Nick You neo natal
32:30
Speaker 1: intensive care unit nurse accused of breaking the bones of
32:35
Speaker 1: newborn babies gets a sweet heart deal. I don't get it.
32:41
Speaker 1: It's on video video footage shown to the court Trupman
32:45
Speaker 1: appearing to place her full body weight on one infant
32:48
Speaker 1: who was screaming out in pain. Cool Strupman said of
32:54
Speaker 1: the video, it can be quote perceived as a little
32:58
Speaker 1: too rough. You broke their bones, a little too rough,
33:01
Speaker 1: my rear end. This woman needs to go straight to
33:05
Speaker 1: hell and share her stories with bills above and Satan instead.
33:10
Speaker 1: She's going to be out. I guarantee you in less
33:12
Speaker 1: than two years. This is what we know about what
33:17
Speaker 1: happened to these little newborn babies.
33:21
Speaker 2: Nick You Nightmare a nurse under arrest for allegedly breaking
33:24
Speaker 2: the bones of premature infants in a Virginia hospital.
33:28
Speaker 1: That's right after they let the foreign nurses come back
33:32
Speaker 1: because their own investigation went nowhere. That's on them. There
33:36
Speaker 1: were more fractures. Wow, what a coincidence. Then we learned
33:42
Speaker 1: this from surveillance video placed in the hospital room. Listen.
33:47
Speaker 9: The hospital installs surveillance cameras throughout the nick U after
33:50
Speaker 9: the unexplained injuries of the previous year. In Raiko County,
33:53
Speaker 9: Police detective Megan Lynch reviews the surveillance video and reports
33:57
Speaker 9: what she sees. Aaron Strahman seen in the room with
34:00
Speaker 9: baby identified in paperwork as YH on November tenth. Straman
34:04
Speaker 9: grabs YH by the legs and applies pressure to the legs.
34:08
Speaker 9: Strawman is seen on video placing her weight down on
34:11
Speaker 9: the legs of YH. Strawman is then seen taking both
34:14
Speaker 9: of the baby's legs and pushing them backwards. To where
34:17
Speaker 9: Yh's feet are at his head. Yh appears to be
34:21
Speaker 9: crying and in distress.
34:22
Speaker 1: Oh my stars, the baby's feet are back at his head.
34:27
Speaker 1: Mister Hackey, have you seen this video?
34:30
Speaker 6: No, I haven't seen any videos.
34:32
Speaker 1: I guarantee you when you get the right lawyer, you will. So,
34:38
Speaker 1: mister Hackey, when were you told that the perpetrator was
34:43
Speaker 1: caught on video?
34:47
Speaker 6: I want to say maybe a couple of weeks ago,
34:49
Speaker 6: towards the beginning of the year. We By the time
34:54
Speaker 6: we left the hospital, there were no cameras. We were
34:56
Speaker 6: in there for eighty seven days, so if they ever
34:59
Speaker 6: put in cameras, we didn't know until these new stories
35:02
Speaker 6: came out. And when I learned of the three babies,
35:07
Speaker 6: that's when I learned of that there was camera footage.
35:13
Speaker 6: Didn't specifically say that they caught her on camera footage,
35:16
Speaker 6: but at that time, but learned that there was camera footage,
35:20
Speaker 6: and that the police department, the Commonwealth Attorney, everybody was
35:23
Speaker 6: going to be working to review this footage around the clock.
35:27
Speaker 6: And then, of course, once she was arrested, is when
35:31
Speaker 6: we learned that, you know, they had caught her on footage.
35:34
Speaker 6: They nobody told us doing what with whose baby? Just
35:40
Speaker 6: that she was being brought up on charges in connection
35:43
Speaker 6: with this, and you know, we'll just keep finding out
35:46
Speaker 6: along the way.
35:47
Speaker 1: So the hospital never told you we've got her on video.
35:51
Speaker 1: You had to learn that from the District Attorney's office,
35:54
Speaker 1: Doctor William Moroney. You heard what we have learned was
35:59
Speaker 1: on the video. What exactly does that mean? What does
36:03
Speaker 1: she do to the baby? According to the video.
36:06
Speaker 7: What it looks like is there's pressure to snap a
36:12
Speaker 7: leg by pushing it outside of what we call barriers.
36:18
Speaker 7: There's natural barriers that the muscles can use.
36:22
Speaker 1: Then there may stop. Stop stop doctor, you're talking to
36:28
Speaker 1: lay people. We don't know what are you saying, pressure barriers?
36:33
Speaker 1: Please speak English.
36:36
Speaker 7: Here's we'll go back to when you when you put
36:41
Speaker 7: weight on that leg to snap that bone, it's equal
36:47
Speaker 7: to a vehicle hitting a wall at twenty miles an hour.
36:51
Speaker 7: But it happens in somebody's hands.
36:54
Speaker 1: But how does she know it for what do you
36:56
Speaker 1: mean put weight? How does that happen?
36:59
Speaker 7: Well, they said, in the words that were used, she
37:05
Speaker 7: pushed down that her body weight, her shoulders, her muscles,
37:12
Speaker 7: pushed on a b a bone on legs, on one instance,
37:17
Speaker 7: and then exceeding the normal range of hips and backs
37:23
Speaker 7: and legs, she twisted the legs so far back that
37:30
Speaker 7: a baby that's a flat piece of pasta, it's a noodle,
37:35
Speaker 7: suddenly becomes an elbow. That's unnatural the body. Even adults, children,
37:42
Speaker 7: they don't bend like that. When you bend something like that,
37:46
Speaker 7: something breaks. They're very lucky. We don't know the results,
37:51
Speaker 7: but that could have snapped somebody's spine and made somebody
37:57
Speaker 7: permanently paralyzed for life. That's the amount of pressure twenty
38:02
Speaker 7: miles an hour, a car hitting a fence, twenty miles
38:05
Speaker 7: an hour, a car hitting a brick wall. That's the
38:08
Speaker 7: amount of force and weight from what was done to
38:14
Speaker 7: those babies. Bone two.
38:16
Speaker 1: Mary Hutchinson joining us twenty eight years in LLE law enforcement,
38:23
Speaker 1: now owner chief investigator for Barry and Associates Investigative Services. Mary,
38:29
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. What the he double
38:33
Speaker 1: L is wrong with this hospital? Their investigation yielded nothing.
38:40
Speaker 1: And then as soon as the four nurses that have
38:42
Speaker 1: put on paid leave, I might add this woman charged
38:47
Speaker 1: with breaking the bones a little nikki infants that weigh
38:51
Speaker 1: four pounds. She is on paid leave. Are you kidding me?
38:57
Speaker 1: But their investigation yielded No. Are you surprised that the
39:02
Speaker 1: hospital found out nothing while investigating itself.
39:06
Speaker 13: No, that's pretty much common practice. They're going to do
39:08
Speaker 13: everything they can to shield their own liability. And I mean,
39:11
Speaker 13: that's a travesty in itself. That's another story to be told.
39:14
Speaker 13: But there's no way that you could ever ever convince
39:19
Speaker 13: me that there wasn't already surveillance in place in that
39:25
Speaker 13: Nike You in some shape form or fashion not to
39:27
Speaker 13: mention that there are other cameras all throughout that hospital,
39:32
Speaker 13: like a adjacent hallways, et cetera, et cetera, that they
39:35
Speaker 13: could track each one of these individual nurses and find
39:38
Speaker 13: out exactly a timeline of who was around the child
39:41
Speaker 13: and when they were around the child.
39:43
Speaker 1: You know what, You're absolutely right. They had all that
39:46
Speaker 1: in the records. Who was working the day before the injury, manifested,
39:51
Speaker 1: who was working in the day of the injury. That
39:55
Speaker 1: shouldn't be so difficult to uncover, Yet they didn't. To
40:00
Speaker 1: Greg Morris joining me, high profile lawyer and partner at
40:05
Speaker 1: the law firm of King and Morse, author of The
40:10
Speaker 1: Untested on Amazon. Greg Morse I'm sorry to report I'm
40:16
Speaker 1: not surprised at all. You heard Dominic Hackey, the dad saying,
40:21
Speaker 1: the doctor never even explained to us really exactly what
40:25
Speaker 1: had happened, didn't mention that employee may have done this.
40:30
Speaker 1: Nobody told me that other infants before my baby Noah
40:34
Speaker 1: was attacked, had been attacked. I'm not surprised at all.
40:38
Speaker 1: The hospital didn't tell him any of that and didn't
40:41
Speaker 1: tell him, Hey, we have surveillance video. I want you
40:44
Speaker 1: to know we know who did it. Never breathe a word, Greg.
40:48
Speaker 14: Well, that's the bigger or an issue here. Also is
40:52
Speaker 14: the hospital's cover up. And what's particularly troubling to me
40:56
Speaker 14: is that they questioned these parents. As you pointed out,
41:00
Speaker 14: they're the first suspects. There is no world where the
41:03
Speaker 14: hospital doesn't know this is going on with all these babies,
41:06
Speaker 14: and they're, like your previous experts said, they're trying to
41:10
Speaker 14: shield their liability. And that's really that's really, you know,
41:15
Speaker 14: a comment on our healthcare. We value profits over care,
41:20
Speaker 14: and this is what you get. You talked about your
41:23
Speaker 14: own children, Nancy. Imagine a doctor says to you, well,
41:26
Speaker 14: when we give needles, sometimes bones break. There's no world
41:29
Speaker 14: where anybody believes that there's no world where that's not investigated.
41:33
Speaker 14: But if the people investigating are sweeping it under the rug,
41:36
Speaker 14: then what do you do? And it's heartbreaking for these
41:39
Speaker 14: families what they've had to endure and then to be
41:42
Speaker 14: a suspect essentially by the hospital administrator so they can
41:45
Speaker 14: hide their own malfeasance and their own negligence in turning
41:49
Speaker 14: a blind eye to these things.
41:50
Speaker 15: Seven potential abuse cases are now under scrutiny, and investigators
41:54
Speaker 15: say there could be more. Police investigators are scouring hundreds
41:58
Speaker 15: of hours of surveillance footage to determine what happened. Reports
42:02
Speaker 15: say at least three of the affected families were in
42:05
Speaker 15: court for Strapman's appearance. Only one family has spoken publicly
42:09
Speaker 15: so far, and that father says another couple told him
42:13
Speaker 15: their child suffered twelve fractures. Straupman has been formally charged
42:17
Speaker 15: in just one baby's case, as the investigation continues. Straupman's
42:22
Speaker 15: public defender says she is not entered a plea as
42:24
Speaker 15: yet and is being held without bail. Her next court
42:27
Speaker 15: appearance is scheduled for March twenty fourth.
42:30
Speaker 1: Mister Hackey, is that true? Another baby had twelve fractures.
42:36
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but yes, have you talked
42:39
Speaker 1: to any of the other parents.
42:40
Speaker 6: Yes, I'm currently in contact with five of the other families,
42:45
Speaker 6: so six families, including myself. It's worked wonders for myself
42:50
Speaker 6: and the other families just to have other people who
42:52
Speaker 6: have gone through the situation, who have been gas lit
42:56
Speaker 6: by the hospital, whose birthing stories are similar to our story,
43:02
Speaker 6: and we just all feel like we were failed from
43:05
Speaker 6: the moment we stepped foot from that hospital to the
43:07
Speaker 6: moment that we left, because we had no idea that
43:11
Speaker 6: anybody had even been let go in relation to our
43:16
Speaker 6: son's cases until the news put it out there this year.
43:20
Speaker 1: Mister Hackey, I want to thank you for speaking out.
43:23
Speaker 1: There are parents all over the country whose children suffer
43:28
Speaker 1: injuries or worse in the hospital and they are fed
43:33
Speaker 1: the line it's normal. We don't know how this happened.
43:39
Speaker 1: It's not normal, mister Hackey. Have you ever lain awake
43:45
Speaker 1: at night and thought about how lucky you are she
43:49
Speaker 1: didn't kill your baby?
43:51
Speaker 6: Every night? Ever since all of the details of this story,
43:56
Speaker 6: we're learned, because like I said, I'm just learning of
43:59
Speaker 6: the severity of the other cases. So I'm very blessed
44:04
Speaker 6: that I'm able to come home and hold my two
44:08
Speaker 6: my two little babies, kiss them, hold my wife hug her,
44:12
Speaker 6: and we can sit down as a family and attack
44:16
Speaker 6: this monster head on, all of us together, and everybody
44:20
Speaker 6: is healthy and happy, and I'm just truly blessed that
44:26
Speaker 6: my outcome and my situation did not end in death.
44:31
Speaker 1: Clark is ticking on when Strattman will be released. Bolo
44:36
Speaker 1: be on the lookout. Nancy Grace signing off goodbye friend.