Texas Nurse Arrested for Murder After Killing 10 Patients in "Cruelest Way"

In early 2001, administrators at Nocona General Hospital in smalltown rural Nocona, Texas were growing increasingly concerned.

“They had a lot of deaths during the months of December and January,” said Kent Holcomb, chief of police for Nocona Police Department.

Even during a raging flu season,“that was very suspicious,” Holcomb told Sins of the South, airing on Oxygen.

Suspicions were raised on January 7, 2001, when Jimmy Ray Holder, 65, was hospitalized following a heart attack.

“He was doing really good. I was going to visit him the very next day,” said his adoring son Ronald Holder. But his dad inexplicably died in the night.

Over the course of the next 17 days, four more elderly patients died. Their deaths appeared to be due to natural causes. But red flags were raised.

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“Too many people were dying,” said Dr. Len Dingler, Nocona General Hospital’s chief of staff, adding that a search for common links, such as medications, turned up nothing. “It was a huge mystery.”

Back-to-Back Code Blues

On January 30, two patients — one elderly, the other only 14 years old — experienced respiratory distress, setting off code blues at the same time.

The girl survived, but the senior didn’t make it. “I can't remember in my career having two code blues at the same time,” said Len Dingler.

Tracey Mesler, publisher of the Nocona News, told Sins of the South that local journalists noticed the flurry of deaths.

About 31 hours after the earlier double code blue, it happened again. This time two women, one 47, the other 35, coded at the same time.

Both survived, but after one of the patients was revived, she stopped breathing again when her IV bag was hooked back up.

“That’s when it started all over again,” said Corrie Holcomb, the hospital chief nursing officer.

Dr. Chance Dingler, Nocona GH’s attending physician and the brother of Len Dingler, said everyone questioned, “What is going on?”

A drug-related clue emerges

Shortly after the four code blues, a pharmacy technician asked Len Dingler a question with far-reaching reverberations.

“She said, ‘What’s Mivacron for?’” he said. “I said, ‘Why would you ask me that?' She said, ‘We have a vial missing out the crash cart.’”

Mivacron is paralytic that halts breathing. It is used when a breathing tube is put down a patient’s throat and its effects last about 20 minutes, Chance Dingler explained.

Under the effects of the drug, without any sedative, patients would be aware of suffocating but unable to say they can’t breathe.

“It’s about the cruelest way to kill somebody,” said Len Dingler. “I knew right then … somebody's here killing people.”

Len Dingler shared his suspicion with the hospital’s administrators, who promptly removed Mivacron from crash carts. Moving forward, staff also had to sign it out from the pharmacy and revised measures were put in place for future code blues.

Staffing was reviewed for each day a patient died. In December there were 11 deaths, with another 14 taking place in January. The Dingler brothers sought to determine which deaths were suspicious.

Nurse Vickie Dawn Jackson raises suspicion

Vickie Dawn Jackson. Photo: Oxygen

On February 4, before the data could be fully analyzed, patient E.E. Jackson, 92, was found dead in his room by nurse Vickie Dawn Jackson, who was married to the patient's grandson, Kirk, a hospital aide.

Despite Jackson’s advanced age, the fact that he was fine one moment and dead the next made the case suspicious.

Between her work schedule overlapping with recent deaths and her access to Mivacron, Vickie was the main suspect.

At this point, the doctors reached out to Chief Holcomb and shared their suspicions on February 6. Chief Holcomb’s first step was to determine how much Mivacron was missing and inform the District Attorney of what was happening at the hospital.

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"The District Attorney’s office requested that the FBI be involved,” said Kevin Benton, investigator, Montague County DA’s Office.

While seeking more evidence that linked Vicki to the suspected murders, detectives kept the investigation secret.

In the meantime, the review showed that about 14 vials of the drug were missing. “That threw a big red flag up,” said Chief Holcomb.

Due to the way Mivacron is metabolized, there was no test to detect Mivacron in a deceased body. “The FBI actually had to invent a test to test bodily fluids for Mivacron,” said Chance Dingler.

Who was Vickie Dawn Jackson?

Len Dingler took stock of his experiences with the prime suspect. “I knew Vickie for a number of years,” he said. “She came in early, stayed late, worked hard.”

Investigators learned that her first marriage was troubled. When she met Kirk Jackson in 1997 she was raising two kids on her own. They eventually tied the knot.

At the time of the hospital investigation, Kirk and Vickie were going through a rough patch in their marriage.

While doctors were ready to fire Vickie, investigators had them hold off.

“What you don't want to do is scare somebody off,” said Jack McGaughery, Montague County District Attorney. “You want to give them every opportunity to give you more evidence.”

Investigators hatched a plan to catch the suspected killer in the act. They covertly installed a video camera system above the crash cart and a Mivacron vial containing saline was put in the cart.

However, nothing suspicious emerged from this plan.

Then, on February 19, Donnelly Reid, a 61-year-old patient, coded.

Nothing about Reid’s condition made him a candidate for respiratory arrest, so doctors believed that Vicky had evaded surveillance and injected Mivacron.

With Dr. Chance Dingler’s help, Reid survived. Blood and urine samples were collected, along with Reid’s IV tubing.

Reid later told his doctor that a nurse had come into his room and injected something into his IV. She watched as he struggled to breathe. “She was just smiling at him,” said Chance Dingler.

In an interview with Chief Holcomb, Reid described the nurse as medium-built with blonde hair before picking out Vickie from a photo array.

Dirty syringe found in Vickie Dawn Jackson's trash

Vickie Dawn Jackson. Photo: Oxygen

On February 20, 2001, Chief Holcomb and an FBI agent questioned Vickie at the hospital conference room.

At the same time a DA’s investigator and Texas Rangers went to her home. A syringe with liquid in it was fished out of her curbside garbage can.

Doctors fired Vickie and Kirk, though not a suspect, was also let go. He was stunned when he was told that his wife was the prime suspect, according to Sins of the South.

In June 2001, the bodies of 10 people who died at Nocona General Hospital were exhumed to check for traces of Mivacron. The month following, a lab report confirmed what was suspected. “The syringe found at Vickie's house had Mivacron in it,” said Chief Holcomb.

But Chief Holcomb still couldn’t arrest her until there was proof that patients were murdered.

Then, 13 months after the exhumations, all ten of the exhumed bodies tested positive for Mivacron. The manner of death for all was changed to homicide.