A woman waived formal arraignment and entered a plea of not guilty in Division One of Livingston County Circuit Court on September 8th to first-degree murder. The case for 42-year-old Jennifer Anne Hall was continued to October 6th for a plea or trial setting.
Hall was arrested in Kansas in May for the alleged murder in connection with a hospital patient. Hall’s address was previously reported as Overland Park, Kansas.
A probable cause statement says Hall was placed on administrative leave as a respiratory therapist at Hedrick Medical Center of Chillicothe after the death of pneumonia patient Fern Franco on May 18th, 2002.
Franco’s body was disinterred, and an autopsy revealed the presence of substances not prescribed to her. An analysis of tissue samples revealed the presence of two drugs that can paralyze someone’s muscles, including the diaphragm, causing suffocation. A toxicology expert offered an opinion that Franco’s cause of death was due to poisoning, and the manner of death was a homicide.
The probable cause statement alleges that, during Hall’s five months of employment at the hospital, the number of cardiac collapse incidents rose to as many as 18 that were viewed as medically suspicious.
