Joel Andrews / AP / Lufkin Daily News
Kimberly Saenz was fired from her job at a clinic in Lufkin, Texas, in 2008 after patients started dying and falling increasingly ill.
By Msnbc.com staff and wire services
A Texas jury on Monday sentenced a former nurse to life in prison after finding her guilty of killing five patients by injecting bleach into their kidney dialysis lines, the Lufkin Daily News reported.
Kimberly Saenz, 38, was found guilty of capital murder in the case last week. Jurors could have recommended that she be sentenced to death.
Saenz was fired from her job at a clinic in Lufkin run by health care giant DaVita Inc. in 2008 after patients started dying and falling increasingly ill.
The Lufkin Daily News reported that at Monday's sentencing, the daughter of victim Thelma Metcalf told Saenz, “You are nothing more than a psychopathic serial killer. I hope you burn in hell."
During closing arguments, the prosecution reminded jurors that other patients feared for their lives after they witnessed some of the injections. Two patients testified that they saw Saenz inject the bleach into the IV lines.
Saenz’s public defender, Ryan Deaton, argued that his client had been poorly trained.
The Associated Press found records that showed Sanez's husband had filed for divorce and obtained an emergency protective order against her in June 2007, a year before the outbreak of death and illnesses at the DaVita clinic.
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