A nurse in Tyler who had his license revoked last month has been charged with murder, and police say additional charges for aggravated assault could be on the way.
William George Davis, 34, was arrested Tuesday night by the Tyler Police Department. Police say Davis, a registered nurse who spent five years with Christus Mother Frances Hospital – Tyler, is responsible for the death of 47-year-old Christopher Greenaway. Davis is being held at the Smith County Jail on a $2 million bond.
An additional six charges of aggravated assault could be coming when police hand over the charges to the district attorney’s office, Tyler Police Chief Jimmy Toler said during a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
Davis had his nursing license revoked on March 16 by the Texas Board of Nursing. The charges, substantiated by the board, say that on August 4, 2017, while on assignment at Christus Mother Frances’ Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital, Davis entered the room of a patient to which he wasn’t assigned and performed an “unskilled and/or unnecessary and/or inappropriate” intervention.
The patient died two days later, according to the order of temporary suspension from the board of nursing, available here via the Tyler Morning Telegraph. An autopsy revealed a “cortical acute ischemic infarction from an air embolism that contributed to the patient’s demise.”
It’s unclear whether that patient is the one for which Davis is charged with murder. Tyler police were tight-lipped about the specific details of his alleged misconduct, citing a need to keep things quiet during what is still an active investigation.
The nursing board’s order of temporary suspension includes four charges in total. In addition to the intervention that resulted in death, the charges say Davis entered the room of two additional patients to which he was not assigned, on Nov. 30 of last year and Jan. 25 of this year, respectively. In both cases, the patients “immediately deteriorated from their stable condition.” Here’s how the charge for the Jan. 25 incident is described:
Respondent entered the room of Patient Number 100446730, to whom he was not assigned, and performed an (unskilled and/or unnecessary and/or inappropriate) intervention for the patient. Approximately three (3) minutes later, the patient immediately deteriorated from their stable condition and required resuscitative measures, ultimately resulting in a persistent vegetative state. Upon questioning, Respondent first admitted to facility management that he entered the room the patient’s room [sic] and silenced an IV that was beeping. Several days later, Respondent admitted to management that he reset a beeping IV, flushed the arterial line a couple of times, and pumped the pressure bag. Additionally, Respondent failed to communicate his intervention to the patient’s assigned nurse and/or document the event.
The Nov. 30 event also resulted in the patient’s “persistent vegetative state,” according to the order of temporary suspension.
Toler said all seven instances that police have identified occurred between June 2017 and Jan. 2018. Davis was fired on Feb. 15 because of his falsification of care events and for failing to disclose interventions related to the Jan. 25 incident, according to the board of nursing’s fourth charge.
Tyler Police started working the case in early February after they were alerted by Irving-based Christus Health in late January, Toler said. Authorities have logged 1,700 man hours on it since, he said.
Toler also said that after media coverage broke earlier Wednesday about the case, the department has seen an uptick in calls about concerns for family members who might have received care from Davis.
In a separate incident in East Texas earlier this year, the Texas Board of Nursing caught an imposter nurse who’d falsified her experience and presented someone else’s license to earn a job at a Marshall-based dialysis clinic.
