The Book: Killer Nurse

The Author: John Foxjohn

The Story: She was hired to nurse them back to health…instead, she took their lives.

For months, the DaVita Dialysis Center in Lufkin, Texas had been baffled by the rising number of deaths and injuries occurring in their clinic.

In April alone, they’d rushed thirty-four patients to the hospital. But no one expected such a horrific cause to be behind it all.

Kimberly Clark Saenz was a well-liked licensed vocational nurse at the center. The East Texas nurse was a mother of two, and known for her smiles and the stories she told to help patients pass the time.

But on April 28, 2008, witnesses came forward to say that instead of lifesaving medication, they’d seen Saenz adding toxic bleach to IV ports. Turns out, it wasn’t the first time.

Once caught, the shocking story of Saenz’s murderous practices began to unravel…

About the Author: Best-selling author John Foxjohn epitomizes the phrase “been there—done that.” Born and raised in the rural East Texas town of Nacogdoches, he quit high school and joined the Army at seventeen. Viet Nam veteran, Army Airborne Ranger, policeman and homicide detective, retired teacher and coach, now he is a multi-published author.

John Foxjohn published his first book in 2006, and since that time, his star has risen to new heights with the people who matter most—the readers. Readers voted his novel, Cold Tears as the best mystery in the world. His historical fiction, Journey of the Spirit would follow in the accolades. Readers voted it second best in the mainstream category. In 2008, readers voted Foxjohn as the author of the year.

As a recipient of RWA’s STAR award, Foxjohn became one of few men to receive this honor.

With three books on at least one best-seller list, he is in constant demand to speak to groups, especially writer groups, and twice he’s won mentoring awards from different writing chapters.

Foxjohn is one of the few writers to present a class at both the Mystery Writers of America national convention and the Romance Writers of America.

Foxjohn is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, Elements of Romance, Kiss of Death, Lethal Ladies, Sisters-in-Crime, East Texas Writers Guild, League of Texas Writers, and more online writing groups than he can count. He is a full time writer and speaker and lives in Lufkin, Texas, but travels extensively across the U.S.

About the Book: In April of 2008, Kimberly Clark Saenz truly was an obscure East Texas nurse at the DaVita Lufkin Dialysis Center. All that began to change on April 28. Two very frightened patients told another DaVita employee that they’d witnessed Saenz inject bleach into two patients’ IV ports.

From that day on, Saenz, the DaVita Lufkin supervisors, Lufkin police officers, and people inside the Angelina County DA’s office would never be the same.

In truth, no one wanted to believe what the two elderly patients said they saw. It was just too inconceivable that a nurse would intentionally harm patients, and especially by injecting them with bleach.

What the two witnesses told DaVita supervisors floored them, but as the shock wore off, in a way, relief set in. They now had an answer to the question of why patients had been dying.

Knowing the answer is one thing, but proving it is entirely different. If Saenz was indeed guilty of injuring and killing patients, the weight of the case–one that no detective in the world ever had to think about before, would rest on one Lufkin detective’s shoulders.

In April of 2008, John Foxjohn was a successful fiction writer living in Lufkin, Texas. As soon as the Saenzs news broke, he began thinking about writing about the case. He believed that this one was so unique in nature, and at the same time, so horrifying, that it would garner world-wide attention. As it turned out, he was correct.

Foxjohn spent four years learning how to write a true crime, and that included all the legal ramifications that went with it. In that same time period, he began to learn about the medical aspects of dialysis so he could understand better what he would have to write about.

He observed every minute of the three weeks of voir dire and then the every minute of the four-week trial. With that information in hand, he interviewed 237 people. These included the three attorneys on the prosecution team, everyone involved in the investigation on law enforcement side, the death penalty specialist for the defense, and several other people on the defense team.

Along with these, he interviewed the entire jury for several hours, friends and family members of Saenz, and even people she’d gone to school with or worked with at DaVita or other jobs.

Killer Nurse is the product of the one person who knows more about the case than anyone.

Please click the book cover image to read more about Killer Nurse.