Rita May Sugrue, 63, died on February 18, 1988, at New Life Acres nursing home in Melrose, Florida. Her death was initially recorded as natural but was later linked to Jeffrey Lynn Feltner, a former nurse’s aide at the facility who confessed to killing several patients and was convicted for two murders.

Feltner told a crisis hotline in July 1988 that he had an impulse to end patients’ suffering; investigators later concluded some deaths he was connected to, including Sugrue’s, were homicides. Feltner was not formally charged in Sugrue’s death; he pleaded guilty to two other murders in exchange for a life sentence and died in prison in 1993.

The case underscores failures in protecting vulnerable nursing home residents and incomplete legal closure for some victims.