In the summer of 1974 Petersburg, Virginia, a cluster of sudden patient deaths at Petersburg General Hospital prompted an investigation that centered on the coronary care unit. One of the victims was 73-year-old retired schoolteacher Josephine L. Thomas, who died on June 30, 1974 while under hospital care. An autopsy determined she had been injected with a fatal dose of lidocaine, a heart depressant, and her death was ruled a homicide.

Investigators noted an unusually high number of cardiac arrests during the night shift that month: a 20-year-old nurse’s aide, Lee Roy Hargrave Jr., was present for 26 of 31 cardiac arrests in the unit, and hospital officials confirmed a sharp rise in deaths while he worked there. Hargrave was charged with six counts of murder but was tried only for Thomas’s killing. In May 1975 he was convicted of first-degree murder and given a life sentence.

If anyone knew Josephine Thomas, her time as a teacher, or has information about the events at Petersburg General Hospital that summer, please share what is known.