Harry L. Hancock, 69 and described as being of Boyds, Maryland, died on July 5, 2003. His death later became one of five patient deaths singled out in a criminal inquiry into care in the intensive care unit at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville. That review began in July 2003 after a nurse raised concerns about ICU nurse Coleen M. Thompson’s actions or omissions and whether they may have hastened a critically ill patient’s death.

Prosecutors later focused on a subset of deaths during Thompson’s employment in which they alleged she sometimes ignored doctors’ orders, failed to intervene during dangerous declines, or withheld needed medications. Thompson was investigated and prosecuted not for murder but for criminal neglect; in March 2005 she pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of second-degree abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult tied to deaths from 2002 to 2003, with Hancock named among the five. Sentencing on May 17, 2005 produced an 18-month term on each count, largely suspended to 45 days plus fine and probation. Relatives reacted angrily to the sentence, and Thompson apologized in court while maintaining she did not knowingly set out to harm patients.