Hilda Leitz was an 82-year-old white woman who died at Daniel Drake Memorial Hospital in Cincinnati on March 7, 1987. At the time her death did not attract public suspicion, but investigators later determined she had been deliberately poisoned by hospital orderly Donald Harvey. Harvey admitted putting Detachol, a cleaning and adhesive-removing fluid, into Leitz’s orange juice and administering it through her gastric feeding tube.

Leitz’s death was uncovered only after a routine autopsy on another patient, John W. Powell, revealed cyanide poisoning and prompted a wider inquiry that focused on staff with access to vulnerable patients. Prosecutors later included Leitz among victims covered by Harvey’s guilty pleas; he admitted the killing as part of an agreement in which he pleaded guilty to numerous counts of aggravated murder and related charges. No other suspect has been identified in Leitz’s death.