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| © Bob Owen /Associated Press Genene Jones appears in court Wednesday at a hearing for a speedy trial in San Antonio. On Monday, the judge denied a request to dismiss five new murder indictments against the convicted child killer. |
By Elizabeth Zavala, Staff Writer, mySA
A judge here Monday denied a request to dismiss five new murder indictments against convicted child killer Genene Jones.
Jones, 67, a former Texas nurse who worked at hospitals in San Antonio and for a Kerrville pediatrician in the 1980s, was convicted in 1984 of killing 15-month-old Chelsea McClellan in 1982 by injecting her with an overdose of muscle relaxers at a doctor’s office in Kerrville.
Jones was sentenced to 99 years in that case and to 60 years after a Bexar County jury convicted her of injury to a child-serious bodily injury for giving an overdose to Rolando Santos, a 4-month-old infant who survived. The sentences were to be served at the same time.
Jones was set to be released in March because of a change in the law aimed at reducing prison crowding. But that was prevented by the new indictments. Since May, Jones has been indicted on charges of killing five Bexar County children who died in 1981 and 1982, all from overdoses. She currently is being held in the Bexar County jail.
Last week, her attorney Cornelius Cox, asked state District Judge Frank Castro to dismiss the new cases, citing a violation of her due process because he said prosecutors waited three decades to bring more charges against her and also violated her right to speedy trial.
Prosecutors have said they combed through 28 boxes of evidence from the 1980s, which they say revealed Jones confessed at least three times to “killing babies,” and they intend to try her on each of the new cases.
Jones is awaiting trial in July before Castro in the 399th state District Court.
Elizabeth Zavala is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of her stories here. | ezavala@express-news.net | @elizabeth2863
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