1 month ago
Rachel Waters was successful her flat successful Queens, watching nutrient reviews connected YouTube, erstwhile a caregiver called: her mother was dying.
She needed to get to nan representation attraction installation successful Evans, Georgia, immediately. A expert had said Marsha could walk wrong hours.
The telephone was devastating, but not unexpected. Marsha Foster, 74, had precocious Alzheimer’s illness and aggregate myeloma, a uncommon humor cancer. She had been successful hospice attraction for astir 8 months and weighed conscionable 80lbs. Her spine was truthful weakened by nan illness that she was permanently hunched complete astatine a 90-degree angle.
When Rachel arrived astatine Marshall Pines Assisted Living and Memory Care, she recovered her mother astir unresponsive. Marsha’s eyes wouldn’t close, her rima was drooping, and her toes had started to move achromatic – nan consequence of reduced humor travel arsenic nan assemblage originates to unopen down. In accordance pinch her “do not resuscitate” order, she had not been fixed nutrient aliases fluids for astir a day.
When aides repositioned her, Marsha’s look crumpled into what Rachel described arsenic “one of those Greek calamity masks”.
She begged unit to springiness her mother morphine, an opioid commonly utilized to dainty terrible symptom successful palliative attraction settings. They refused and told her Marsha was comfortable.
Rachel could not guidelines to spot her mother successful agony. Marsha had been clear astir really she wanted to die. Before her cognitive decline, she had told Rachel she wanted to dice naturally, but without unnecessary suffering.
“I was committed to that pinch each fibre of my being,” Rachel says.
She told her partner to spell to her car and retrieve nan morphine that had been prescribed erstwhile Marsha first entered hospice, to beryllium utilized successful emergencies, past dabbed nan liquid opioid on nan wrong of her mother’s dry, cracked lips – a determination that would soon travel nether scrutiny.
This was not nan first clip Rachel had clashed with staff. Later, a nursing adjutant named Casey Sheppard would show an investigator, referring to Rachel: “She told maine she did not fearfulness decease for illustration astir people. She said a batch of things.”
Just earlier 7am connected 12 July 2023, Marsha died.
That should person been nan worst point to person happened that day. But 4 hours later, Rachel sewage a call. It was nan ceremonial home. They couldn’t prime up nan body, because it had been sent to nan Georgia bureau of investigations successful Atlanta.
Rachel’s humor ran cold. She could only travel up pinch 1 logic a assemblage would beryllium taken to a crime laboratory – personification alleged a crime had occurred.
“All I could deliberation was: ‘Oh my God, did personification impeach maine of sidesplitting my mom?’”
Within hours, constabulary cruisers pulled up extracurricular her puerility home.
By nan extremity of nan day, officers had executed a hunt warrant, seizing her electronics and nan aesculapian instrumentality she had utilized to attraction for her mother.
Rachel secured an attorney. Then, nothing. For much than a year, she was near successful limbo – nary charges, nary explanation, nary measurement forward. Without a decease certificate, she couldn’t settee her mother’s estate, waste her house, aliases moreover cancel her bills. She couldn’t grieve.
Her lawyer told her he didn’t deliberation a lawsuit would travel of it. Marsha had been successful hospice, he said, “and there’s only 1 measurement group travel retired of hospice”.
Eighteen months aft Marsha’s death, nan charges came down: felony execution and malice murder. Both are superior crimes successful Georgia, meaning Rachel could look nan decease penalty.
Rachel’s lawsuit quickly dispersed crossed section news sites and tabloids, becoming thing of a Rorschach test. Some group saw a devoted girl trying to easiness her mother’s suffering. Others saw thing acold darker.
Most people, Rachel believes, misunderstood what had really happened that day.
“I mislaid everything,” she says.
“And a immense chunk of group judge I’m a murderer.”
The morphine had been fixed to Rachel almost casually.
When Marsha first entered hospice successful 2022, she was fixed a “comfort-care kit” – a container of medications to beryllium utilized successful emergencies. It included morphine and lorazepam, a sedative.
Also known arsenic an eKit, it is meant arsenic a stopgap – thing caregivers tin usage until a caregiver arrives. The narcotics are typically administered successful liquid form, truthful they tin beryllium absorbed moreover erstwhile a diligent tin nary longer swallow.
Rachel kept it successful a drawer astatine her mother’s house. When she later switched hospice providers, she says she was told it was good to support it.
After getting nan telephone from nan nurse, Rachel raced down to Georgia and group up an inflatable mattress successful Marsha’s room. The time of her mother’s passing, Rachel was woken by a crisp clacking sound. Marsha was gasping for air, her jaw snapping unfastened and shut. It looked “like torture”, Rachel recalled later.
She knew that successful palliative care, debased doses of morphine are often utilized to easiness this benignant of respiratory distress. She ran into nan hallway and asked nan aides connected nighttime work if they had morphine connected hand. When they said they didn’t, she announced she was going to usage nan morphine from Marsha’s aged comfort-care kit.
The aides balked.
“I don’t want immoderate portion successful this,” Rachel recalls 1 saying.
Their consequence was confusing. Rachel had been by nan sides of her grandparents and her partner’s begetter arsenic they passed. All had been fixed morphine drips to thief negociate their pain.
Staff had besides refused to administer Marsha morphine nan time before, contempt Rachel’s assertion that her mother was successful pain. According to nan Marshall Pines logs from that day: “hospice caregiver stated astatine this clip she doesn’t spot immoderate logic to commencement resident connected morphine.”
The caregiver had besides contacted Dr Kelli Carter, a family aesculapian expert successful nan area who consulted for Marshall Pines.
Per nan logs, Carter stated that she “WILL NOT commencement morphine astatine this point” – nan refusal recorded emphatically successful each caps. The introduction did not explicate her reasoning.
To experts specified arsenic Angela Novas of nan Hospice Federation of America, this guidance is baffling. “It is simply a captious portion of nan hospice ngo for those [emergency] packs to beryllium successful place,” she says. She besides pushes backmost connected nan thought that morphine hastens nan decease of hospice patients. “It’s not for illustration we gave nan diligent morphine, truthful so they died,” Novas says. “They are dying, truthful we are giving them morphine.”
Desperate to easiness Marsha’s suffering, Rachel called nan hospice emergency hotline. She described Marsha’s symptoms, and they recommended a 1ml dose of liquid morphine.
Following hospice’s instructions, Rachel utilized her digit to dispersed nan morphine mildly on nan wrong of her mother’s bottommost lip. Marsha’s breathing didn’t improve.
Approximately 10 minutes later, astatine 6.56am connected 12 July, “staff heard a large holler and screaming”, according to nan Marshall Pines logs. They ran to Marsha’s room and saw Rachel “sitting connected [the] furniture crying hysterically”.
A caregiver connected work checked for a beat and recovered none. According to nan autopsy, Marsha’s origin of decease was “acute morphine toxicity”.
Rachel Waters doesn’t fresh nan mold of a confederate belle. A Buddhist subject writer pinch dyed pinkish hairsbreadth and a septum ring, she has been successful a narration pinch 2 men, David and Chet, for astir a decade. She calls them her husbands, though she is not legally joined to either.
Rachel grew up successful Harlem, Georgia, a quaint municipality extracurricular Augusta – light-years distant from her existent location successful New York City. Rachel describes it arsenic mini and quiet, friends but conservative. “Everyone tends to cognize everyone else,” she says.
“Change happens very gradually here,” says Allison Stratton, a erstwhile hospice caregiver and longtime friend of Rachel’s. “I’ve recovered that group are very speedy to walk judgement connected thing that doesn’t fresh nan mold.” But it’s besides a close-knit, caring community, she adds.
Rachel has felt for illustration an outsider – “an alien”, arsenic she puts it – for astir of her life. As a child, she was curious, outspoken and defiant successful a blimpish Christian organization that expected girls to beryllium quiet and obedient.
Her improvement progressed successful uneven bursts. She says she scored exceptionally precocious connected IQ tests and, by seven, was reference nan full Encyclopedia Britannica. But she couldn’t necktie her shoes until she was eight. She was shuttled betwixt precocious placement and typical acquisition classrooms, and struggled socially. Classmates bullied her relentlessly, but she often didn’t admit it until overmuch later. “I would deliberation nan bullies were my friends,” she recalls.
After Marsha’s death, Rachel publication her mother’s journals and recovered entries astir really Marsha had based on pinch her ain relative and sister because they called Rachel “the worst kid successful nan world”, saying she was excessively disobedient.
Rachel describes her mother arsenic her “steadfast defender”. But arsenic adjacent arsenic they were, moreover Marsha occasionally struggled pinch Rachel’s intransigence. Once, she told her daughter: “You were a cleanable angel, Rachel – until you learned to speak.”
Still, she allowed Rachel to prosecute her interests. She would bring her connected business trips and fto her walk her allowance connected whimsical clothes, arsenic agelong arsenic they weren’t excessively risque. “She was an artist, truthful she was very permissive of my creativity,” Rachel says.
In precocious school, things changed. Rachel had emerged connected nan different broadside of puberty conventionally attractive, and mostly understood really she was expected to look and behave. She still stood retired – she was a goth who brought a Marilyn Manson lunchbox to schoolhouse – but her classmates seemed to find this cool and intimidating.
After nan 1999 Columbine shooting, however, early reports linking nan killers to goth civilization changed that. By 10th grade, Rachel recovered that her artistic abruptly frightened people. Teachers grew suspicious, information guards patted her down, and, tired of being treated for illustration a threat, she transferred to an online programme and graduated pinch a afloat danasiwa to college.
It wasn’t until her precocious 20s that Rachel recovered her people. At 24, she joined her first husband. They soon near Georgia, and Rachel started moving arsenic an interrogator successful Washington DC, doing inheritance checks into national labor seeking apical concealed information clearances. On nan weekends, she would recreation up to New York, wherever she worked arsenic an replacement exemplary – gothic beauty, fetish manner – and nightlife hostess.
Eventually, she moved to New York full-time. Shortly after, she and her hubby divorced. For nan first clip successful her life, group seemed to emotion nan defiance and directness that had bothered her confederate family and peers. “Rachel, astir places are not made for group for illustration us,” a friend told her once. “But New York is.”
Years later, astatine her hubby David’s urging, Rachel was tested for and diagnosed pinch autism astatine nan property of 31.
“It was for illustration nan heavens had opened up and 1,000lbs of weight had been removed from my shoulders,” she says. “I abruptly understood why group recovered maine off-putting and disconcerting.”
She learned to beryllium unfastened astir her diagnosis, and group seemed to judge her much for it. Still, erstwhile she would sojourn her mom successful Georgia, she mostly tried to “mask” – hide her autistic tendencies and imitate nan behaviour of neurotypical people.
But nan sicker Marsha got, nan harder it became to mask. With her emotions truthful heightened, she vacillated betwixt being hysterically affectional aliases acold and clinical.
“I cognize that contributed almost surely to maine not being very liked [by nan Marshall Pines staff],” she says. “Everything that happened pinch my mom was my top trauma magnified.”
Observing her interactions pinch nan Marshall Pines staff, Chet suspected location was a taste bias moving against Rachel. “Here comes this personification who thinks she’s amended than us, who doesn’t fresh nan mold, who lives successful New York and has 2 husbands,” he said. “That became nan full relationship.”
After Marsha’s death, Rachel’s narration pinch her remaining family – her mother’s brother, Ronnie, and mother’s sister, Gayle – disintegrated. Her matter messages and Christmas cards went unanswered, and she was blocked connected societal media.
One day, erstwhile she was backmost successful Harlem, she drove by her aunt’s location and saw Gayle successful nan yard. Rachel rolled down her model and said: “Hey, Aunt Gayle!” Without a word, her aunt turned her backmost and walked backmost into her house.
“It was clear that these group who had been a portion of my life nary longer wanted maine to beryllium a portion of their lives,” Rachel says. “I don’t cognize if it was because of nan investigation. Maybe they were only ever adjacent to maine for my mom’s benefit.”
Ronnie and Gayle did not respond to requests for comment.
Historically, curen for nan earnestly sick was mostly limited to palliative care, offering sufferers comfortableness and denotation alleviation astatine nan extremity of their lives. But pinch antibiotics and 19th- and 20th-century advances, unwellness and wounded became easier to manage.
Death began to look avoidable, aliases astatine slightest delayable.
The modern hospice accuracy was developed by Cicely Saunders, a nurse, expert and societal worker who opened St Christopher’s Hospice successful London successful 1967. She emphasized treating not conscionable beingness pain, but besides patients’ affectional and belief needs, arsenic good arsenic those of their caregivers.
The first US hospice opened successful 1974, and successful 1982 Congress introduced nan Medicare hospice benefit. Today, astir half of Medicare beneficiaries person hospice care. Still, experts opportunity distrust persists among overmuch of nan US public.
“There’s a large stigma astir hospice, because group deliberation it’s weird, and they deliberation we termination people,” says Stratton. “It has this stigma of giving up.”
This couldn’t beryllium further from nan truth, says Dr Debra Parker Oliver, professor of palliative medicine astatine Washington University St Louis. “I’ve not seen a hospice diligent springiness up,” she says. “They whitethorn go resigned to nan inevitable, aliases they whitethorn take not to conflict for magnitude of life, but they’re going to conflict for comfort.”
What that comfortableness looks for illustration varies, she says. Some patients prioritize complete symptom relief, moreover if it intends being unconscious overmuch of nan time; others judge immoderate discomfort to stay alert.
But nan kits tin besides beryllium unsettling. Families are often handed powerful medications without afloat knowing really aliases erstwhile to usage them, which tin beryllium distressing. Instructions and training alteration widely. Some hospices supply elaborate guidance; others time off nan kit and show families to telephone pinch questions.
This tin create anxiety, arsenic 1 2013 paper Oliver co-authored successful nan Journal of Pain and Symptom Management showed. Caregivers reported trouble successful assessing symptom and administering medication, and worrying astir broadside effects.
One man told researchers: “I’m not a doctor, and I do not cognize if I helped her spell faster aliases slower aliases what, hellhole I do not know.”
In nan corporate mind, morphine is often associated pinch decease aliases addiction. A lethal dose of morphine is usually astir 200mg, though this varies depending connected a patient’s wellness and aesculapian history.
“You’re taught morphine is simply a bad thing, and now you’re giving it to personification each hr successful their last hours,” says Oliver. “You tin spot why that would beryllium disturbing, and why personification who doesn’t understand would travel successful and says: ‘You killed them.’”
But successful hospice, nan narration is often nan reverse.
“Giving personification morphine erstwhile they person 1 toed done nan veil allows them to relax. It allows them to beryllium retired of pain, and past they tin spell on,” says Stratton. “Pain and stimulus keeps them around.”
At Marshall Pines, tensions betwixt Rachel and unit had been building for months.
The conflict was partially structural. Marshall Pines was not a aesculapian installation but an assisted surviving complex, wherever residents paid for thief pinch regular tasks: bathing, dressing, managing medications. Most unit were aides, not nurses.
Decisions astir curen did not remainder pinch them. Those belonged to hospice and to Rachel, who held powerfulness of attorney.
At first, Marsha thrived. Her room was ample and sunlit, scrupulously tidy, pinch a mini crucifix supra nan bed.
Marsha, a retired outer communications technologist who roseate done nan army’s civilian ranks, was a devoted Christian. She liked to watch Jeopardy and NCIS, and had a large crush connected nan show’s starring man, Mark Harmon. “She would look astatine him and say, ‘Isn’t that a handsome man?’” Chet laughs. “Sometimes she referred to him arsenic her husband.” Rachel and her partners dressed up nan walls pinch a framed photograph of him, arsenic good arsenic Marsha’s ain paintings.
But complete time, nan symptom from Marsha’s crab and bony deterioration wore connected her. In April, a certified nursing adjunct reported that Marsha had been yelling astatine residents and staff, “saying she had capable money to person everyone killed”.
As her behaviour grew much erratic and aggressive, managers told Rachel she had to intervene. Rachel remembers 1 caregiver yelling complete nan phone: “What are you going to do astir your mother?”
Part of nan hostility stemmed from Rachel’s reluctance to put her mother connected nan antipsychotic Seroquel, contempt unit urging. Marsha had taken it astatine location before, but alternatively of calming her, it intensified her delusions. One night, successful a frenzy, she woke Rachel’s partner David and insisted she needed to trim disconnected her ain leg. She stopped taking it soon after.
In Marsha’s advancement notes connected 30 May 2023, Marshall Pines’ executive head Kellie Pugh described a strained in-person gathering pinch Rachel.
“This writer expressed to Rachel that she needs to extremity dictating what medications her mom needs to beryllium connected and spot hospice to do what they do,” Pugh wrote.
“She was advised to prime and take her battles and asked would she alternatively her mother person much dementia aliases beryllium successful symptom each nan time. Rachel agreed and stated she understood.”
Prescribing antipsychotics to dementia patients is not uncommon; they are often utilized to dainty distress and convulsive outbursts. But nan believe is controversial. Until recently, location were nary FDA-approved antipsychotics for treating dementia, and studies recovered that these drugs increased nan consequence of falls and decease successful dementia patients.
“For galore behaviors, it’s benignant of for illustration sidesplitting a alert pinch a cannon,” psychiatry professor Dr Helen Kales told Michigan Medicine successful 2016. “People person broadside effects that worsen behaviors, and you person to springiness them moreover much medication.”
In May 2023 however, nan FDA approved nan antipsychotic Rexulti “for nan curen of agitation associated pinch dementia owed to Alzheimer’s disease”. On 10 June, Marsha was put connected it.
Tensions continued to emergence betwixt Rachel and nan Marshall Pines staff. Speaking to an interrogator aft Marsha’s death, Sheppard, nan nursing aide, expressed interest complete immoderate of Rachel’s behaviour and statements.
“She wants [Marsha] to die. She moreover told maine she had looked into physician-assisted suicide, and they would person to spell to Switzerland to do that,” Sheppard said.
And later: “She did not want [Marsha] surviving immoderate longer.”
Rachel first publication Sheppard’s words much than 2 years later, erstwhile she and her lawyers yet received nan prosecution’s find materials. She remembered discussing assisted dying – but pinch different nurse, not Sheppard. Also, she had been talking astir herself, not Marsha.
If she sewage Alzheimer’s, Rachel had said, she would spell to an assisted-dying session successful Switzerland. “It was a half joke,” she says. She says her remark astir not fearing decease had been a reference to her Buddhism, and nan acceptance of life’s impermanence.
Kellie Pugh and Marshall Pines declined to remark connected this story. Casey Sheppard did not respond to requests for comment.
Rachel was organizing a statement for her 42nd day erstwhile nan anonymous remark appeared.
She had conscionable posted a tribute to her mother connected Instagram erstwhile an anonymous personification named wrote nether it:
Why person you been indicted for execution successful your mother’s death?! That is why your family has disowned you. Shame connected you.
It was followed by different remark that included an indictment number, a judge’s name, and nan charges of malice execution and felony murder.
Rachel was blindsided. She hadn’t been told a warrant had been issued for her arrest.
In a panic, she called Robert Homlar, nan aforesaid criminal defense lawyer she said to connected nan time her mother died, and who had been reassuring her for nan past 18 months that it was improbable she would beryllium charged pinch anything.
It was Friday evening, and Homlar was sitting astatine nan barroom of nan Ritz Carlton successful Lake Oconee, Georgia, a mates of drinks deep. He was capable to corroborate nan indictment was real, but wasn’t successful a position to woody pinch nan situation.
“But I cognize who is,” he said.
Within nan hour, Rachel was connected nan telephone pinch Brian Steel.
Steel is arguably Georgia’s astir celebrated attorney. He represented rapper Jeffery “Young Thug” Williams successful nan much-publicized racketeering trial involving Williams and his associates from YSL records. The rapper Drake has named a 2015 opus aft him. In April 2025, he was drafted connected to Sean “Diddy” Combs’ defense team, and that aforesaid month, nan New Yorker mag ran an extended floor plan of him.
Despite his glitzy clientele, Steel is not what you mightiness expect from a large sanction attorney. He was described successful nan New Yorker arsenic a man “of almost unbelievable purity”.
Steel says he took connected Rachel’s lawsuit because it would person been “cruel” to not.
“When Rachel called me, location was a true, undeniable emotion she had for her mother,” he says. “She wanted to make it truthful others would ne'er spell done nan agony she went through.”
During their first telephone call, Steel told Rachel she would person to spell down to Georgia to move herself successful truthful she could hopefully make enslaved successful bid to stay free earlier nan trial.
Before hanging up, Rachel recalls Steel saying: “We are family. Your humor is my blood. We will get done this.”
After Rachel sewage disconnected nan phone, Chet and David asked her if she still wanted to person a party. “‘Oh my God, yes!” she replied. “I request to show everybody what’s astir to hap to me.”
At nan party, she gathered nan astir 45 guests successful nan surviving room, stood connected a chair and filled her friends successful connected nan charges and nan truth that she would beryllium turning herself into nan police. She mightiness not beryllium coming backmost for a while, she said. Some of her closest friends knew what was going on, but galore didn’t. People were shocked and angry. Some cried.
Amazingly, it still managed to beryllium a beautiful nosy night, Rachel says. She told her guests she needed to decently celebrate, because she could beryllium successful jailhouse for years.
A week later, erstwhile Rachel, Chet and David made nan thrust from New York to Georgia, nan temper was importantly much grim. Or arsenic David put it: “It was fundamentally nan extremity of nan world.”
Driving south, Rachel had nary thought really agelong she mightiness beryllium successful jail.
As she was facing execution charges, it was very imaginable nan judge would contradict her bail. It could mean months, aliases years down bars.
She, Chet and David had spent hours combing done lawsuit files and tribunal documents, looking for immoderate benignant of ineligible precedent, but they couldn’t find any. “I only recovered group who had really killed nan personification who was successful hospice,” Rachel says. In those cases, location was beardown grounds of intentional overdose, and nary of nan victims had been declared actively dying.
At 5am connected 5 March 2025, Rachel walked into nan Columbia region jail. Officials stripped disconnected her clothes, sprayed disinfectant connected her hair, underarms and crotch, and assigned her a number. Other women asked what she was successful for, and past scoffed erstwhile she told them. “They were like, ‘Nah, you’re not a murderer,’” she laughs.
At nan enslaved hearing, nan courtroom held much than 30 of Rachel’s friends who had travel to service arsenic characteristic witnesses. Her ex-husband was present, arsenic were aged assemblage professors, friends from New York, and group who had followed her connected societal media for years.
So galore supporters had made nan travel that territory lawyer Natalie Paine yet asked Steel to extremity calling witnesses. She stepped up to nan judge and conferred quietly. Bond was granted.
All successful all, Rachel was only successful jailhouse for 12 hours. She knew she was acold luckier than most; her cellmate told Rachel she had spent much of her life successful jailhouse than out, moreover though she had ne'er been charged pinch a crime.
The adjacent fewer weeks were a whirl of activity arsenic Rachel, Chet, David and Steel prepared for a imaginable trial. “It was for illustration we were successful a war,” David recalls. “We had to strategize.”
With Steel’s help, Rachel, David and Chet brainstormed defenses for thing nan prosecution could perchance propulsion astatine them. They gathered reams of evidence: archiving Rachel had from Marsha’s past days, interviews pinch aesculapian examiners, aesculapian diary articles astir nan effects of morphine connected nan body.
The Guardian shared copies of nan autopsy pinch 2 aesculapian examiners unfamiliar pinch nan case. Both said nan autopsy was thorough and good done, but that it was almost intolerable to find from nan accusation provided whether morphine toxicity was nan origin of death.
The magnitude of morphine successful Marsha’s humor “can’t beryllium taken retired of context”, says forensic pathologist Dr Michael Graham. The effect of a supplier depends connected nan person’s tolerance to it (those who person been opioids earlier for symptom guidance will astir apt person a higher tolerance), erstwhile they received nan dose, and what different medications nan diligent was receiving.
In April, Steel sent their findings to nan aesculapian examiner astatine nan Georgia bureau of investigation.
Then, much waiting. Finally, successful early August, nan examiner revised Marsha’s origin of decease from “homicide” to “undetermined”.
Days later, Paine dropped nan charges against Rachel.
Rachel was successful furniture astatine location successful New York erstwhile Steel called to show her that morning. She started to cry.
Chet and David were overwhelmed pinch relief, but what Rachel felt was much complicated. There was relief, sure, but besides a batch of disorder and frustration.
The accusation had taken up years of her life, leaving her exhausted and incapable to process her mother’s death. Her reputation, she felt, had besides taken a immense hit: erstwhile you Google her name, location are still articles branding her a murderer.
“Murder fishy surrenders connected complaint of sidesplitting mom pinch morphine,” sounds 1 March 2025 headline.
“Bond group for female accused of sidesplitting her ailing mother,” sounds another.
Not nan benignant of point that tends to pull imaginable employers.
“My finances person been obliterated, my expertise to activity has been obliterated, and I person mislaid my family. I can’t conceive really they would deliberation that I killed my mom. But they intelligibly consciousness for illustration they didn’t cognize me,” she says.
Rachel has been moving to draught and walk what she is calling “Marsha’s Law”. It would require that location hospice providers archive what medications are included successful each comfortableness attraction kit, advised dosing ranges and a database of who is authorized to administer these medications to nan patient. The supplier would besides create a signed and witnessed archive showing that approved family and caregivers person been trained and authorized by hospice unit to administer comfortableness attraction medications. Hospice companies would besides beryllium required to support a transcript of this archive and supply it to rule enforcement aliases nan coroner successful nan arena of an investigation.
“So if for immoderate logic there’s a warrant, it is clear and upfront that family members are expected to usage these substances,” Rachel says.
In March, Rachel launched a website pinch accusation astir Marsha’s Law. She knows she still has a reliable slog up of her. She is still consulting attorneys and hospice workers connected a last draught of nan law. Once that’s done, she has to person healthcare companies to return connected much liability and paperwork. She’ll besides person to build capable nationalist spot to beryllium capable to advocator for nan law.
“The funny point astir being charged pinch murder, is moreover if you’re ne'er recovered guilty, location are going to beryllium a batch of group who look for grounds of guilt,” she says.
In 2016, Marsha came to sojourn Rachel successful New York. Before she left, she and Rachel had an statement astir faith. Marsha sometimes struggled pinch nan truth that Rachel was not a devout Christian.
“She was tormented by nan thought that she wasn’t judge if I would spell to eden aliases not,” Rachel says.
Weeks later, Rachel sewage a missive from Marsha successful nan mail. It was six pages long, afloat of additions, subtractions, and crossed retired words. In it, Marsha endeavored to laic retired what she had struggled to opportunity successful person: what she believed and why, what she felt she knew and didn’t cognize astir God.
“I judge that God created america and loves america each arsenic His children and that location is simply a eden wherever we will beryllium pinch Him aft we dice and pinch nan group and different surviving creatures that we emotion and person loved,” she wrote successful neat, bubbly handwriting.
In December 2025, 4 months aft nan charges against her were dropped, Rachel sits successful her flat successful Queens. Her Christmas character is up, immoderate of Marsha’s aged ornaments mixed successful pinch her own, and cats prowl successful and retired of nan surviving room. She tells her communicative energetically but carefully, occasionally turning to Chet and David to explain a detail.
She knows immoderate spot her arsenic a villain, but others spot her arsenic thing of a mercy slayer who bravely put her mother retired of her misery. “Even group who are sympathetic to me, they each presume I did it.”
In 1 Reddit thread astir her case, for example, users jump to her defense. “It takes an bonzer magnitude of emotion to make those decisions,” wrote one.
Rachel says she is not nan leader they deliberation she is. She reiterates that she didn’t effort to hasten Marsha’s death, and says that decease from morphine aliases immoderate different medicine overdose “is a genuinely atrocious measurement to die”.
Hospice workers to whom Rachel and nan Guardian person spoken to are divided connected nan proposal. Some opportunity it would amended protect caregivers and staff. Others reason it addresses a problem that doesn’t genuinely beryllium – that while Rachel’s acquisition was a nightmare, it’s not a consequence astir caregivers face.
“In aesculapian training, we talk astir horses and zebras,” says Angela Novas of nan Hospice Foundation of America. “We perceive hooves, and we deliberation that’s a horse. We don’t perceive hooves and deliberation that’s a zebra.” In different words, see nan simplest, astir apt script first. “I deliberation Rachel’s lawsuit was thing of a zebra.”
That zebra lawsuit costs Rachel her career, her life savings, her husband’s status savings – and her relationships pinch her remaining family backmost home.
Rachel wonders whether nan nationalist will judge her arsenic a spokesperson for authorities for illustration this, aliases whether they, for illustration her precocious schoolhouse bullies, extended family members, and assisted surviving aides, will beryllium put disconnected by her.
But she is determined. She says she feels she is connected a mission, 1 that requires her to stock her communicative truthful others mightiness debar a akin nightmare.
“I want group to cognize my communicative and cognize who I am,” she says. “That is nan only measurement I tin execute justness for my mom.”
