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Episode: The Retrievals - Ep. 2
Author: Serial Productions & The New York Times
Duration: 00:34:39
Episode Shownotes
The patients know what happened to them. Now they learn who did it. The story of the nurse whose own pain was also unseen. To get full access to this show, and to other Serial Productions and New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts.To find
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Summary
In Episode 2 of 'The Retrievals,' listeners learn about nurse Donna, whose struggle with addiction led her to misappropriate fentanyl, causing pain for many patients under her care. The episode intricately weaves her personal life, including a tumultuous relationship and her role as a parent, into the narrative, prompting patients to confront their pain and seek to understand their experiences. The complexities surrounding addiction, moral responsibility, and the justice system are explored as patients reflect on the disconnect between Donna's struggles and their suffering, highlighting the need for empathy alongside accountability.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (The Retrievals - Ep. 2) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
Full Transcript
00:00:03 Speaker_05
These first two episodes of The Retrievals are free. But to hear the whole series, you'll need to subscribe to The New York Times, where you'll get access to all the serial productions and New York Times shows. And it's super easy.
00:00:15 Speaker_05
You can sign up through Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And if you're already a Times subscriber, just link your account and you're done.
00:00:25 Speaker_00
At first, the nurse uses the fentanyl at work. She takes vials from storage and injects herself in the bathroom. Then she starts taking the vials home. A 30 minute drive to a Connecticut town in a more rural part of the state.
00:00:39 Speaker_00
This is where she's raising her children, three of them. It's a wealthy town, but not hedge fund wealth. Kids go to public school and play Little League. For a while, the nurse taught catechism at the church.
00:00:57 Speaker_00
The nurse is divorced from her children's father, who, according to court documents, is a volatile presence in their lives.
00:01:05 Speaker_00
The tooth fairy will be coming a lot because I'm going to knock your teeth out, and maybe the ambulance will have to come because your jawbones will break, is an example of the kind of thing the nurse claims the father has said.
00:01:17 Speaker_00
According to a police report, the father denies making this and all such threatening statements. But the children have said they are scared of him. The nurse is scared when they are with him. The nurse sees herself as the stable parent.
00:01:31 Speaker_00
That is who she needs to be. But now she is doing this thing, this thing that she needs. In fact, she needs it to remain stable. Sometimes she tries to stop, but she can't. She can go for a couple days without using.
00:01:45 Speaker_00
But as the withdrawal symptoms build, she starts again. What she does is she removes the fentanyl from the vial with a syringe. and then replaces it with saline, one clear liquid with another, no one can see.
00:01:58 Speaker_00
She does this uncountable times, and she returns an uncountable number of these vials that say they contain fentanyl, but actually contain saline, to the stock of drugs at work.
00:02:09 Speaker_00
And then one day, October 30, 2020, an anesthesiologist notices that a cap comes off a vial too easily. The loose cap is discovered on a Friday, and the following Wednesday, the nurse is questioned. She denies taking the fentanyl.
00:02:26 Speaker_00
But when the results of her drug test come back positive, the nurse confesses. She is terminated.
00:02:33 Speaker_00
In January 2021, law enforcement authorities send out a letter to approximately 200 patients at the Yale Clinic, telling them they are, quote, a potential victim in a federal criminal case. How old-fashioned, that news keeps arriving in the mail.
00:02:50 Speaker_00
But unlike the letter from Yale, this letter demands to be noticed. It's from the Department of Justice. And this letter says the name of the nurse. The name of the nurse is Donna.
00:03:02 Speaker_07
Donna was the person handling all the phone calls. Donna was the person ordering your meds. Donna was the person you called when you were in pain. Donna was, you know, it was all Donna. In fact, I had the number saved in my phone as Donna R.E.I., okay?
00:03:20 Speaker_00
Donna was not every patient's point person at the clinic. But for a time, she had been Leia's. The day Leia got the envelope from the Department of Justice, she brought it into her kitchen.
00:03:30 Speaker_07
And I remember opening it up. It was like one page. And I saw her name. And I like, I mean, I just like lost it. I was like weeping.
00:03:45 Speaker_00
Leah knew Donna. But now that the nurse had a name, something was different for even the patients who'd never encountered her. Now there was a distinct individual behind their pain. Who was she? The patients Googled her.
00:04:00 Speaker_00
One woman's husband noted that Donna had become a nurse when already in her 40s. What was up with that? Another patient zillowed her house. Someone else looked up whether her town had well water.
00:04:11 Speaker_00
It did, because how could anyone really be sure she'd replaced the fentanyl with saline? And what if she was just refilling the vial from her home tap? Others looked back at MyChart messages.
00:04:22 Speaker_03
You know, looking back, I know that I did correspond with Donna. We talked about medications at one point in MyChart messages.
00:04:31 Speaker_03
So I did correspond with her and she did work with my insurance company to get fentanyl approved for the procedures and I guess ordered for the procedures.
00:04:46 Speaker_06
After a pretty intense Google search, I am pretty certain that I met Donna the couple of times I was at the clinic doing the preliminary kind of testing.
00:04:59 Speaker_00
The patient's identities had shaped the ways they'd made sense of their pain. Now their identities were shaping the reactions to the person who caused it. What Angela was looking for had as much to do with her own identity as with Donna's.
00:05:14 Speaker_06
Sometimes I have a very hard time connecting with the idea of being a victim, especially in light of my job. So I'm a criminal defense attorney for indigent persons. And there's always a reason why. Why did they steal this? Why did this assault occur?
00:05:34 Speaker_06
Most people aren't just stealing things because it's funny. There's an actual reason behind it. And I wanted desperately, I think, to give her a reason so that I felt a little bit better.
00:05:47 Speaker_00
That's so interesting. How would knowing or imagining her reason make you feel better?
00:05:59 Speaker_06
When you're going through, I would assume, most fertility procedures, but with IVF, for me, you're at your most vulnerable. You were physically laying your body on the line saying, do what you need to do to correct kind of the brokenness that is me.
00:06:18 Speaker_06
And so every step of the way, it's personal and I've blamed myself. And I wanted to make this not personal, that she wasn't trying to punish me. Whether it was twisted, however it was, I wanted her justification to feel worth it.
00:06:40 Speaker_00
Donna's justification wasn't going to be in Google, or whether she justified her actions at all. What was in her heart? How she would explain this? Whether she was remorseful or callous?
00:06:52 Speaker_00
That wasn't data Angela or any of the other patients were going to be able to find. The patients wanted to know not just who Donna was, but what her story was. What was the story Donna would tell about her own pain?
00:07:06 Speaker_00
How would she answer for what she had done? From Serial Productions and The New York Times, I'm Susan Burton, and this is The Retrievals. This is Episode 2, The Nurse.
00:07:40 Speaker_00
The Department of Justice invited the patients to a video conference to learn more about the case. On a Thursday afternoon in late January, about 50 patients logged on. Katie, the addiction researcher, was among them.
00:07:54 Speaker_02
Yeah, I was at home, you know, it was still sort of peak COVID, so I was on my laptop signing into, you know, this call with the Department of Justice.
00:08:02 Speaker_02
And, you know, very quickly, they were kind of letting us know, you know, we're here to explain to you about the criminal case and, you know, what's sort of at stake and what your role might be.
00:08:12 Speaker_02
This call isn't necessarily, you know, for us to get your stories. We will talk to you, but for this moment, you know, this isn't the place for us to necessarily tell our stories.
00:08:23 Speaker_02
But many women really needed to tell their stories, and that was really emotional. You know, I mean, I think people felt, you feel really like you have to get this out.
00:08:34 Speaker_02
And I just, you know, I heard other women who had nearly verbatim stories to mine, just being in this procedure, realizing in the moment that they were having this procedure sober.
00:08:45 Speaker_02
And even looking to their nurse and having their nurse say, I'm giving you the most I can legally give you. and then getting kind of similar post-procedure false narratives about their pain. So it was just really interesting.
00:09:00 Speaker_02
I mean, it was devastating to hear that that's, you know, I was shocked by how many women were on the call and, you know, how long this had sort of gone on.
00:09:12 Speaker_07
And I remember, like, I was like, I thought I would feel better hearing that. I felt worse, actually. You know?
00:09:19 Speaker_00
Leah was on the call, too.
00:09:21 Speaker_07
Well, you think that it would make you feel better knowing other people were in pain like you, but you don't actually. You feel like worse. You feel angrier. you feel more hurt, it's more sad.
00:09:35 Speaker_07
There was a woman who was talking about how she was screaming out during the surgery, but like her voice, you couldn't hear her voice, but she was like, her mouth was open and Donna's squeezing her hand, you know?
00:09:51 Speaker_07
I still can't get that image out of my head, you know?
00:09:57 Speaker_00
Donna had been in the room during some of the retrievals. she had administered the saline herself. Lynn wasn't on the call that day, but when she learned this, she was startled.
00:10:09 Speaker_03
You know, I just remember thinking, you know, how sick she must be to be able to do that and then watch the women suffer on the operating tables, knowing the reason why, and just sort of trying to figure that out. You know, someone could do that.
00:10:34 Speaker_03
It was, you know, tough to comprehend.
00:10:44 Speaker_00
These stories raise questions about how Donna had reconciled the patient's pain, or didn't, how she split that off, how profoundly dissociated she would have needed to have been, how deep in her addiction.
00:10:57 Speaker_00
In a way, these stories speak to the suffering of both parties. But it is possible to have empathy for addiction and also find some of the interactions the patients recall chilling.
00:11:09 Speaker_00
Like this exchange that one patient remembers having with Donna after her retrieval.
00:11:13 Speaker_01
And the next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room and I was in quite a bit of pain, a lot more pain than I ever would have expected for an egg retrieval.
00:11:26 Speaker_01
And Donna was my nurse and I remember asking her if it's normal to be in that much pain. And she looked at me and said, yes.
00:11:38 Speaker_07
It's almost like watching a kind of like horror reel. where women are all of a sudden, everyone's kind of like, oh yeah, I was worried.
00:11:49 Speaker_07
Oh, I was, you know, it was like, oh, it was like a kind of being bombarded by all these women who were told to shut the fuck up while they were experiencing something that they knew was wrong. That was what became alarmingly clear.
00:12:06 Speaker_07
That became alarmingly clear to me. People had complained that something was up with the fentanyl. People had complained about Donna. People had complained about the treatment by the physicians and the nurses.
00:12:19 Speaker_07
And, you know, at a certain point, like, not everybody's crazy.
00:12:39 Speaker_00
The people from the Department of Justice tell the patients where things are with Donna's case. Some of the patients want to know about Yale. Shouldn't Yale be responsible? But that's a different question.
00:12:51 Speaker_00
That will be a different case, and not one the Department of Justice will handle.
00:12:56 Speaker_00
Right now, they're working on a plea deal with Donna, which means there will likely not be a trial, though there will be a sentencing hearing that the patients can attend. It's possible Donna will be sent to prison.
00:13:08 Speaker_00
Leah isn't sure how she feels about this.
00:13:10 Speaker_07
I had to think long and hard as a person, again, who teaches work on injustice, incarceration, trauma, et cetera, et cetera. I had to think about what it meant for me as someone who'd been injured, victimized, hurt, abused, to then
00:13:37 Speaker_07
what I wanted the outcome to be for someone who had inflicted that on me and other people. There's this whole abolition movement going on, so you have to think like, well, do I want to see this person in jail? What do I want to have happen to Yale?
00:13:55 Speaker_07
What is the right outcome?
00:13:59 Speaker_00
For months after that call, Leah would continue to wrestle with questions about the right outcome. For Katie, the addiction researcher, at least part of the right outcome was already clear.
00:14:11 Speaker_02
During the call about the criminal case, You know, my immediate take was more about the system, you know, Yale's responsibility and what kind of system was in place or not in place that allowed this to happen.
00:14:26 Speaker_02
You know, why were we ignored when we were reporting pain, so many of us over so much time.
00:14:32 Speaker_02
And I wanted at that time, and I still want to be really careful and sensitive to the other people who are pursuing pregnancy who are rightfully very upset with the nurse.
00:14:41 Speaker_02
But for me, as someone who studies addiction and works with individuals with addiction, It was more important to me that the nurse got substance use treatment. I don't really believe in prison for drug crimes. I believe in substance use treatment.
00:14:59 Speaker_02
That was my immediate reaction, and I think that's very much founded in my research.
00:15:05 Speaker_00
Katie uses brain imaging to explore how pathways in the brain are altered by addiction, and how people living with addiction have the power to rewire those pathways to change the way they think and behave.
00:15:18 Speaker_00
The patients wanted to know what was going on in Donna's head. Katie had a picture of that. Katie's identity offered her clarity about how the criminal justice system should treat Donna.
00:15:29 Speaker_00
And on that call, she learned that her perspective could be taken into account. The patients were told that they could submit victim impact letters to the judge. Katie got to work on hers almost immediately.
00:15:41 Speaker_02
You know, I was careful in writing the letter. You know, I say to you, like, I don't really believe in prison for drug crimes.
00:15:48 Speaker_02
You know, I was chatting with my Yale law professor friend whose house I stayed at after this egg retrieval, you know, getting his advice on writing this letter.
00:15:55 Speaker_02
You know, like, how can I write a letter to a judge that doesn't minimize my experience, but that he mentioned, you know, you can't tell a judge, you know, that you don't believe in prison for drug crimes. Because they do.
00:16:08 Speaker_02
You know, what you can do is explain based on your expertise and, you know, what you study and research, like, that you believe in substance use treatment and, yeah, your preference for that. So, yeah, I can read you this letter.
00:16:24 Speaker_00
It's not that Katie thought that addiction absolved Donna of responsibility for her actions. She thought that Donna had a great deal of personal responsibility.
00:16:32 Speaker_00
Katie's argument is about what we do with that in the criminal justice system, where research shows that substance use treatment leads to better outcomes than incarceration. Katie finished her letter and sent it off.
00:16:46 Speaker_02
And because of this, I ask for leniency in her sentencing based on my understanding of addiction as a neuroscientist and addiction researcher. Thank you, Kathleen Garrison.
00:16:59 Speaker_00
I want to read now from another letter to the judge. Dear Judge Hall, I'm respectfully writing to your honor in advance of my sentencing hearing.
00:17:09 Speaker_00
In this letter, I'm hoping to explain to you what I have done that brings me before the court, the circumstances surrounding my actions, and to express the remorse that I feel for the crime that I have committed. This is Donna, of course.
00:17:25 Speaker_00
The letter is a few pages long, and I'll say more about it, but I'm stopping here to say that Donna has not responded to my many requests to speak with her.
00:17:33 Speaker_00
I've also not spoken at length with anyone who loves her or is close to her or who knows her outside of the clinic, also not for lack of trying. I've thought carefully about how to tell Donna's story without her participation.
00:17:49 Speaker_00
Her case generated many documents that have become part of the public record, documents that include very personal information. I'm choosing to tell a story that includes some of these details.
00:18:00 Speaker_00
Who Donna is and what she was dealing with when she came to the clinic matter, especially because by her own telling, what she was dealing with was the reason she did what she did.
00:18:17 Speaker_00
Donna herself told a story about what happened to investigators, to friends and family. Her friends and family, in turn, told their own stories. I'm telling you about these stories, about how Donna and the people in her life explain these events.
00:18:35 Speaker_00
Some of what I know about Donna comes from a sentencing memorandum prepared by Donna's public defender. The memo includes more than 40 letters from friends and family, beginning with one from Donna's parents,
00:18:47 Speaker_00
and ending with testimonials from people Donna has met in recovery. The sentencing memo is both an argument to keep Donna out of prison and an intimate look into her life. Here is how the memo lays that life out.
00:19:02 Speaker_00
Donna was born in 1971 and grew up in New York State, in a place kind of like the one she lives now. A comfortable town, but not a fancy one. Three siblings, lots of cousins, Catholic church.
00:19:16 Speaker_00
She went to a state school for college and waitressed when she was home on break. She didn't get her nursing license until she was in her 40s. And by then, her life was complicated.
00:19:26 Speaker_00
She had three children, the oldest two twins, and she was in and out of family court with her ex-husband, their father, over custody and visitation. There was DCF involvement, a finding of emotional neglect against the father.
00:19:41 Speaker_00
Donna asked the court for protective orders. For her, it was expensive and intensely stressful. Donna is described in the letters as a devoted mother and a good friend, as generous, tenacious, and trusted.
00:19:57 Speaker_00
Many of the letter writers seem to be working to reconcile their astonishment at what Donna has done with the integrity of the person they know.
00:20:06 Speaker_00
One woman read an article about it, and the first time she read the article, she thought Donna was the one who caught the nurse stealing the drugs. Most of the letters describe this kind of initial shock, and then a quick move to support.
00:20:22 Speaker_00
Thus, the letters where tension is allowed to exist stand out. The letter from Donna's parents is one that acknowledges complexity. We saw our daughter starting to break, but she always said she would be fine. Turns out she was not fine.
00:20:38 Speaker_00
It was with great sadness that we read her confession. Our sadness turned to disbelief and anger. We are now at the point of broken hearts. How could she make the choices she made? Yes, how could she? This is a question the letters are trying to answer.
00:20:56 Speaker_00
And the explanation they offer, the central story they tell, has to do with Donna's ex-husband. As one friend sums it up, I've done a lot of thinking about what led Donna to do what she did.
00:21:09 Speaker_00
And I believe her main problem, and what directly led to her actions in this case, is her relationship with her ex-husband. The ex-husband's perspective is not represented. I contacted him through his lawyer. He did not respond.
00:21:28 Speaker_00
There are lots of examples of the ex-husband's behavior in the court record. The one I'll offer here is not especially shocking. It comes from a letter written by the only person who says she knows Donna's ex well.
00:21:41 Speaker_00
She says that Donna didn't ask her to write this letter, that she saw Donna sitting alone in her car at soccer and she approached her. This writer characterizes Donna's ex's behavior as aggressive and often humiliating.
00:21:54 Speaker_00
She says you would see Donna and her ex at, quote, opposite ends of the soccer field, each trying to be there for their children. She often keeps one eye on him, waiting for the next outburst, unquote. The mother who is always alert for an explosion.
00:22:15 Speaker_00
That kind of vigilance, these letters seem to be saying. That kind of vigilance can wreck you.
00:22:29 Speaker_00
So in the story told by the letters, this chronic stress builds and builds for Donna, until she reaches what many of the writers refer to as a breaking point. What exactly is that breaking point? That is a part of the story Donna writes herself.
00:22:47 Speaker_00
That's coming up when episode two of The Retrievals continues.
00:22:57 Speaker_05
This is Sarah Koenig, host of the Serial podcast. If you're hooked on this show, and I'm guessing you are, then I'm hoping my job here is pretty easy, to get you to subscribe to the New York Times so you can listen to the rest of it.
00:23:09 Speaker_05
My father was an ad man who taught me the best ads are declarative, no puffery. So here goes. Serial shows are expertly reported and inventive. Nobody makes them like we make them.
00:23:22 Speaker_05
But great serials aside, when you subscribe, you get all the Times shows. The Daily, Ezra Klein, Wirecutter has a new podcast. My advice, though, don't just get an audio subscription. Go big. Subscribe to the paper, all access, the whole magilla.
00:23:38 Speaker_05
Serial is part of the Times, so technically I work at the Times, and honestly I'm kind of cheap, but I subscribe for the news, obviously, and the games, and the cooking, and the magazine, and Serial. I think of the Times as a staple.
00:23:52 Speaker_05
Even my kids, who are not budding journalists and who don't even really listen to Serial, they both asked me for Times subscriptions. All the cool kids are doing it. So please, sign up. You can do it through Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
00:24:05 Speaker_05
Or, if you're already a Time subscriber, sign in. It's worth it.
00:24:12 Speaker_00
The way Donna explains it in her letter. She started taking the fentanyl during COVID. She tells a story about her ex-husband taking the kids for visitation in March 2020. Scary time, right?
00:24:26 Speaker_00
Everybody newly shut inside their houses, everything closing down. Donna's ex has been sick, a stomach bug, he calls it, and has postponed a scheduled visit. The night the kids finally go over to their father's, it seems like he's still sick.
00:24:41 Speaker_00
They call her and they're like, dad is coughing a lot and he's shivering under three blankets on the couch. And he said it's hard to breathe and it hurts to breathe.
00:24:50 Speaker_00
He claims that he's negative for COVID, but he winds up in the hospital for over a month. Donna is frightened for her children and is furious at her ex for knowingly exposing them to his illness rather than canceling the visit as a precaution.
00:25:06 Speaker_00
After he is home and recuperated, he wants his regular visitation with the kids, but Donna wants proof that he's no longer contagious. When she refuses to let him see the children, he takes her to family court, demanding sole custody.
00:25:20 Speaker_00
This is entry number 205 in their docket. And for Donna, it is a tipping point. I was overwhelmed by the sense that I would never be free, she writes.
00:25:33 Speaker_00
that I would have to take more time off of work, find more money to pay the lawyer, and engage in yet more litigation. She continues, I suddenly couldn't see or think straight anymore.
00:25:45 Speaker_00
She says that it was around this time that she resorted to taking fentanyl at work. Donna says that a few years earlier, she had a prescription for pain in her feet.
00:26:03 Speaker_00
During the course of time that I had the prescription, I did end up taking more than prescribed as a coping mechanism.
00:26:10 Speaker_00
I turned to fentanyl because I knew from prior experience with narcotics that it would help me to cope emotionally and mentally with what was going on in my life. It helped quiet and keep my mind calm.
00:26:24 Speaker_00
In those moments, it's what I felt I needed to do to endure and hold it together for my children. How this makes any sense is difficult to convey. Donna is far from the only medical professional to have a substance use disorder.
00:26:45 Speaker_00
That part is not unusual. I asked a former co-worker of Donna's what might have happened if Donna had told someone at the clinic that she was addicted to fentanyl and that she needed help.
00:26:58 Speaker_00
I don't think medicine tolerates that," the former co-worker said. Even though we say that we do, I think she'd have lost her job. The people I talked to who worked at the clinic with Donna characterized her in different ways.
00:27:14 Speaker_00
Donna was not touchy-feely. Donna was efficient. Her presence was authoritative. No nonsense. Donna was attentive. She seemed like she genuinely cared. There were also more negative impressions. Donna was cold, not empathetic.
00:27:32 Speaker_00
She was like, these patients complain so much. Donna's former co-workers knew that she was contending with a lot at home. When her ex was in the hospital, all the nurses hoped he would die, one person said.
00:27:53 Speaker_00
This is the exchange that I found most telling. I asked one former coworker, who was Donna close to? The person thought for a moment. I don't think Donna was close to anyone, they said. But I think some of the nurses felt close to her.
00:28:10 Speaker_04
The Yale Fertility Center is dedicated to helping couples reach their dream of having a family with a team of competent and compassionate professionals.
00:28:18 Speaker_00
A promotional video for the Yale Fertility Center shows Donna at the clinic. Sturdy brunette, a white turtleneck under her scrubs. She looks a little bit like Joan Cusack.
00:28:30 Speaker_00
She's in a room with a patient, and the patient has her sleeve rolled up, and Donna is preparing to draw blood.
00:28:35 Speaker_04
In her letter to the judge, Donna describes feeling trapped and stuck. She brings up an image of spinning around in a cage, unable to get out. When I see Donna in this video,
00:28:59 Speaker_00
outwardly capable. I wonder about what she felt inside, if she felt trapped. Everybody saw what was going on with her ex-husband, but nobody saw that. Nobody seems to see what's really going on with Donna until that loose cap.
00:29:20 Speaker_00
Remember, the loose cap is discovered on a Friday. On Sunday, or Monday, it's kind of unclear, but on Sunday or Monday, Donna comes to work with 175 used vials of fentanyl, meaning 175 vials from which she has extracted fentanyl.
00:29:37 Speaker_00
She's been keeping these vials at her house. She'd been planning to eventually reintroduce them into the supply at the clinic. but now her plans have changed. That evening at work, she goes out to her car to get clothes.
00:29:50 Speaker_00
She walks out to the parking lot, and from her car gets a plastic grocery bag, and then she brings the bag inside and disposes of the 175 vials and two sharps containers. It's last-ditch behavior, right?
00:30:03 Speaker_00
It's something you do when you are frantic, panicked, and the jig is up. It also seems like something you do when maybe you want to be caught, when maybe you want to be seen.
00:30:17 Speaker_00
A little more than two weeks later, Donna will confess to a team of federal and state investigators. She will do so without a lawyer present.
00:30:26 Speaker_00
She will tell them how she did it, how she would puncture the septum of the vial up to four times a day to extract fentanyl. She will say she always used a clean needle to put the saline in. She will say that she has been doing this for five months.
00:30:42 Speaker_00
She will estimate that during this time, She is tampered with 75% of the fentanyl given to patients at the clinic. She will say that some of the vials had all saline and that some were a mix.
00:30:54 Speaker_00
She will tell the investigators about her money problems and about her protective orders against her ex-husband. She will tell them about the stress in her life. She will tell them that her children don't know.
00:31:05 Speaker_00
And at the end of the interview, she will tell the investigators that talking to them has been the best thing for her and that she feels much better. Donna's sentencing hearing is scheduled for Tuesday morning in May. It's going to be hybrid.
00:31:34 Speaker_00
You can attend on Zoom or in person. Most patients who decide to go will attend on Zoom. It's spring 2021 of the pandemic. Vaccines are still new. It doesn't feel like a whole new world yet. But Leah decides she will go in person.
00:31:49 Speaker_07
I kind of needed to see her. I was fascinated with how she was going to fashion herself. in this whole, in the theater, right? So I was fascinated by that. And also I was, again, I'm like, I was really, really angry. I wanted to see if she was upset.
00:32:08 Speaker_07
I wanted to see if she was... I wanted to see if she was gonna cry.
00:32:14 Speaker_00
But Leia's still ambivalent about what she wants to happen to Donna.
00:32:22 Speaker_07
I heard 51 to 63 months, right? And I had to do the math in my head. Okay, 51. And I think they had reduced, because she was admitting to being guilty, the time that she could potentially be sentenced was reduced.
00:32:38 Speaker_07
I remember already being like, I don't know how I feel about that. I don't want people to go to prison. But at the same time, well, what do we want to have happen?
00:32:55 Speaker_00
What happens to Donna? And whose pain matters more? That's next on The Retrievals. The Retrievals is produced by me and Laura Starczewski. Laura edited the series, with editing and producing help from Julie Snyder.
00:33:27 Speaker_00
Additional editing by Katie Mingle and Ira Glass. Research and fact-checking by Ben Phelan and Caitlin Love. Music supervision, sound design, and mixing by Phoebe Wang, with production help from Michelle Navarro.
00:33:40 Speaker_00
Original music by Kala Pallone, and music mixing by Thomas Pauly. Inde Chubu is the supervising producer for Serial Productions. At The New York Times, our standards editor is Susan Wessling. Legal Review by Dana Green. Art Direction from Pablo Delcon.
00:33:56 Speaker_00
Producing help from Jeffrey Miranda, Kelly Doe, Renan Borelli, Desiree Ibequa, and Anisha Mani. Sam Dolnik is the assistant managing editor. Special thanks to Pierre Catogni. The Retrievals is a production of Serial Productions and The New York Times.