Jan Sochalski a retired nurse has denied accusations of murdering her husband, Henry. But a myriad of evidence casts grave doubt as to her innocence.
Jan Sochalski a 61 year old retired nurse has been accused of suffocating her husband to death in his hospital bed after the former New Jersey police officer became unresponsive following surgery.
The claim comes after nurses found the wife lying on top of her husband, Henry Sochalski at Florida’s Hospital Memorial Medical Center in May.
An arrest report cited by the Daytona Beach News-Journal told of the wife complaining about her husband’s care after the man went into respiratory and cardiac arrest in April following elective back surgery.
At the time, Jan Sochalski’s husband had been placed in a unit specializing in medical care for people with serious illness.
Yet things went askew when the wife became upset over her husband’s treatment in late April, threatening to go home and get his firearm and ‘shoot the people on the seventh floor’.
Despite police being called, a nurse was able to calm the wife down and she wasn’t arrested.
Matters devolved come May 19 when a nurse told of walking into the husband’s room and finding Jan Sochalski lying across the man’s chest. The nurse said the woman had one hand around his stomach and the other across his mouth and nose. A second nurse said it appeared she was ‘pinching the victim’s nose.’
Henry Sochalski died approximately 30 minutes later. An initial autopsy was done the following day, but results did not come back until Aug. 17. A coroner’s report revealed Henry Sochalski dying of asphyxia of the mouth, nose and trachea, according to Detective Dave Dinardi.
Jan Sochalski denied killing her husband to cops on Monday, with the wife now facing a second-degree murder charge while being held without bail.
Adding fissure is a report via WFTV which describes the wife, who’d worked as a nurse for over 40 years before retiring allegedly mishandling her husband’s pain medication. At the time, Henry Sochalski had been taking Dilaudid for pain.
According to the the media outlet, Jan Sochalski pressed the medication machine 264 times in an eight-hour period, when it should only have been pressed six times every hour. A course of action that a novice nurse never mind a seasoned nurse would presumably know not to do.
Of note, the medication machine has a safety net built in and won’t give more medication than prescribed.
Complicating matters further are revelations that the day before her husband died, the wife signed a ‘do not resuscitate’ order while prohibiting nurses from entering the room.
A nurse told investigators that on one occasion, Jan Sochalski had asked for medication to ‘decrease his respiratory status.’
According to the husband’s obituary, Henry and Jan were high school sweethearts who were married for 44 years, with the couple moving from NJ to Florida 13 years ago.
VIDEO: Jan Sochalski first appearance in court after being accused of killing her husband in his hospital bed https://t.co/Ch3SlQXnsc
— Lola Gómez (@LolaGomezC) August 30, 2016
