William Scott Husel is an American intensive/critical care physician who was charged (and later acquitted) with 14 counts of murder relating to the deaths of multiple patients from his care of terminally ill patients at Mount Carmel West and St. Ann's Hospitals in Columbus, Ohio. The prosecution in this case argued that Dr. Husel hastened the death of terminally ill patients. He turned himself in on June 5, 2019. After an extensive trial, Husel was found not guilty on all counts on April 20, 2022.
Life history
William Scott Husel was born on November 11, 1975. Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Husel attended St. Ignatius High School where he excelled in basketball as a captain for his senior year. Graduating in 1994, he attended Wheeling Jesuit College.
In the mid-1990s, Husel continued his education at Ohio State University, graduating with a degree in microbiology in 2000. Husel then attended and graduated from Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2008. Having completed his residency and fellowship in critical care medicine from the Cleveland Clinic (2013), Husel found work as an intensive-care doctor at the Mount Carmel West Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where he was described as highly intelligent. In February 2015, Husel began to prescribe fentanyl to his patients during terminal extubation while his colleagues chose a different opioid analgesic (morphine sulfate). In October 2017, he married wife Mariah Baird, a registered nurse.
Hospital deaths
From February 2015 to November 2018, Husel was alleged to have prescribed excessive amounts of fentanyl to his patients. The first alleged murder was said to have begun on February 10, 2015, when a patient was administered 400 micrograms of fentanyl. Over the course of two and a half years, 34 deaths of patients occurred, the vast majority of whom had been prescribed typical palliative dosages of fentanyl before their deaths. Mount Carmel Health System accused Husel of all 34, though 6 of the deaths were not believed to be a result of Husel's prescribing by authorities.
On October 25, 2018, Mount Carmel received their first formal report of Husel's conduct. It was not investigated seriously until November 19, 2018, when they broadened their investigation, noting the death of Rebecca Walls and an abnormally high dosage of fentanyl. One day later, another patient of Husel's named Melissa Penix had been declared deceased after a high dosage; Husel was immediately removed from patient-care duties on November 21, 2018, before being fired on December 5, 2018, after he had been held under suspicion for poisoning patients. Mount Carmel then contacted the State Medical Board of Ohio, meeting with the Franklin County prosecutor on the same day. Informing the State of Ohio Board of Nursing, Ohio state police became involved with the case not long thereafter on January 15, 2019. After having his license suspended and being charged with 25 counts of murder, Husel turned himself in to authorities on June 5, 2019. A judge later agreed to dismiss 11 of the murder counts.
Trial
Husel's trial began February 22, 2022. In her opening statement, Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Janet Grubb told the jury that Husel prescribed "unwarranted and unprecedented" dosages of fentanyl, more than was medically necessary to ease pain, and that his actions caused the patients' deaths. Husel's defense attorney Jose Baez said in his opening statement that Husel prescribed the fentanyl in an effort to relieve his patients from pain and that he did not commit murder. Baez also showed the jury part of a media playbook Mount Carmel Health System had created for handling the scandal, including a page discussing who the "villain" would be. After opening statements, prosecutors called their first witness, Columbus police detective Bill Gillette. The State's second witness, pharmacist Talon Schroyer—who had previously worked the night shift at Mount Carmel—testified on February 23 that he thought Husel's fentanyl orders were “unusual” but was unsure if they might be a result of possible drug diversion. During cross-examination of Schroyer, defense attorney Diane Menashe argued that Husel had saved the lives of several of the alleged murder victims by providing lifesaving interventions (such as CPR and medications like vasopressors).