TYLER — A former East Texas nurse who is accused of killing several patients at a Tyler hospital has had one of his trial dates pushed back to September 2019 and has been granted a continuance for the other.
William George Davis, 34, of Hallsville, appeared in the 114th District Court of Judge Christi Kennedy on Thursday morning where his counsel asked for a continuance in his murder/aggravated assault with a deadly weapon trial.
Davis' attorney requested his pre-trial hearing and plea agreement for his murder and aggravated assault charges be moved from November 15-16 to December 3, 2018, almost three weeks later, which Judge Kennedy granted.
According to the most updated Smith County judicial records, the trial for Davis' murder and assault charges is scheduled for May 20, 2019.
Additional pre-trial hearings are scheduled for April 2019, with a trial date set for September 23, 2019, in which Davis is facing a separate charge of capital murder of multiple persons.
Davis is accused of murdering patients while he worked as a nurse at CHRISTUS Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital. He was fired by the hospital system in February 2018.
On March 16, 2018, Davis' nursing license was suspended, according to an order from the Texas Board of Nursing.
During a meeting in Austin that day, the board upheld four charges against Davis, all based on incidents that happened while he was a registered nurse with CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances Hospital – Tyler and on assignment at the Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital in Tyler.
On three different occasions starting in August 2017, Davis entered the room of a patient to whom he was not assigned and performed an “unskilled and/or unnecessary and/or inappropriate” intervention for the patient, according to the formal charges brought before the Texas Board of Nursing.
In each situation, shortly after his intervention, the patient’s condition immediately deteriorated from a stable condition and resuscitative measures were required.
According to the Smith County District Attorney's Office, three patients died as a result of Davis' actions.
The victims have been identified as:
John Lafferty - Date of death: June 16, 2017
Ronald Clark - Date of death: July 26, 2017
Christopher Greenaway - Date of death: August 4, 2017
Davis was arrested in April 2018 after the Tyler Police Department spent more than 1,700 hours investigating the case.
Davis remains in the Smith County Jail on $5,000,000 bond.