Facelift woman 'killed by nurse over boyfriend bust-up 30 years before'

FOR five years, the death of Sandra Baker Joyner following a mini-facelift had been attributed to medical error.

But investigators are now proposing a more sinister explanation, that as she lay bandaged in the recovery room, Ms Joyner was poisoned by a nurse anaesthetist who believed she had stolen her boyfriend in high school 30 years before.

The nurse anaesthetist, Sally Hill, 50, is being held on murder charges, although prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty.

Ms Joyner, 45, had gone to Dr Peter Tucker's surgery in 2001 for a facelift, fat grafts to her lips and laser therapy on her eyelids and facial scars.

But she went into respiratory arrest in the recovery room and was taken to a hospital, where she died several days later. A post-mortem examination blamed her death on a lack of oxygen to the brain caused by respiratory arrest.

Chuck Henson, a detective in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, told a court hearing he believed Hill poisoned the patient by injecting her with fentanyl, a powerful painkiller. Mr Henson said he also believed Hill turned off an alarm that could have alerted staff to Ms Joyner's condition.

And he testified that two people - the plastic surgeon and a technician - recall hearing Hill, during the patient's initial visit to Dr Tucker's plastic surgery practice in 1999, say Ms Joyner stole her high school boyfriend.

The defence lawyer, Jean Lawson, disputed the allegations.

"There is no evidence that Miss Hill knowingly, deliberately selected this person and killed her. The suggestion that this is the product of a 30-year grudge is outrageous," she said.

Hill and Ms Joyner were students at Olympic High School, Charlotte, in the early 1970s. Ms Joyner graduated in 1973, a year before Hill.

During a 2003 deposition given to the state medical board, Hill said she knew Ms Joyner in junior high and high school.

"She was one of the judges of my cheerleading experience," Hill testified.

Asked whether they were friends, Hill said no, but "I would see her and her then-boyfriend ... walk around school together because he was in football and she was a cheerleader or something like that".

Ms Joyner later married John Joyner, but the two had separated before her death. Police said John Joyner was not the boyfriend Hill believed was stolen from her.

The medical board blamed Hill for Ms Joyner's death, calling her "grossly negligent" in administering fentanyl without the plastic surgeon's permission and for taking too long to alert the doctor that Ms Joyner was having problems.

The plastic surgeon took responsibility for the death in a 2003 agreement with the board but kept his licence. Hill surrendered hers.

Ms Joyner's family sued the the plastic surgeon and Hill for malpractice; the case was settled in 2003 on confidential terms.

In his 2003 deposition before the medical board, the plastic surgeon blamed Hill for the patient's death, calling her "a rogue nurse".

Dr Tucker described Hill's behaviour on the day of Ms Joyner's surgery as out of character. He said: "She snapped."

He said he reported his suspicions to the district attorney. It is not clear why it took until this year for charges to be laid.

The district attorney, Peter Gilchrist, has said only that his office asked the police department's cold case squad to examine Ms Joyner's death after receiving new information.