SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood on Friday said a team of investigators worked for years to put together enough evidence to indict Genene Jones for murder in connection to the 1981 death of a San Antonio baby.
Jones, 66, the so-called "Angel of Death," was served with indictment paperwork Thursday at the women's prison in Gatesville, hours after being indicted by a Bexar County grand jury.
Jones, who has been in prison since the mid-1980's on separate murder and injury to a child convictions, faces a new murder charge for the December 1981 death of 11-month-old Joshua Sawyer.
She is implicated in at least 46 baby deaths in San Antonio and the Kerrville area.
A Texas mandatory release parole law, which was put into effect in 1977, requires that Jones to released next year, after serving about a third of her sentence.
LaHood said the law was changed in 1987 but is not retroactive to Jones' convictions.
LaHood for years has said he believes Jones should spend the rest of her life in prison.
"This case, being as old as it is, there were challenges and obstacles to overcome, but with a lot of hard work and intelligent people standing behind me, we feel we have a good case," LaHood said.
According to the indictment, Jones is accused of giving Sawyer, who was in her care at a San Antonio hospital after suffering from smoke inhalation, a fatal dose of the powerful sedative Dilantin.
When asked if it was fair to indict a woman in a decades-old murder case less than a year before she is scheduled to be released, LaHood said, "Is it fair when a child is murdered? No."
LaHood said that his office continues to investigate Jones' possible connection to other baby death cases.
He described Jones as being emotional when she learned on Thursday of the new indictment.
She faces a $1 million bond in the Sawyer case.
LaHood said Sawyer's mother was shocked, relieved and did not believe the indictment was going to happen.
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