PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — For the second time, a 49-year-old nurse was admitted smothering her 92-year-old terminally ill grandmother to death in a retirement community in Bend on the last day of 2015.
Angela Judd pleaded guilty in July 2016 but the conviction was overturned by the Oregon Court of Appeals. On Monday, she once again pleaded guilty to causing her grandmother’s death.
Nada Bodholdt was terminally ill and under hospice care when Judd went into her room, got into her bed and smothered her with a pillow. At the time, Judd was a nurse at the Sky Lakes Health Center in Klamath Falls.
But it wasn’t until a few weeks later that anyone was suspicious. At that time, the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office said, Judd told a social worker what she had done, prompting the social worker to call police.
DA John Hummel said everyone understands the hard choices during end-of-life care. But, he said, in a statement, it’s not up to family members to take matters into their own hands.
“But our maker and our laws do not grant us the authority in such situations to decide when our loved one dies. This decision rests solely with either terminally ill patients in death with dignity states such as Oregon, or with a higher power,” Hummel said. “Ms. Judd took the law into her own hands and killed her grandmother. This constitutes a crime, and for this she was rightly held accountable.”