PITTSBURGH — One after another, family members aimed their grief and anguish at Heather Pressdee, who sat quietly on the other side of the Butler County courtroom.

Some called her the devil. One woman told her to burn in hell. They told she was not God, that she was no longer in control.

"I hope you live to 100," Jack Rogers' niece told her.

Dubbed the "killer nurse" for her hand in the deaths of 17 nursing home patients at five facilities, Pressdee pleaded guilty Thursday to three counts of first-degree murder and 19 counts of attempted murder. In return for her plea, the 41-year-old will avoid the possibility of the death penalty. She will instead receive three consecutive life sentences plus hundreds more years for the attempted murder charges.

Pressdee said little during the status conference-turned plea hearing in front of Butler County Common Pleas Judge Joseph E. Kubit. She answered each question attorneys asked her regarding her plea: Did she understand that she was presumed innocent? Was she aware of the defenses her attorneys could present? Did she review the evidence against her?

Yes.

Why are you pleading guilty? attorney James DePasquale asked her.

"Because I am guilty," Pressdee replied.

She'd faced more than three dozen charges in connection with the deaths, which happened between 2020 and her arrest in May 2023, including four murder charges. Investigators have said they filed murder charges only in connection with the deaths for which they could concretely prove a cause of death.

As family members of Pressdee's victims gave their victim-impact statements, they spoke lovingly about who their loved ones were before Pressdee, in the words of some, tried to play God.

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