State legislators are calling for more protections for nurses and healthcare workers after a visiting nurse was murdered while working in Willimantic over the weekend.
Police have not released the name of the visiting nurse. Willimantic officers went searching for her after they received a phone call requesting a wellbeing check. The caller reported that she missed several patient appointments.
According to court documents, the nurse's first appointment of the day was at 106 Chapman St., a halfway house. Michael Carlos Reese, 38, who lived at the halfway house, had an appointment with her that was only supposed to take eight minutes, documents show, but the visiting nurse's location still pinged at the home hours later.
According to documents, Reese is a registered sex offender "with violent tendencies." He was on probation with an ankle monitor at the time of the incident, authorities said.
Get Connecticut local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Connecticut newsletters.
Investigators at the home said Reese was seen fleeing the area. He had a knife on him, as well as debit and credit cards not belonging to him, police said. Reese was detained and was later arrested at the scene on unrelated charges. In the court documents for those unrelated charges, police say Reese is a suspect in the murder of the visiting nurse.
Connecticut State Police are leading the investigation into the nurse's death.
Local
"All agencies involved in the Willimantic homicide investigation will not provide further information regarding this investigation," a CSP media representative wrote in an email to NBC Connecticut on Tuesday.
The Connecticut Department of Public Health, which regulates home care and visiting nurse agencies, would not release the name of the nurse's employer. A spokesperson for the CT DPH also declined to comment on whether or not their department has opened an investigation.
"The Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) extends its condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of a local homecare worker who died this past weekend in Willimantic," a DPH spokesperson wrote in an email. "This tragedy of this event is amplified even more since this person dedicated her life to caring for some of our most vulnerable citizens."
Legislators, joined by healthcare professionals, will meet Wednesday, Nov. 1 at 2 p.m. to call for increased protections for nurses and healthcare professionals.
State Sen. Saud Anwar (D - South Windsor), co-chair of the public health committee, said in response to the visiting nurse's murder he and his colleagues plan to explore legislation this session to address the safety of visiting nurses and home care workers.
"We need to find out how can we make sure healthcare workers are going to safe. We passed a bill that is already a law that they will be safe and we will work towards that in hospital settings, but in the home settings we have not done enough and we feel that there is an opportunity to do more," Anwar said. "I do feel like we can do more and we cannot allow this person's life to be lost with out reacting with a good policy going forward."
