Rachel Waters was in her Queens apartment, engrossed in food review videos on YouTube, when a nurse delivered devastating news: her mother was nearing death. Rachel needed to reach the memory care facility in Evans, Georgia, without delay, as a physician had warned that Marsha might pass away within hours.
Though the news was heartbreaking, it was not entirely unexpected. Seventy-four-year-old Marsha Foster had been battling advanced Alzheimer’s disease and multiple myeloma, a rare form of blood cancer. Having been in hospice care for almost eight months, she weighed only 80 pounds and was severely hunched over due to the weakening of her spine from the illnesses.
Upon Rachel’s arrival at Marshall Pines Assisted Living and Memory Care, she found her mother nearly unresponsive. Marsha’s eyes remained open, her mouth drooped, and her toes had begun to darken, indicating diminished blood flow as her body started to shut down. Following her “do not resuscitate” order, Marsha had not received food or fluids for roughly a day.
When staff members adjusted her position, Marsha’s facial expression contorted into what Rachel described as “one of those Greek tragedy masks.” In desperation, Rachel requested morphine for her mother, an opioid frequently used in palliative care to alleviate severe pain. The staff declined her request, assuring Rachel that Marsha was comfortable.
Unable to witness her mother’s suffering, Rachel remembered her mother’s wishes regarding end-of-life care. Before her cognitive decline, Marsha had expressed a desire to die naturally, free from undue pain. “I was committed to that with every fiber of my being,” Rachel stated.
She instructed her partner to retrieve the morphine that had been prescribed for emergencies during Marsha’s initial hospice stay and applied the liquid opioid to her mother’s cracked lips—an action that would soon face scrutiny.
This was not the first time Rachel had encountered resistance from the facility staff. A nursing aide, Casey Sheppard, later recounted to investigators that Rachel had expressed a lack of fear regarding death, indicating she had shared many thoughts during that time.
Marsha passed away shortly before 7 a.m. on July 12, 2023. Tragically, this was not the end of Rachel’s ordeal. Just four hours later, she received a call from the funeral home, informing her that they could not pick up Marsha’s body because it had been sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in Atlanta.
Rachel felt a chill run through her. The only reason she could fathom for sending a body to a crime lab was the implication of foul play. “All I could think was: ‘Oh my God, did someone accuse me of killing my mom?’” she recalled.
Before the day concluded, police arrived at her childhood home, executing a search warrant that led to the confiscation of her electronics and the medical supplies she had used for her mother’s care.
Rachel sought legal representation, but thereafter, she found herself in a state of uncertainty for over a year—no charges, no explanations, and no path forward. The absence of a death certificate made it impossible for her to settle her mother’s estate, sell her house, or even cancel her bills, leaving her unable to grieve properly.
Her attorney expressed doubt that any case would emerge from the situation, suggesting that since Marsha was in hospice, “there’s only one way people come out of hospice.”
However, 18 months after Marsha’s death, the charges were filed: felony murder and malice murder, both capital offenses in Georgia that could result in the death penalty for Rachel.
The case rapidly gained attention across local news outlets and tabloids, sparking divergent opinions. Some viewed Rachel as a devoted daughter attempting to alleviate her mother’s suffering, while others perceived a much darker narrative.
Rachel feels that the majority of people misconstrue the events of that day. “I lost everything,” she lamented. “And a huge chunk of people believe I’m a murderer.”
The morphine had originally been prescribed to Rachel with casual ease. When Marsha was first admitted to hospice care in 2022, she was provided with a “comfort-care kit,” which included medications for emergencies, such as morphine and lorazepam. This kit, known as an eKit, was intended as a temporary aid for caregivers until a nurse could be present. Typically administered in liquid form, these medications could be given even when a patient could no longer swallow.
Rachel stored the kit in a drawer at her mother’s house and claims she was told it was acceptable to keep it when she switched hospice providers. After receiving the distressing call from the nurse, Rachel rushed to Georgia and set up an inflatable mattress in Marsha’s room. On the day her mother passed, Rachel was awakened by a sharp clattering noise; Marsha was struggling to breathe, her jaw moving erratically. Rachel described the scene as looking “like torture.”
Understanding that low doses of morphine are often utilized in palliative care to alleviate respiratory distress, Rachel approached the night shift aides to inquire about morphine availability. When they informed her they did not have any, she announced her intention to use the morphine from Marsha’s previous comfort-care kit.
One aide reportedly expressed a desire to distance themselves from the situation. Their reaction puzzled Rachel, who had witnessed her grandparents and her partner’s father receive morphine drips during their final moments to manage pain.
Despite Rachel’s insistence that her mother was in pain, staff had declined to administer morphine the day prior. According to the logs from Marshall Pines, a hospice nurse stated that there was “no reason to start [Marsha] on morphine.”
The nurse had also consulted with Dr. Kelli Carter, a local family physician, who explicitly stated that she “WILL NOT start morphine at this point,” a refusal noted emphatically in the records without a clear rationale.
Experts like Angela Novas from the Hospice Federation of America find this refusal perplexing.
