TEXARKANA — A former licensed vocational nurse who refused treatment to a severely diabetic 20-year-old detained in the Bi-State Justice Building jail last year pleaded guilty this week to misdemeanor negligent homicide.
Brittany Danae Johnson, 27, will serve about three months in the Miller County jail in connection with the July 1, 2016, death of Morgan Angerbauer. Johnson received a six-month sentence with 90 days suspended. She also received credit for one day already spent in jail.
“Whether Ms. Johnson’s actions were negligent or reckless, she must suffer the consequences of her actions,” Prosecuting Attorney Stephanie Black said.
Texarkana defense lawyer Jeff Harrelson told the court that Johnson was willing to plead no contest to negligent homicide, but Circuit Judge Kirk Johnson declined to accept a plea other than guilty. Brittany Johnson entered a guilty plea later in the morning.
Johnson was originally charged with misdemeanor negligent homicide, but Black amended the charge in August to felony manslaughter in expectation of a jury trial. Black said the plea agreement finalized Monday spares Angerbauer’s family the stress of a jury trial.
Angerbauer’s mother, Jennifer Houser of Texarkana, read a statement before the hearing concluded Monday.
“I have watched the video of her banging on the door, screaming and begging for help,” Jennifer Houser said of jail surveillance footage that recorded her daughter’s last hours in a medical observation cell just feet from the nurse’s station.
“She was lying on the floor of her cell with no blanket in her own vomit,” Houser said. “You refused to treat my child when you could have saved her.”
Angerbauer died of diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that occurs when blood sugar reaches dangerously high levels. Angerbauer’s sugar level at autopsy was 813, well above the normal range of 70 to 140.
Angerbauer banged on her cell door for hours the night of June 30 and into the early hours of July 1. She asked Johnson to check her sugar around 5:15 p.m. June 30 but Johnson refused, telling Angerbauer that staff members, not detainees, decide when medical attention occurs, according to a probable-cause affidavit.
Johnson admitted to investigators that she told Angerbauer if a prisoner misses medical call, the prisoner must wait until the next medical call. Johnson told investigators if she allowed all offenders to do that, she’d never get anything done, the affidavit said.
Jail trusties noticed Angerbauer unconscious on the floor of her cell about 4 a.m. July 1, according to the affidavit. Johnson was unable to obtain a numerical reading using blood sugar testing equipment and misinterpreted a reading as an error rather than as indicative of a dangerously high sugar level, the affidavit said.
Johnson administered glucose as Angerbauer slipped deeper into unconsciousness, according to the affidavit.
According to records related to the suspension of Johnson’s nursing license with the Texas Nursing Board, emergency services should have been called immediately when Angerbauer was discovered unresponsive in her cell.
