Rachel Waters and the Truth About Hospice Care

Wendy & Rich 0:01
Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios, Hartford County Living presents, Conversations with Rich Bennett. I love the time! 

You're not going to show up! 

I never went to work. It's kind of a few seconds of hours of work, and I am going to have to wait until the next five minutes. No, no, no, no, it's not. Truth is... Imagine

Rich Bennett 0:28
being the person everyone trusts to comfort a Dianne loved one. And then waking up to find yourself accused of murder for doing exactly that. Today's guest didn't just make headlines, she became the headline. In 2025, Rachel Waters, a Georgia-born communications professional living in Queens, was indicted on two counts of murder after the death of her own mother in a hospice setting. Accused of giving what authorities called a lethal dose of morphine. A medication routinely included in hospice comfort kits to ease pain and suffering in the loved ones final hours. Facing charges so severe they carried the possibility of the death penalty, Rachel's life was turned upside down. She lost her career, her reputation, and nearly everything she had, all while grieving her mom. But months later, new evidence including medical examiner revisions and additional records forced the state to dismiss all charges and clear her name. Now instead of retreating, Rachel is turning one of the most harrowing experiences imaginable into advocacy. She's on a mission to shine a spotlight on the silent gaps in end of life care. Gaps that left her vulnerable and to fight for protections for patients, families, caregivers, and the people we trust in our final moments. Today, one pack out caregiver became a target and what all of us can learn from her journey. First of all, Rachel, I want to welcome I think you're probably going back and forth for a while, 

Rachel Waters 2:16
trying 

Rich Bennett 2:16
to get you on and here we are, you're finally on to how you doing. 

Rachel Waters 2:20
I'm doing a whole lot better than I was this time last year, I'll tell you that. 

Rich Bennett 2:25
Oh, I bet. I bet and actually before before we get into the indictment and everything that followed, followed, I want people to understand who you were in 2020. Even before 2020 because I always think of COVID, but before any of this happened when your mom was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's and multiple my loan was well, right? 

Rachel Waters 2:51
Yeah, that came later. That was in 2022. 

Rich Bennett 2:54
That was a 2022. 

Rachel Waters 2:56
Yep, Alzheimer's was first and then multiple my loan off followed right on seals. 

Rich Bennett 3:00
Okay. Okay, it's an opportunity for me to handle this. What could you earn only child, right? 

Rachel Waters 3:04
I am. 

Rich Bennett 3:04
What shifted for you, especially as her own child. 

Rachel Waters 3:07
Oh, my God. You know, it was a five alarm fire 

Rich Bennett 3:12
Right. 

Rachel Waters 3:12
when I realized she was declining cognitively over the summer of 2020. 

I was finally earning the income I wanted. I was a communications director at a nonprofit at that time. And I had a mountain of student loan debt. You know, I was right at that precipice of life where you are expecting your parent is going to live for a long time and you can sort of pay down your debts and start your married life. And then you know, you're in family life, you know, you're in your late 30s and you have a lot of things that you're juggling. And then when I realized she was declining cognitively. I knew that I needed to jump into action immediately, even though she had family nearby. They were older. They weren't as medically knowledgeable. And also, it was my responsibility as her child, you know, to be there for her in the way she was there for me all 

Rich Bennett 4:12
life. 

Rachel Waters 4:13
my 

Rich Bennett 4:13
Right. 

Rachel Waters 4:14
So I raised down to get to her and my first priority was, you know, getting her in treatment not only for severe osteoporosis, her entire spine spinal column had collapsed. She was 20 pounds thinner and far more frail than when I had seen her eight months prior, right, before the pandemic. And she had no signs of cognitive decline when I last saw her in January of 2020. So this happened rapidly and it seemed to have been spurred a lot by the isolation of the pandemic, the social isolation. She never got sick. But we know now that Alzheimer's is dramatically accelerated by lack of social contact. And. 

Rich Bennett 4:55
Oh. 

Rachel Waters 4:56
There was so much fear between her and my aunt. They wouldn't even like see each other. Even though they weren't seeing other people, they didn't really understand how the virus worked. 

Rich Bennett 5:06
They 

Rachel Waters 5:06
didn't even have a bubble of in-person contact that could kind of keep her aligned. And of course, she couldn't go to doctors at the time who would have been able to track her early fractures in her spine and begin treating some of the pain and the bone deterioration, which also would have potentially slowed her cognitive decline. So by the time I got there, my husband, now husband, and I got there in late August, early September, which was the safest time. 

Rich Bennett 5:39
We 

Rachel Waters 5:40
could manage to go. We weren't vaccinated yet, but we've been isolating and we ran at a car, and we knew it was an emergency. 

She had deteriorated. She'd had years worth of deterioration in just a matter of months. And that was when things got really urgent and I immediately got around with a gerontologist who would understand both osteoporosis and Alzheimer's. That was when she was diagnosed with advanced mild cognitive impairment, which is also thought of as the early stage of Alzheimer's and they did testing. And started trying to get the family on board. Unfortunately, the family was a bit in denial about what was happening. So there wasn't a lot of cooperation there. And I realized at that point, oh my god, I'm going to really be on my own with this and with managing it, aside from help from my husband, which was invaluable. But yeah, it was a terrifying thing to face. Not only because Alzheimer's on-zone is terrifying, but because as implications for my own future, we both have the Alzheimer's gene, the APOE for gene. So it was a little bit of like a crystal ball into what could potentially to me too. 

Rich Bennett 6:54
How much did you know about Alzheimer's before this happened? 

Rachel Waters 6:58
A lot. Oh, 

Rich Bennett 6:59
you did, okay. 

Rachel Waters 7:00
I did. I knew a lot. I had been as soon as our genetic test came back in 2017 for the APOE for gene. 

Rich Bennett 7:09
Martin, 

Rachel Waters 7:09
I'd spent the last few years researching Alzheimer's and depth because I wanted to be prepared in case it struck one of us. 

Rich Bennett 7:17
yeah. 

Rachel Waters 7:18
And you'll, like there were email conversations back and forth with me and my mom about Alzheimer's prevention and, you know, being on top of genetic risk factors, but it was a bit too little too late for her. The process, the disease process for Alzheimer's starts sometimes 20 years before symptoms manifest. So 

Rich Bennett 7:38
oh, man. 

Rachel Waters 7:39
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 7:40
So with the caregiving, what did that look like day to day for you both actually emotionally and practically? 

Rachel Waters 7:50
It changed, right? In the early stage. There was this big fight to continue to be her daughter. And because she was also, she also had a condition where she was not able to understand that she had Alzheimer's or realize it. 

Rich Bennett 8:06
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 8:06
And reminding her of it on the day to day was not going to be helpful. So really it was subtly managing her life, like making sure she paid a bill and being really subtle about that, you know, making sure that nothing was off with her activities of daily living, like paying attention if she was brushing her teeth before she went to bed or doing anything weird in the kitchen. 

Rich Bennett 8:28
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 8:29
And so it started out as just really frequent visitations, right? Coming down instead of like seeing her four times a year, it started out coming down every two months, for like a week or two at a time, 

Rich Bennett 8:40
to from New York to Georgia. 

Rachel Waters 8:41
Oh, yeah. It got more frequent from that trust. Like it was, you know, my aunt, though she was in denial, she also started to realize something was a bit off with mom, she, 

Rich Bennett 8:52
right? 

Rachel Waters 8:53
Paying due to osteoporosis because that was very visible 

Rich Bennett 8:57
physically. 

Rachel Waters 8:57
So she started visiting her daily too and that did help in the beginning because it helped me keep eyes on where she was going. So for the first year or so, it was just frequent visitations. My mom was still very capable of living on her own without assistance. And then there's assistance needs started to increase. I had already been managing her medical appointments. I took over her bills about a year in, started paying off debts. You know, started really closely monitoring finances because she had a habit of sometimes withdrawing huge amounts of 

Rich Bennett 9:31
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 9:31
cash and like going to tip people, you know, 500 dollars for service. So we got, we got on the same bank account so I could, you know, monitor that. And then it really started to accelerate around the time she got her multiple myeloma diagnosis in 2022. That was when she fell off the cliff. It had been low trajectory and we had slowed it down some because we were able to temporarily stop the progression of the osteoporosis with medications and hormone therapy. And so that reduction and pain 

Rich Bennett 10:05
right 

Rachel Waters 10:06
inflammation kind of let her cruise a little bit. Although there's still like some minor stepwise decline, but in 2022 it was, it became a catastrophic waterfall decline, which we were completely unprepared for because when she was initially diagnosed, I'll never forget her doctor saying Rachel, don't freak out. Now Alzheimer's is a very slow moving disease. You're still maybe six, eight years off from even needing him home care, like this is very gradual. And so I had sort of, and 

Rich Bennett 10:37
now 

Rachel Waters 10:37
what I read, you know, some people could have Alzheimer's for 20 years, but I had never read a progression that was just like two or three years. 

Rich Bennett 10:44
Right. Right. 

Rachel Waters 10:44
I was an outlier among outliers. So there was no expectation that I didn't have time, it became really clear with the cancer diagnosis, compounding things that I didn't have that luxury of time anymore. And at that point, we had to take her, we adopted her cats and brought them back to New York. 

We began to really, you know, her keys, of course, were taken away, 

Rich Bennett 11:11
but 

Rachel Waters 11:13
which turned out to be less of a battle than expected, because she did have a lot of physical pain. And so I framed it as, you know, if you have a lot of physical pain or you have an attack of physical pain, it could be dangerous. And so she was understanding of that. And at that point, I had to buy a car, so my aunt would transport her places to appointments because my aunt refused to take her in her own car, because my mom had behavioral issues, and one time she threw water in my aunt's new car. And she said, I'm not going to let her destroy my car. You'll have to purchase one if you want me to take her to appointments. 

Rich Bennett 11:45
Wow. 

Rachel Waters 11:46
You had to do that. And then, and then by the fall, we were hiring and home caregivers to help, but at that point, mind you, I was coming down like every six weeks. And then at the very end, before she was transition to a facility, I was there for like two and a half months, three months solid. And before that, my husband had come down without me, while I'm still juggling work. 

Rich Bennett 12:13
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 12:13
I was frantically not to lose my job because I couldn't afford to lose my job because at that point, my mom's care costs were over $14, 000 a month out of pocket. 

Rich Bennett 12:23
Holy shit. 

Rachel Waters 12:24
And so my entire income plus her retirement was going to pay. I had a staff of three caregivers that had to rotate because she needed 24 seven care, including ourselves. And so you would fill in to save money. And I tried to keep her in home as long as I could, but it just became no longer tenable around March of 2023. It was clear that her own home was no longer safe. And at that point, she'd already on hospice because she went on hospice only about six months after her multiple myloma diagnosis, the only treatment she could really tolerate was antibody therapy. Not really durable and someone who can't have chemo or other treatments. So she failed that therapy and had to go on hospice. 

Rich Bennett 13:13
How in the world, did you hold it all together? 

Rachel Waters 13:18
Oh my God. I didn't in the sense of my health went like collapsed. I gained like 30 pounds. I had a 

Rich Bennett 13:27
physical and mental 

Rachel Waters 13:28
Like 

Rich Bennett 13:28
health. 

Rachel Waters 13:29
my mental health, aside from stress, 

Rich Bennett 13:32
right. 

Rachel Waters 13:33
I am I am not someone who's prone to despair and depression, 

Rich Bennett 13:39
naturally. Okay. 

Rachel Waters 13:39
So I'm always, I am the fight, fight, fight, sort of a phenotype. I am not the give up and like feel despair. So I felt increasing, increasing sense of desperation to slow her decline and to alleviate a lot of her, her suffering and to get cooperation from the family. So conflict with family increased a great deal because they had a lot of suspicion around medications, especially Alzheimer's medications that might slow the decline. They had a lot of suspicion around me and my medical knowledge. They don't like the doctors I chose. And so there was often, even though I had power of attorney, they would sort of threaten me with if you take her to this doctor, we don't like will no longer cooperate with her care, like taking her to those appointments. 

Rich Bennett 14:26
Wow. 

Rachel Waters 14:27
So my hands were tied and I also didn't want them to cut social contact with her because it was so important and she was done. I did my best to protect my mom from being aware of these conflicts because she loved her siblings 

Rich Bennett 14:43
and 

Rachel Waters 14:43
didn't want her to ever feel that there was any tension with them in her final months or years. However long she had left. So it was a, yeah, it was really brutal. I managed to keep my job though, which was crazy. 

Rich Bennett 14:59
Good. 

Rachel Waters 15:00
Didn't I was put on a performance improvement plan because it was hard to take meetings if your mom is mad that you're ignoring her and she throws the 

Rich Bennett 15:07
Right. 

Rachel Waters 15:07
remote at your head during a client meeting. You have to be on camera because I was working with clients. But I managed to hold on to my job barely, but everything else like my own physical health, oh, that just forget it. It went out the window and I was getting. I had surgeries during that time. I had a major reproductive surgery and recovery to, like, it was, um, it was a lot. 

Rich Bennett 15:36
Good Lord Holy cow. Hey, so crazy question. Well, maybe not. But with your background in communications and life sciences. 

Rachel Waters 15:48
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 15:49
Do you think that actually helped, helped you approach your, your mother's care? 

Rachel Waters 15:58
oh, for sure. I knew immediately where to go. I knew what the most cutting edge therapies were, 

Rich Bennett 16:08
Okay. 

Rachel Waters 16:08
but it also made it worse in the 

Rich Bennett 16:10
Oh, 

Rachel Waters 16:10
sense that because I knew what to do, but my family did not trust me and would not let me manage her care. It meant that I had to live with knowing I could not get her into, say, clinical trials because they would refuse to cooperate with her care. So it was really torturous because 

I had to make a horrific decision, which was give my mom the best care for Alzheimer's available and maybe get her into some of the trials for Lucuna ma, for instance, or if I did that, have her lose all contact with her family,which  would devastate her quality of life. And she wouldn't understand why. 

Rich Bennett 16:50
Wow. 

Rachel Waters 16:51
And I could not do that. So it just made the psychological torture worse. 

I also think it backfired a bit when she finally went into assisted living. And 

Rich Bennett 17:06
that's 

Rachel Waters 17:06
because being medically knowledgeable meant that, you know, I would push back against some of the recommendations for her. 

Rich Bennett 17:15
But you have to sometimes you, 

Rachel Waters 17:17
you do that's what advocacy looks like. 

Rich Bennett 17:20
yeah, 

Rachel Waters 17:20
Unfortunately, it might have well contributed to me being implicated for her death. 

Rich Bennett 17:27
But I mean, 

the thing. God, I'm thinking of my father now, because when my father, he had espasticis loopis, we think he may have had cancer, but he always said if he did, he'd never wanted to find out. But I, when he was living in Florida month, sister, we go down to take care of him. I think he was on like, 30, some different medication. Let me rephrase that 30, some medications. And then a lot of them were duplicates from different doctors. 

Rachel Waters 18:04
yep, 

Rich Bennett 18:04
So if my sister wouldn't have pushed back, he would still be taken on. Well, he would have, he would have still been taken all of them. And people, 

you know what actually, let me ask you this because I, I, I, both of my parents were on whom hospice 

Rachel Waters 18:27
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 18:27
in a way to me, it's, it's like a blessing because you can be there with them, 

Rachel Waters 18:34
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 18:34
but it's also hard because you're there watching it. 

Rachel Waters 18:39
And you're responsible for their care in so many ways in terms of medication. 

Rich Bennett 18:44
Yeah, 

Rachel Waters 18:44
[BLANK_AUDI 

Rich Bennett 18:46
it's hard. But what do people misunderstand about being the sole caregiver for a parent? 

Rachel Waters 18:57
I think that one of the most misunderstood things, especially in the case of Alzheimer's and dementia is the lack of assistance, even if they have the best health insurance and the best Medicare plan on the planet, is that you don't get the assistance with activities of daily living. You only get you might get someone who will come and help them give you a bath, you know, 

Rich Bennett 19:24
once you 

Rachel Waters 19:25
might get some physical therapy, but there is no plan unless you sell down all their assets and you qualify for Medicaid somehow. My mom did not qualify for Medicaid due to her high retirement income. Right? It's that that case of not rich enough to to report the care on your own, not poor enough to have the full assistance with activities of daily living and so activities of daily living are things like brushing teeth, changing diapers, making sure people eat, making sure someone has eyes on them so they don't wander. That care is not covered. You as the caregiver are solely responsible for it 

Rich Bennett 20:05
wow, 

Rachel Waters 20:05
and you're not going to get any assistance from your health care plan with those things, especially if you don't qualify for Medicaid. And even then there's weightless to get people into homes under Medicaid and you know, it's a great system for people who are really in financial 

Rich Bennett 20:23
but 

Rachel Waters 20:23
need, 

Rich Bennett 20:24
yeah. 

Rachel Waters 20:24
Someone in my mom's case, you know, I wanted I knew that between her retirement income and my income, we could get her the best possible care when the time came and I knew I could sell my childhood home that I was due to inherit and fund her care if I needed to and I was so grateful to that. And I all 

Rich Bennett 20:40
right, 

Rachel Waters 20:41
put that home on the market and sell it. But if you are not in that position, it is you can have a hell of a time just trying to find basic daily living assistance. No one's going to come in and help you. It is all on you. 

Rich Bennett 20:59
Wow. All right, so I want to go to July of 2023. You know, when 

Rachel Waters 21:06
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 21:06
you got when you got the call. 

Rachel Waters 21:08
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 21:09
What do you remember most about arriving in Georgia and your mother. 

Rachel Waters 21:16
I remember most the desperation to get there in time before she died. So when we got that call, we were just it was a Sunday afternoon and we had been planning to go to Georgia in the next week or two anyway to see 

Rich Bennett 21:32
Right. 

Rachel Waters 21:32
my mom. When I got the call from the memory facility in hospice was on the line to saying that my mom had hours today to live after she had been found non-responsive. And we immediately jumped into action to book a plane ticket to go there. Unfortunately, it was incredibly bad weather. We had flooding all over New York. They cancelled all cities. So the flight we booked was immediately cancelled and they announced cancellations for the coming days. The flooding was so bad. So we ended up booking an Amtrak to Washington, DC where we then raced from the Amtrak station. I remember running off of that train with my bag saying, please, please let me through. My mom is dying. I need to get to her. And racing to get to a taxi, racing to get through TSA at the airport, catching the plane to Augusta and arriving at her bedside, while talking to hospice the whole time to make sure she was still alive because I promised to my mom that she would not die alone. I know that often we can't keep that promise, but come 

in and say she was in, but to know that whatever awareness she had—because she was not responsive, right—but often people are aware of sounds or sites even at end of life. So just feeling this profound sense of relief that I had made it in time before she passed, as well as just the devastation that this moment had finally arrived and it had arrived so suddenly. Which in retrospect, it wasn't that sudden. But I think in your brain there's this part of you that holds onto, this is a long process. Multiple maloma. Can be a slow cancer. All time is, you're thinking, well maybe I have six more months, maybe I have a year. But it wasn't to be so. 

Rich Bennett 23:38
Wow, 

Rachel Waters 23:38
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 23:39
now, ehm, for listeners who don't What is, uh, a hospice comfort kit? 

Rachel Waters 23:48
know, 

Rich Bennett 23:48
And how's 

Rachel Waters 23:48
mm-hmm. 

Rich Bennett 23:48
this supposed to be used? 

Rachel Waters 23:50
So, the comfort kit is almost universally prescribed to people, sometimes to family caregivers or, 

Rich Bennett 23:57
Oh! 

Rachel Waters 23:57
uh, across-home hospice companies. So, that's either prescribed, uh, it, it's, of course, in the patient's name, 

Rich Bennett 24:04
Mm-hmm. 

Rachel Waters 24:04
but usually how it goes, and this can vary from company to company, is once someone goes into hospice, you are given a comfort kit either picked up from CVS or sometimes hospice will drop it off directly. And that kit contains controlled substances, including sublingual, which is under the tongue, morphine, as well as drugs like lrasa pan, which has a benzodiazepine to ease anxiety. And the morphine is for respiratory distress as well as pain at end of- 

Rich Bennett 24:31
Right. 

Rachel Waters 24:32
As well as repositories for constipation, they're in suppository forum because a person may not be able to swallow a pill. Um, as well as other comfort medications that can kind of vary, uh, from company to company, but it's basically all designed to in the event that you don't have a hospice nurse available, which is the odds are going to be pretty high that if your love on starts to die at three in the morning, you're not going to have a hospice nurse available. You are deputized to use these medications with your loved one and you are often trained on how to administer them and what the signs are that you should administer them. And often this includes instructions to call the emergency line for the hospice company where someone will either respond immediately or to a message and walk you through or guide you through that medication administration. But essentially from the moment you were given this comfort kid and trained you, as a caregiver, have been deputized to use it as prescribed. 

And that is pretty universal across home hospice and it was fortunately not a thing we really had to rely on on. At the very end, uh, we'd had some episodes of a little bit of pain and respiratory distress where we would use very small amounts of the sublingual morphine as prescribed and we always notified hospice and let them know, even though we weren't actually required to by law, just being super cautious. 

Rich Bennett 26:01
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 26:03
But my mom was also she was not opioid naive because she had multiple my Loma prior to having a fentanyl patch, she also had coding, Tylenol coding to use as well as other opioid medications because multiple my Loma causes very intense bone pain and truth. Uh, her bone pain was probably under treated because she frequently had a lot of pain in her spine. 

Rich Bennett 26:26
Wow. Uh, so looking back now, were there warning signs that the system actually wasn't communicating clearly. 

Rachel Waters 26:37
Yes. Uh, and in fact, there were warning signs then, which was what prompted me to begin recording my mom's condition and documenting everything leading up to her death. The first was when we arrived there, we were very alarmed to learn that there was no comfort kit at the facility, which if a patient has been declared eminently, you know, there had been no comfort kit prescribed to the facility. 

Rich Bennett 27:00
Wow. 

Rachel Waters 27:01
We were shocked by that because we knew the standard care was to have a comfort kit available, especially if a patient had been declared actively dying, which my 

Rich Bennett 27:10
Right. 

Rachel Waters 27:10
mom had them. And so we began to, or I began to request a hospice, hey, can we get morphine at least, because that's the most important part of the comfort care kit when pain is, you know, the issue, which 

Rich Bennett 27:27
is right. 

Rachel Waters 27:27
Heloms case. Um, can we at least get a prescription for that to the facility, whether it's PRN, which is an as needed basis. I don't know if like you guys do a drip, which was what my grandparents had as they were dying, but, you know, I could see whenever she was turned she was in profound pain that was the only expression only response she would make was her face would contort an agony, and she couldn't really speak, but she would grown when turned. And I was super distressed to see that kind of uncontrolled pain and having that prescription refused repeatedly, I realized something was very wrong, it seemed with standard of care. And that was when I began documenting it was also when my husband was like, OK, well if they're not going to have a, a comfort care kit here. Then I can go to the house and get what we have at the house at least 

Rich Bennett 28:20
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 28:20
and keep that car. So if push comes to shove and she, you know, really enters this stage of agony, she's dying will be prepared, we never anticipated that we would ever have to rely on it, though. 

Rich Bennett 28:33
All right, so, so you lost your mother and within hours. you were no longer just a grieving daughter. When did you first learn you were considered a suspect? 

Rachel Waters 28:47
Oh man, just hours after my mom died. So my mom, when she passed, there was no reason for us to suspect anything was a rye. We called hospice. This was an expected death. They came, they bait her, they dressed her, they repositioned her body. Family came to say her goodbyes, and that all seemed very normal and ordinary. The funeral home said, "Oh, hey, we've had some delays. We're not going to be able to pick her body up until close to lunchtime. You should go home, you should get some rest." 

Rich Bennett 29:25
Wow. 

Rachel Waters 29:26
And so she died at 7 in the morning. So we had at the memory care facility. It was like coming going on 10 o'clock. So we were exhausted, had not slept. And we were on the way back to her house, which is about 25 minute drive. When I get a call on my cell phone from the funeral home and they said,"There's  been a problem. We can't pick up her body. It's been taken to the GBI crime lab in Atlanta." 

Rich Bennett 29:58
Wow. 

Rachel Waters 29:59
And, you know, I wasn't yesterday. I know there's only one reason 

Rich Bennett 30:03
why. Right. 

Rachel Waters 30:04
The audience taken to the crime lab for autopsy. And, I immediately knew that I had been implicated in wrongdoing. I didn't know if it was full-blown murder, but I suspected that was a good candidate. 

Rich Bennett 30:18
yeah. 

Rachel Waters 30:19
And 

I felt immediate horror. Like, my blood just ran cold. And I immediately went into what I call machine mode where it's like, "Oh, you can't grieve anymore. Now you're having to potentially fight for your life." And so, I immediately googled the closest attorney who dealt with, you know, criminal law. 

Rich Bennett 30:45
You're listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. We'll be right back. 

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Rachel Waters 31:52
We're on the ride home from the memory care facility just to get some much needed rest. And I get a call from the funeral home saying, there's been a problem with picking up your mom's body. It's been taken to she's been taken to the GBI crime lab in Atlanta. 

I immediately jumped into action knowing that where I had suspected were going wrong way more wrong than I had ever imagined. And at this point, I'm thinking maybe, because I had told staff that we had a comfort kit, I had been requesting morphine. I'm not a very secretive person. And so I was like, God, maybe they misunderstood. Did they think that I wanted to kill my mom? Because she was an agonial breathing. So at this point, I'm operating from I'm terrified, but surely there's been a misunderstanding that I'm going to have an opportunity to clear up. 

Rich Bennett 32:48
Transparent. 

Rachel Waters 32:48
And so, and that's not an uncommon thing to think if like all your life you've never had an adverse reaction with law enforcement. Which is true in my case. And having been, you know, peripheral to law enforcement, technically law enforcement at some point in my life. And so we get home. I am on the phone with this attorney. He's been telling me about possible charges in the state of Georgia. I'm Googling them. I'm freaking out even more because I'm learning about felony murder. And I'm like, Oh my God, are they going to allege that it was illegal for me to have a comfort kit? Do I even my attorney didn't even know if it was legal? He was like, it's legal to give people morphine because people don't understand how hospice works, right? They don't, that is it is a huge gap in knowledge. And at this point, I'm starting to realize there might be some big problems if my attorney isn't even aware of the legality. 

Rich Bennett 33:42
Right. 

Rachel Waters 33:44
At the same time, however, I am still optimistic that it will be resolved because I didn't kill my mom and I was down there because she was dying. 

Rich Bennett 33:55
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 33:56
And that's definitely in a record somewhere I know. So I get back to the house. We arrive there and sure enough within 20 minutes, we have five Columbia County sheriffs cars pull up in the yard to play and close investigators knock on the door. They asked to speak to me and for my cell phone. And I said two things. You can talk to my attorney and you need to get a warrant. And the investigator said, you know how this looks don't you? I said, yeah, it looks like I know my rights. You know, 

Rich Bennett 34:23
yeah, 

Rachel Waters 34:24
um, because I'm not in a place either to talk to law enforcement. All I'm furious. 

Rich Bennett 34:30
Right. 

Rachel Waters 34:30
Now, 

Rich Bennett 34:31
your mind's not all there. 

Rachel Waters 34:32
And 

Rich Bennett 34:33
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 34:33
my mom has just died. I am emotionally volatile. I also know how investigations work. I am, you know if you can abide by your rights, you should 

Rich Bennett 34:46
Yea. 

Rachel Waters 34:46
be able to. So I requested that and it took a couple of hours. And after they spoke to my attorney, I was relieved to see that the search warrant now had a comfort kid on it. I was like, OK, so now they'll know she had a valid prescription. Surely they're going to understand hospice. Surely. 

Rich Bennett 35:06
Right. 

Rachel Waters 35:07
If you clear it out, they're going to see it's barely been used that there's no abuse of medication. And so even though I'm terrified to see the words homicide and my name on the search warrant, which confirms, yes, I'm indeed a murder suspect. I'm thinking, Oh, now that they have my phone, which is also in my mind, exculpatory because it's clear from my phone records that I was called down, that my mom was actively dying. I have a ton of video and photo of her dying. 

Rich Bennett 35:35
Like right. 

Rachel Waters 35:36
So much evidence of my mom's condition when I arrive. I'm thinking that all of this is going to exonerate me, that it's going to be cleared up within a few months. Her toxicology is going to come back and I will be able to get on with grieving and with my life. Even though it's a terrifying encounter, you still can't conceive of a world in which you are wrongfully charged for something you didn't do because we have this very American understanding of like, well, if someone gets charged with murder, there must be a ton of evidence, right? This was a thing I learned the hard way, right? Right. You know, and we know that corruption happens and framings happen 

Rich Bennett 36:17
but no, 

Rachel Waters 36:19
things like that are real. 

Rich Bennett 36:20
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 36:21
But it's just, if you're not. Again, if you've never had adverse contact with law enforcement, if you've lived this privileged life, you don't really conceive of it happening to you. You think at the very least, people get wrongfully accused if they did something shady and it was misunderstood or if they made a mistake 

Rich Bennett 36:41
Right. 

Rachel Waters 36:41
and it was misunderstood. Those are the things, but I'm sitting here going, I did it all by the book. I'm talking to my hospice nurse friends and I'm like, wasn't this what I was supposed to do? I called hospice. They told me the dose. Like, she was in a residence. It was not considered a medical facility. It was her residence. She was still on home hospice. And everything I understood from speaking to hospice nurse friends, I even called forensic forensic toxicology experts and they were like, no, there's never been a case of anyone being charged with murder because of someone with a comfort care kit. You have people with, you know, injecting people with morphine, you know, 

Rich Bennett 37:20
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 37:20
getting an IV and they were like, never heard of any kind of murder case from sublingual morphine. I think you're going to be cleared. You know, toxicology can be unpredictable after death, especially if someone's dying, but they were like, the circumstantial evidence, everything we'll show that you were down there because she was dying. And so, even though I didn't have any answers or feedback from law enforcement, this is going on months and months and months, right? And then going on for years. We're like 18 months, so over a year, getting close to two years with nothing happening. You can't settle the estate. You can't get closure. Mind you, I had a lot of questions about her death because of how she was found and I was waiting for that autopsy report too. 

Rich Bennett 38:12
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 38:14
But you let this fear die because you also think, well, her toxicology has been back forever. And there's clearly no, in your mind, you're like, well, if there was a smoking gun, they would have come and gotten me. You 

Rich Bennett 38:28
you're 

Rachel Waters 38:29
see how people who are believed to be a danger to society are pursued. And I'm pretty easy to find. You know, like I'm very active online. I live Yeah, I work for a prominent employer. I, you know, very prominent in my community and highly visible. Again, I'm not a see, I've been coming down to Georgia constantly. 

Rich Bennett 38:49
Uh-huh. 

Rachel Waters 38:50
To fix up her house. Um, so there's nothing to indicate that I am perceived as a threat in any way or a murderer in any way. But again, um, that that can be deceiving. 

Rich Bennett 39:06
What was it that triggered them to figure it was a homicide? 

Rachel Waters 39:11
So I can't say, uh, there were probably a few different factors. You know, I think that there were things that contributed when we got the discovery. One of them was that postmodern morphine risk redistribution. So this is a thing that, this is where you get really jargony and technical. 

Rich Bennett 39:32
Mm-hmm. 

Rachel Waters 39:32
But, uh, if you look at the medical examiner's notes, when the investigator first approaches him about my mom's death, he said, well, you know, morphine after death, morphine levels, they're not really reliable because they can concentrate on predictable levels in people after death. And so he finds her morphine level, uh, and it was slightly, uh, what, you know, we spoke to other examiners very slightly elevated. It was not anywhere near what most consider the lethal range, but it's in the could be lethal 

Rich Bennett 40:07
Right. 

Rachel Waters 40:07
if you try and extrapolate. But who knows, it depends on context. Um, he also didn't seem to know. We don't know this for sure, but we can't find any evidence that he knew that she was actively dying and had no food or fluids before her death. That changes morphine concentration because 

Rich Bennett 40:28
Uh-huh. 

Rachel Waters 40:29
her kidney and liver were not functioning. We do know that she had liver necrosis and kidney failure on findings. And so what that means is any dose of morphine that's given is not broken down by the body. And it can start to concentrate. So we didn't see any evidence that the hospice company had disclosed the records of her being declared actively dying. What we garnered is it seems that invests. We also could not find any evidence that he knew of her morphine prescription. 

Rich Bennett 41:00
Wow. 

Rachel Waters 41:01
Nor could we find, uh, you know, the, the, there was one person who had seemingly implicated me and her death. And she didn't indicate that I had been called down because my mom was dying. 

Rich Bennett 41:15
What? 

Rachel Waters 41:17
She did not. 

Rich Bennett 41:18
Wow. 

Rachel Waters 41:19
She, she never seemed to disclose that if she disclosed that off the recording, we don't know. But, um, what it seemed like to us because we also were confused after my indictment came down in February of 2025. We were very confused by why news articles kept saying that morphine was left out or morphine was stolen. And I'm like, we had a prescription and that was handed over to law enforcement. 

Rich Bennett 41:46
Right. 

Rachel Waters 41:47
Why isn't this showing up in the record? 

Rich Bennett 41:49
Interesting. 

Rachel Waters 41:51
And that is a mystery that we are still working to solve to this day. 

Rich Bennett 41:55
Yeah, I think there's still, there's definitely a lot to comment still. 

Rachel Waters 41:59
Um, yeah, this will be a developing story. 

Rich Bennett 42:03
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 42:03
As time progresses, but it seemed to us that something and or multiple things went wrong to create the perfect storm that enabled a grand jury to believe that I had come down and injected my mom with a lethal dose of morphine causing her death. 

Rich Bennett 42:21
Oh, God. 

Rachel Waters 42:25
Um, and of interest, there was no sitting DA at the time of my indictment. 

Rich Bennett 42:30
What? 

Rachel Waters 42:31
That DA who was in office during my investigation, he had been called to DC for National Guard duty as Bobby Christine. And so the person who presented my case to the grand jury was the investigator who made contact with me the first day. And, um, 

the DA who managed my case came onto my case after my indictment and she began telegraphing doubts about the charges almost immediately. she ended up pulling my mom's financial records. She started asking more questions at the facility. And so she got additional information after my indictment, unfortunately. That seemed to instill some doubts. Some of that additional information that showed up in the discovery after my indictment. So this was information she obtained after I had already been charged with two counts of murder in the state of Georgia, both of which are subject to the death penalty. 

Rich Bennett 43:31
Uh, 

Rachel Waters 43:31
And or like in prison. Um, and you know, my life has already been upended and headlines have already been made. That's when she pulls the records showing that I was supporting my mom financially that that there wasn't any sort 

Rich Bennett 43:45
motive. 

Rachel Waters 43:45
of Malice murder implies emotive. And she also had asked the memory care facility why isn't Rachel signed in on these days leading up to her mom's death. And this was after I'm indicted, but the person who answered her question at the facility who works at the front desk was just like, oh, we don't make people sign in if their loved ones dying. 

And that appeared to be new information to 

Rich Bennett 44:18
the deep. Wow. 

Rachel Waters 44:22
I can't say that with absolute certainty, but that is what it appeared to be. I have, you know, I have to speak very carefully. 

Rich Bennett 44:27
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 44:29
Um, but at that point, she opted to not fight Bond, which is quite rare. You know, if the state is bringing two counts of murder charges against you, typic they will fight Bond, right? 

Rich Bennett 44:43
Because 

Rachel Waters 44:43
the argument is you are a threat to society, you are a flight risk. Uh, you might flee. And so let's keep this person in jail. And during my bond hearing, and I'm sitting in jail for the spawn hearing in my little orange jumpsuit, and I'm watching all of my character witnesses file into the courtroom to be proffered to the judge and my attorney there, and my attorney is having these witnesses speak for my ties to the community and why I wouldn't flee and why I'm not a threat to my community in any way. She stops them and approaches the bench to say that she is not going to fight Bond. And she does not want to have Bond denied to me, which was a blessing because, um, even though that bond was astronomically high $200, 000. 

Rich Bennett 45:32
Whoa. 

Rachel Waters 45:33
That was what the judge said it. He's known for being a pretty tough judge. 

Rich Bennett 45:37
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 45:39
You know, between my legal fees and that, we were able to basically take our entire retirement and life savings and that just covered it. 

Rich Bennett 45:49
Jesus. 

Rachel Waters 45:50
And um, that enabled me to get out. And then at point, it was just a matter of getting all of that evidence that I had been collecting that I had collected, including my mom's medical records, because I had had to send a demand letter to the facility, even though I was entitled to get those records as their power of attorney. It took me getting a lawyer to get those records showing that my mom was actively dying. Um, 

Rich Bennett 46:17
that, wow. 

Rachel Waters 46:18
And so I sent all of that material to my attorney who then just sent it to the medical examiner, because when we got that discovery, we realized, there were really significant gaps. 

Rich Bennett 46:35
There 

Rachel Waters 46:35
they're understanding of the events leading up to my mom's death. And we had I had expert witnesses. I had friends who were hospice nurses who had come by and examined my mom in the days leading up to her death, who spent way more time with her than even the hospice nurses did. You know, they can come by for a 10 minute visit, um, who were able to sign affidavits. I had none of that video evidence I'd taken. None of that showed up in their discovery. It seems like that was not pulled from the phone at all. Um, the search results, like me searching for charges, those all came after I found out that I had been accused effectively. And of course, you're going to Google 

Rich Bennett 47:15
yeah, 

Rachel Waters 47:16
charges are, you know. Um, so we had context that they didn't have. And we decided to send all of that context, like everything, more text messages and videos and photos and photos of the prescription, 

Rich Bennett 47:31
um, 

Rachel Waters 47:32
uh, that they did not appear to have. We sent it to both the medical examiner in the DA. And all it took was in that six month span from being arrested and having my life shattered, my career ended, my life savings gone, my family disowned me. 

Rich Bennett 47:47
Oh my God. 

Rachel Waters 47:48
All it took was six months of the review, even less than six months, because they didn't get the materials to April. Immediately, medical examiner, after reviewing it, changes the cause of death. Updates it is no longer a homicide. It is undetermined, right? I, um, and then as soon as Natalie paying the DA gets it, announces she is dismissing all charges. This was, you know, any talk of like a plea deal or anything like that, it wasn't even a consideration for her. It was immediately dropped and dismissed. 

Rich Bennett 48:20
How long did you have to sit in jail during all of the? 

Rachel Waters 48:23
I was in jail, luckily, because my incredible attorney, Brian Steele, uh, made arrangements for me to turn myself in because I was another like miraculous stroke tipped off by a malicious person on Instagram to my indictment. Oh 

We were able to make arrangements for me to turn myself in on the day of my bond hearing. So I was only in jail for 12 hours. I was there from 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. When, you know, all the bonds come through. And if you've been bonded out, you can be released. But I will tell you 12 hours, uhm, in, 

Rich Bennett 48:59
can feel like a lifetime. 

Rachel Waters 49:08
If I was going to leave in a matter of hours, or a matter of years because that judge, again, was not expected to grant bond. 

Rich Bennett 49:17
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 49:19
And for a murder charge. This might be your, your home, so to speak, for years to come. And you may not be in a place to get your evidence over or mount your defense or see your family. And that alone, that, that was the first time I felt a really, really deep sense of despair. As I said, I'm not someone prone to despair. 

Rich Bennett 49:41
Mm-hmm. 

Rachel Waters 49:42
But that kind of environment and seeing what happens to people there and seeing people who've spent more of their lives in carcery and have never been convicted of a crime. How people have spent time just waiting trial and pretrial detention and the that cycle that people have been caught in. It is terrifying in a way that is very difficult to articulate. 

Rich Bennett 50:10
Did you at least get an apology or anything? 

Rachel Waters 50:13
Oh, hell no. 

Rich Bennett 50:14
Are you serious? 

Rachel Waters 50:15
Absolutely not. 

You're just, you're no longer of, you know, that's how that system works. 

Rich Bennett 50:28
It's 

scary because here it is whatever happened to, what was it saying, innocent until proven guilty. Right away you're, it seems like you're guilty until proven innocent now. 

Rachel Waters 50:44
That's kind of how it functions, right? Like, you know, that is that is very much how the criminal legal system functions and it's more accurate to say not guilty until proven guilty. So it's a legal designation. There is not, you know, it's, it's, it's go, it is so far reaching that if I were to tell you now that I am innocent, that's actually legally fraught because a court has not found me innocent. 

Rich Bennett 51:13
Oh, wow, are you serious? 

Rachel Waters 51:15
Well, you're not guilty, right? Because I never had a trial. I am technically so double jeopardy would not apply either. 

So that is the bizarre thing about this limbo you enter into even after a case is dismissed. Is that, you know, you sort of just revert back to suspect status. The rest of your life. Now, the odds that you will be charged after the state has reversed the cause, change the cause of death and everything they're almost infinitesimally small, but you never go back to the status of, oh, she's totally innocent. This person has been cleared and that is why you may have to spend the rest of your life demonstrating your innocent. You're not guilty because once you've been charged, it's sort of forever alters your legal status in the eyes of law enforcement. Right. Because your name is already been on that wall. And even though my rights have been returned to me, I've come off on, I got my passport back. And the word is still present and visible to law enforcement. If I get pulled over, it's still going to show that I've been charged with two counts of murder because Georgia doesn't restrict or the Georgia doesn't, you know, clear expunge records. They only restrict them. So they are still visible on law enforcement searches and even some advanced background search software will still show those charges for the rest of my life. 

Rich Bennett 52:55
And I think it's your job back, 

Rachel Waters 52:56
you? 

Rich Bennett 52:56
did 

Rachel Waters 52:57
I sure didn't. And that's in large part because once you have headlines declaring you a murderer. It's pretty hard to get work when you're a 

Rich Bennett 53:07
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 53:08
client. Staying writer, not only because of the notoriety associated with your name, but also just no one wants to deal with the potential HR and legal complication. Now, there's a million other candidates that are not going to be an issue in the way that you are. 

Rich Bennett 53:25
All right. So even though the charges were dismissed against you. Do 

Rachel Waters 53:29
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 53:30
they still consider your mother's death a homicide? 

Rachel Waters 53:33
It is not. 

Rich Bennett 53:34
It is not. 

Rachel Waters 53:34
It is considered undetermined. And that's a really weird classification. 

Rich Bennett 53:39
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 53:40
It was basically, you know, sometimes it's done, I can't say that this was my case, but sometimes a medical examiner is hesitant to take away the state's case if a DA still wants to charge. 

Rich Bennett 53:53
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 53:53
Because if he had declared it, you know, liver failure, for instance, or multiple myeloma. Now, there are multiple causes of death listed in our certificate. And those included liver, liver necrosis, kidney failure, artery blockage of 70% brainstem atrophy pneumonia in both lungs as well as multiple myeloma lesions and global brain atrophy. That was all found on her autopsy. But the undetermined, you know, basically makes it so the medical examiner himself doesn't have to make the determination. It leaves it to other state authorities. And so it seemed to us that Nally Paine also did not think it was a homicide, you know, given how swift she was to drop all charges, or not dismisses. The judge that dismisses it was her that dropped them. 

Rich Bennett 54:50
All right. So, first of all, you never got but I want to say I'm sorry you had to go through all this. I'm sorry your mother had to go through all this because and I know your your mother was looking down at you, just saying why why does she have to go through this? And you could have walked away quietly after everything was dismissed, but you're not explain Marsha's law. 

Rachel Waters 55:18
Yeah. 

I realized that A, if this happened to me, it could happen to literally anyone. Because most people also are not going to have the life savings that I had. They're not going to have the meticulousness of record keeping. They're not going to necessarily have the spidey sense that something is going wrong to begin documenting. And they are far more likely if somebody implicates them in the death and the hospice death of their loved one, which by the way happens all the time. You will get family members saying you overdosed so and so early 

Rich Bennett 55:56
Right. 

Rachel Waters 55:56
because they had cancer. I see it on Reddit and caregiver support groups. All it takes is one believable witness to alleged abuse or misuse and a law enforcement officer who takes those claims seriously to potentially push this. And if those people don't have abundant evidence to their innocence, they could end up facing either felony murder charges or malice murder charges. And we would never know that they had been wrongfully charged, right? Because most people if faced with the prospect of the death penalty, they take a plea deal. 

Rich Bennett 56:32
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 56:33
Because that's terrifying. And they don't have the evidence necessarily to fight it. So this might have happened to someone else, but we just wouldn't know. 

Rich Bennett 56:42
Right. 

Rachel Waters 56:44
And I realized that one of the reasons this happened with me seemed to hinge around this, this idea that my use of morphine was unauthorized and or I wasn't permitted to use or have it. And that revealed to me a really serious gap in hospice care. We spent ages my attorneys and I searching for laws that protect the use of comfort care kits by family members. And they don't exist. 

Rich Bennett 57:15
What? 

Rachel Waters 57:15
The closest thing is the pain relief promotion act of 2000, which says that people, you know, who are very sick with these diseases are entitled to pain relief. But the protections mostly exist for healthcare providers who may face allegations of overdose from morphine. Right. So we do have legal protections for nurses and doctors, but we don't have them for family caregivers. And that means that everything operates on the trust system, hospice companies, give people and deputize these people to use these medications, trusting them to not abuse them. Right. And family members trust that it's all on the up and up and everyone knows that they're expected to give these medications and they're not going to be accused of abusing or misusing them. The problem is, if maybe a company shuts, you know, maybe there's a criminal investigation, a company is not necessarily going to be obligated to turn over medical records. They certainly weren't obligated. There was a records request in my case, but there was no warrant. And so sometimes people can find themselves on their own under legal scrutiny. And I didn't have any proof that I had been deputized and that I was the authorized user because that was all verbal. And I have spent the last year and a half talking to people whose loved ones had died in hospice and never once did they ever get proof that they had been deputized or trained on the use of these medications. And that alone having some form of proof that you have been trained and deputized that is signed and witnessed, is so critical in closing any gap that this morphine uses unauthorized, right? As there's a wide array of discretion in dosing at end of life. But the allegation that it is unauthorized, that is something that is easy to cut off at the pass. So marshes law would basically require that hospice providers, home hospice providers throughout the country, when they prescribe the comfort care kit. They have the list of family members and caregivers who have been deputized and trained. They have signed and witnessed this. And this is going to be on a sheet of paper that has contact paper too, not just 

Rich Bennett 59:36
although 

Rachel Waters 59:36
digital, 

Rich Bennett 59:36
you 

Rachel Waters 59:37
need the digital record. But this would not only be a possession of the hospice company and any care facility that that person goes into. But it would also be in possession of you to be kept with your comfort care kit. So with law enforcement shows up and someone has alleged that you have been unauthorized to use morphine. They have proof right then and there. Nope. You've been trained. You're authorized to use it. And so they can't allege. So the felony murder charge came from the allegation that this was felony drug possession. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:09
Oh my god. 

Rachel Waters 1:00:11
And because it's a control substance about an opioid, we've had the opioid crisis. And I think in a time where we have just come through this opioid crisis, if you have a law enforcement officer who is completely unfamiliar with home hospice, think about it from the perspective of who someone who's never seen anybody die. The idea that you can come up and squirt morphine in someone else's mouth sounds illegal, right? 

Rich Bennett 1:00:31
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 1:00:33
But we know that it is done every day in home hospice care. We do it with our like 75 million American families are in home hospice. And that is what happens. It is the standard of care. And yet, if you have not had direct contact with that system, you would not know that it is authorized that family members have been deputized to squirt that little bit of morphine into their loved ones mouth as they are experiencing agonial breathing to help relieve that. And it also helps dispel some of the stigma, I think, by raising awareness of comfort care kits and of their authorized use. Around this idea that morphine is the thing that kills them or that hastens death, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:10
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 1:01:11
I think that, you know, having some information about training, if I were to really expand Marsh's law, thus laws are narrowly written, right? Those are easy to pass. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:21
Mm-hmm. 

Rachel Waters 1:01:21
But in my wildest dreams, Marsh's law would also contain a component of training for law enforcement and for local medical examiners on the effects of morphine in a dying patient, namely studies showing that morphine does not hasten death. And in fact, actually prolongs time to death in dying patients by easing that respiratory distress and pain, as well as information on how morphine levels can concentrate unpredictably if someone has organ failure, like in the case of my mom. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:50
Wow. 

Rachel Waters 1:01:51
That is a wildest dream scenario, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:57
Dreams. but at the very least, Marsh's law, dreams can come true. 

Rachel Waters 1:01:59
Yeah. Oh, oh, I'm holding out help. Trust. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:02
It will. 

Rachel Waters 1:02:03
It will. But at the very least, Marsh's law would at least show, yes, this family member is authorized to use morphine. This is not an unauthorized use. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:12
So where are where are you way in the progress of this so far? 

Rachel Waters 1:02:15
So right now I have written the law, I have made contact with a staff, a work, and state legislature offices both in Georgia, as well as Alabama. I am starting with Southern states first, especially 

Rich Bennett 1:02:29
Okay. 

Rachel Waters 1:02:29
those that have felony murder laws on the books. And the moment national coverage comes out is when I start coming down and making those in-person meetings because at that point you have some credibility behind you with an independent reporter who is coverage story. And so this summer I'm already geared up to, I have my one-pager on the law, is ready to go. I have all my contacts made in these offices. I've also identified other contacts at both a state and federal level as outside of Georgia and Alabama, but the goal will be to go state by state until you get enough momentum to really warrant this passing as a federal law. It tends to be how most of this happens. They see that constituents want this across the board. And in my wildest dreams this is one of the few truly bipartisan things I hope that we can agree on that everybody deserves that families deserve to be protected when providing comfort care to their dying loved ones at end of life. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:34
It does need to become a federal law. It makes sense. 

Rachel Waters 1:03:41
Right. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:41
I thought about that, especially with the opioid crisis and everything. Yeah, I mean police officer EMT or whatever can walk in and see that morphing. They don't know if you've been if it was prescribed or not. 

Rachel Waters 1:03:55
Right. And it has someone else's name on it. It has the dying 

Rich Bennett 1:03:57
Right. 

Rachel Waters 1:03:57
person's name, not yours. Like how can 

Rich Bennett 1:03:58
it? 

Rachel Waters 1:03:58
you use 

Rich Bennett 1:03:59
Especially if you're not a doctor or a nurse. Wow. 

Rachel Waters 1:04:03
That's right. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:04
Wow. Alright so Rachel, have you, especially now that, you know, these charges have been dropped. Have you thought about actually going out and talking to groups getting up on the stage and talking about this? I know you're doing a podcast and other 

Rachel Waters 1:04:24
people. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:25
Oh, oh, I knew that. I was just testing 

Rachel Waters 1:04:27
it. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:28
what 

Rachel Waters 1:04:28
That is I think because aside from Marsh's law, there were a lot of important lessons I 

Rich Bennett 1:04:35
during 

Rachel Waters 1:04:35
learned 

Rich Bennett 1:04:35
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 1:04:36
Process that I think can really help people not only navigate end of life with their loved one which can be very legally fraught. Right. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:45
Mm hmm. 

Rachel Waters 1:04:46
But also navigate what happens if you end up accused of a crime that you didn't commit. How best to navigate the criminal legal system? You know, what kind of resources you need, who to reach out to. I think that now more than ever, that information is really critically important and it's something that just like with taxes, Americans are sort of critically undereducated on, even just our idea of how that that system works. In this naivet, I think that people are, you know, this naivete rather that people have around this will never happen to me because I always do things on the up and up and just how easy 

Rich Bennett 1:05:30
Like, 

Rachel Waters 1:05:30
it is. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:31
so were 

Rachel Waters 1:05:31
Area 

Rich Bennett 1:05:31
you? 

Rachel Waters 1:05:32
between you and the mercy of the state is vanishingly thin. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:34
So what's one thing that families navigating end of life care should actually do today to protect themselves? 

Rachel Waters 1:05:43
document document document this is you know learn first of all I would say learn your state laws around recording conversations whether you're a one-party state or a two-party state and this is not only important for legal protection but when your loved one goes into hospice and you're getting trained on these medications that's really overwhelming and sometimes just saying hey can I record this when you're getting trained and the healthcare providers instructing you that could not only A you're getting their consent although 

Rich Bennett 1:06:13
Yeah. 

Rachel Waters 1:06:13
some states may not require that consent but you can just have a record there of you being deputized which is not only useful if you end up wrongfully accused of something but also if you're in that moment and your loved one is an animal breathing you're like oh my god what were the instructions for this my brain is fried I'm freaking out 

Rich Bennett 1:06:31
Mm hmm. 

Rachel Waters 1:06:31
you have a quick reference there and that is you know just documentation alone and being organized can bring so much peace of mind during such an emotionally painful and chaotic time while also simultaneously providing you with legal protection so that's my biggest bit of advice is document everything document symptoms document you know what prompted just even for your own records what prompted use of certain medications document your training um having witnesses present and people to lean on is not only great emotional support but they may also come in handy if someone alleges something terrible i i had a witness the entire time while my mom was dying he was never interviewed but he was there my husband was there throughout the entire dying process he was there to hear the conversation with hospice um but that was another reason i thought no charges were 

Rich Bennett 1:07:25
coming yeah i 

Rachel Waters 1:07:26
think that my husband who was the witness the whole time or in who had gotten the comfort care kit would have been interviewed um 

Rich Bennett 1:07:33
he was never interview 

Rachel Waters 1:07:35
never even contacted 

Rich Bennett 1:07:37
wow 

Rachel Waters 1:07:37
yeah um wow 

so 

Rich Bennett 1:07:41
and 

Rachel Waters 1:07:41
you know having but he he turned out you know if i had really needed him that that still would have been valuable to 

Rich Bennett 1:07:49
yeah 

Rachel Waters 1:07:49
um but having other witnesses come in was valuable at least you know that did help with the medical examiner because one was a medical professional and she was able to give her her medical opinion um and so having those social supports and documenting it's it's really everything for families 

Rich Bennett 1:08:08
hmm what Rachel before i get to my last question you say you're working a website right 

Rachel Waters 1:08:15
i am so uh marshes law dot org is uh will definitely be live by the time uh this comes out and people can learn how to support it right now we're in the early stages where because of my life's savings being shattered unfortunately getting in front of legislators and writing this law and raising awareness of it costs money and so right now we are in the fun raising stage there is a go fund me that is live right now it will be linked on the website i can also send it along to you and every dime of that it goes to support all of the efforts for marshes law 

Rich Bennett 1:08:54
good 

Rachel Waters 1:08:55
so uh that includes travel to state and federal legislatures 

Rich Bennett 1:08:59
which is not cheap 

Rachel Waters 1:09:01
oh my god no 

Rich Bennett 1:09:03
it 

Rachel Waters 1:09:04
also covers um it also covers the expenses of publicity and awareness raising because you know a big part of my mission is to educate families on the possibility of this happening but i don't want to stoke fear and have people not care for their loved ones i want to be able to provide the solution and the solution is marshes law and in the interim just tell folks how they can protect themselves until that law is passed 

Rich Bennett 1:09:32
did i already ask if there was anything you wanted 

Rachel Waters 1:09:38
to add? i think uh i think that that we're uh you didn't 

Rich Bennett 1:09:43
yet all right so is there anything you would like to add before i get to my last question? 

Rachel Waters 1:09:47
sure um the only thing i would add is i know that my story is extraordinary in that am the first person in u. s history in u. s history to be charged with murder for someone who have been declared actively dying and that might lead people to think if she's the first person in history for this to happen to then it's never going to happen to me. That is fundamentally untrue and i think that is a really comforting lie because it was the same thing i believed well if it's never happened to somebody then i'm not going to be the first. But the truth is things can go wrong at a whole other variety of places along the dying process. And while I may be the first person in history to be charged with murder for an actively dying person, there are still many other people who may be the first, third, second, or tenth person to be charged with abuse of morphine or drug possession or murder for someone who hadn't been actively dying, but declared actively dying, but actually was act lying and they happened to be on hospice. There are so many points at which something can go wrong, even if you do everything perfectly that really necessitate the passage of a law like Marsh's Law. 

Rich Bennett 1:11:17
So if if your mother, you ready for this? I don't know if I am. If your mother were listening to this conversation right now, what would you want her to know? 

Rachel Waters 1:11:34
Mom, your legacy will not be one of tragedy. It will be one that saves people's lives hopefully for many many decades to come. And that is how your name will be remembered, not as a woman who died lost to Alzheimer's and cancer, but as a woman whose spirit and integrity and sense of justice and kindness lives on in a law named for everything my mom represented, which was protecting and taking care of other people, especially other family. 

Rich Bennett 1:12:14
All right, I'm just going to say this. There are conversations you have as a podcast host, and then there's conversations that stay with you. Rachel's story is one of theirs because at the heart of all of this, this isn't just about a legal case. It's about something every single one of us will face at some point, caring for someone we love at the end of their life. And what really hit me listening to Rachel is how thin that line can be between doing the right thing and suddenly being forced to prove that you did. She did everything she believes she was supposed to do. She showed up for her mom. She advocated. She cared. And somehow that turned into the fight of her life. And I think the biggest takeaway here for me at least is this. We trust these systems. We trust that if we follow the rules, if we act with love and intention, we'll be protected. But as Rachel shared, that's not always the case. That's exactly why what she's doing now matters so much. Turning something this painful into purpose, into advocacy, into something that could protect other families, that takes a different level of strength. So Rachel, I just want to thank you, not just for coming on and sharing your story, but for being willing to relive it, so others don't have to go through it the same way. And for all of you listening, if this episode made you think, if it made you feel something, if you know someone who's a caregiver or has gone through hospice care, share this episode with them, because this is one of those conversations that people need to hear before they're in the middle of it. And make sure you check out marsheslaw. org to learn more about what Rachel is building and how you can support it. And I'll have the link for that in the share notes. Until next time, take care of each other, have those conversations that matter, and don't ever take the time you have with the people you love for granted.