Nurse Trades Grandma’s Diabetic Insulin for ‘Prayers’ and Supplements, Leading to Her Death: DA

“I argued for six years in prison,” Assistant District Attorney Sidney Brubacher told Law&Crime on Thursday, one day after a much lighter sentence for Kandise L. Sheahen, 38, was handed down.

“I laid out the seriousness of the offense, how she knew she was doing something wrong and tried to cover it up,” Brubacher said, “how she was a nurse who was fired for not getting vaccinated and continued treating patients without having the authority to.”

“The judge just ignored me completely,” the ADA lamented. “Said she thought she wasn’t a danger to the public.”

In May, after about two hours of deliberation, Sheahen was found guilty of negligently subjecting an individual at risk to abuse, causing death, per court records. She was sentenced this week to nine months in the Marathon County Jail and six years of probation, per the Wausau Pilot & Review.

At the time of her death, Sheahen’s grandmother, who has not been identified, measured a blood glucose level higher than 600, according to prosecutors. In the days leading up to her death, records showed her glucose levels between 300 and 500, which can be dangerously high when unmanaged.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, a healthy blood glucose for someone without diabetes is around 70 to 99, while for otherwise healthy diabetics can range slightly more (50 to 140). Glucose levels over 600 often lead to diabetic coma and/or death.

As part of the evidence used to secure a guilty conviction, Brubacher and his team combed Sheahen’s social media accounts, where she decried medications and spoke of the power of “prayer” instead.

“My goal in doing this is truly to be the hands and feet of Jesus,” she said in one video, per police documentation. “I truly want to help people. And I want them to get off all the crap that the healthcare system puts them on.”

She went on to talk specifically about being the caregiver for her grandmother. “She was on 18 different pills. She was on 70 some units of the long-acting insulin twice a day, and like 30 or 40 of the short-acting,” she explained in the video. “And as time has went on and the more knowledge I’ve gained and the more strength I’ve gotten from God, I’ve realized that hold on, like let’s, we don’t need this much. This is ridiculous.”

In another video, she touted the changes she’d made to her grandmother’s medicine regimen, sharing that she had reduced her insulin and taken her off of Tylenol completely. According to Brubacher, Sheahen often interacted with and called out her followers, as well, for not following her “prayer”-driven methodology.

“Trust Jesus, say your prayers, and take your vitamins,” she said. To one user with a diabetic spouse, Sheahen urged her to “get [him] off his f–king insulin before he gets sick.”

“She clearly and repeatedly said, ‘I don’t believe in insulin, I think the medical practice is letting people down,'” Brubacher told Law&Crime. “So yeah, she’s a threat to the public.”

Sheahen’s grandmother had been on diabetic medication for three decades before Sheahen made the decision to start modifying her treatment plan. In lieu of the necessary insulin she took daily, Sheahen gave her grandmother unspecified supplements she was also selling online.

Police responded to Sheahen’s home on January 8, 2022, where they encountered her grandmother dying. Despite her dangerously high blood glucose levels, Sheahen told first responders she did not want her grandmother taken to a hospital. She also refused to allow them to take her vitals.

An autopsy performed after her death showed that the grandmother died from diabetic ketoacidosis, which is what can happen when a diabetic’s body does not have enough insulin and produces high levels of ketones by breaking down fat for energy, creating acidic blood.

Additional complicating factors include a Covid infection and cardiac concerns. The Pilot & Review also reports the woman had a catheter and IV in place at the time of her death, but there was no evidence of a medical order for either device.

Brubacher also said that he believes “she would have gotten away with it,” as she tried to have her grandmother cremated “within 24 hours” of her death. She was stopped by one of her more skeptical family members, who felt “something was not right” with that decision. That family member called the police and asked them to look into her death.

Calling Sheahen’s behavior “predatory,” Brubacher told Law&Crime that it’s been a controversial case, with members of Sheahen’s own family split on whether she handled her grandmother’s treatment properly — some think she did — or not — some think she has “problems.” The grandmother herself, per the Pilot & Review, purportedly told family members she feared for her safety at home.

“A lot of the family who are in support of her gave statements for her [at her sentencing hearing],” he told the outlet. “And then there are other family members who think it’s just a travesty and joke. They thought nine months in prison and probation was a slap in their face.”