The daughter of a woman who died in an Evans assisted living home from a fatal dose of morphine has been indicted for malice murder.
Rachel Elaine Waters, 41, is expected to surrender this week on murder charges in the death of 74-year-old Marsha Sprayberry Foster, according to Columbia County authorities.
An indictment says that Waters administered a lethal dose of morphine on July 12, 2023, while her mother was at the Marshall Pines assisted living on North Belair Road. The cause of death was determined in an autopsy, showing that excessive use of the unprescribed morphine was the reason for her death. Foster had Alzheimer’s disease, and the morphine was reportedly left behind by hospice workers and used by the daughter without authorization.
Morphine use is common for managing pain for end-of-life care, but it can be lethal in excessive amounts, according to the Mayo Clinic. Hospice and palliative care providers follow established medical guidelines to ensure doses are appropriate for symptom relief without hastening death.
The victim’s daughter lives in Sunnyside, New York, and formerly worked for the government as an associate investigator with the United States Information Service, according to authorities. She was Foster’s only biological child. Waters is expected to travel to Columbia County this week to be booked on the murder indictments.
At the time of her passing, an executive director at Marshall Pines reported the death to the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office as suspicious, and the autopsy revealed the cause.
Yet, Waters posted about her mother’s death on social media, showing a picture of her holding her mother’s hand. She also wrote in an obituary that her mother “died in the comfort of her daughter’s embrace soon after sunrise on July 12, 2023.”
The obituary said, “Even as her mind succumbed to the terrible vanishing of Alzheimer’s, Marsha never hesitated to admire the cuteness of a caterpillar inching across her step or the beauty of a dragonfly perched on the boardwalk at Phinizy Swamp.”
Yet, authorities allege that Waters pumped her mother up with the lethal drug to speed up her death.
According to her obituary, the victim worked for 38 years in the Department of the Army’s Civilian Personnel division at Fort Gordon, retiring in 2010 from her role as a GS 13 Supervisory Telecommunications Specialist. She had resided in Harlem, Georgia, before being moved to the assisted living facility before her death.
Foster was a lifelong artist with her paintings and drawings placed on the shelves of The Audubon Nature Store and on the walls of the US Army Signal Corps Museum. She spent her retirement years teaching aspiring artists how to paint in art classes throughout the Augusta area, her obituary says.
She is survived by a sister, a brother and two stepsons.
The post Mother’s Death in Evans Leads to Murder Charges for Daughter appeared first on AugustaCrime.com.