McMurray Hills Rehab: Nurse Stole Medications - PA
That call, placed by an anonymous man on the morning of March 23, 2026, set in motion an investigation that ended with a licensed practical nurse fired, a police case opened, and eleven residents of McMurray Hills Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center confirmed as victims of what the facility itself labeled misappropriation of property.
The man told a center supervisor he had found a purse. Inside it were medication cards belonging to multiple residents of the facility on West McMurray Road. The Director of Nursing and the administrator drove to the police station together. What they were shown was a pink bag containing individual medication dispense bags for eleven residents, along with two documents bearing the printed name of a licensed practical nurse the inspection report identifies as Employee E1: a tuberculin employment skin testing record and an orientation sheet. Both were hers. So, according to the facility's own review, were the medications.
None of the drugs recovered were controlled substances. That distinction matters legally, but it does not change what happened to the residents whose medications ended up in a bag in a ditch instead of in their bodies.
Inspectors reviewed the medication administration records for every resident assigned to the two units Employee E1 worked during the relevant dates and shifts. Every one of those medications had been signed out by her. The dates and assignment areas on the medication bags matched her schedule exactly. There was no ambiguity about who had taken them or when.
The facility completed its internal investigation on March 27, four days after the purse was found. The report was unambiguous. "Facility substantiated the allegation of misappropriation," the document stated, and noted that police were conducting their own investigation. It also recorded that Employee E1 had been terminated and had admitted the medications were in her purse and off facility property.
She had admitted it.
That admission is the center of this case. She knew the medications were hers. She knew they were not supposed to leave the building. The residents whose names were on those dispense bags had no idea any of this was happening, and the inspection report gives no indication that they were told until after the investigation was already complete.
The facility's own policy, updated as recently as September 1, 2025, defined misappropriation of resident property as the deliberate misplacement, exploitation, or wrongful, temporary, or permanent use of a resident's belongings or money without their consent. It listed drug diversion, specifically taking a resident's medication, as an example. The policy stated that misappropriation was strictly prohibited. Six months after that policy was dated, eleven residents had their medications taken by someone on staff.
What the inspection does not answer is how long this had been happening. The anonymous caller found the purse on March 23. The medications inside corresponded to specific dates and shifts. But the report does not say whether those were the only incidents, or whether Employee E1 had been doing this before the bag ended up on the side of the road. The investigation documented what could be confirmed. It did not say what could not be.
On March 30, the day inspectors arrived, the Nursing Home Administrator and the Interim Director of Nursing sat down for an interview. They confirmed, in the language of the inspection report, that the facility had failed to ensure that residents were free from misappropriation of property for 11 of its 49 residents. That is nearly one in four. The interim designation in front of the Director of Nursing's title suggests the position had recently turned over, though the report does not say why or when.
What the report does say is that this was a complaint inspection, meaning someone prompted it. The timeline fits: the purse was found March 23, the internal investigation concluded March 27, and inspectors were on site March 30. Whether the complaint came from inside the facility, from a resident's family member, or from somewhere else, the inspection narrative does not say.
The eleven residents are identified in the report only by number, R1 through R20 with gaps, the standard anonymizing convention used in CMS inspection documents. Their diagnoses, ages, and conditions are not described. The report does not say whether any of them suffered physical harm from missing a dose or multiple doses of their medications. The harm level cited in the inspection is minimal harm or potential for actual harm, the lower end of the regulatory scale, which reflects the absence of documented injury rather than the absence of risk.
A person who does not receive their medication on schedule may or may not experience consequences depending on what the medication is for. The report does not identify what any of the eleven residents were prescribed. For some drugs, a missed dose is an inconvenience. For others, the gap matters considerably more.
What is documented is the taking. The signing out of medications on the administration record, the placing of those medications into individual dispense bags, the carrying of those bags off the property inside a personal purse, and the leaving of that purse somewhere along a road in McMurray, Pennsylvania, where a stranger found it and, to his credit, called the number on the medication cards rather than walking away.
The facility had a policy. The policy named exactly this scenario. The nurse had signed her own name on paperwork sitting in the same bag as the stolen medications. When investigators found her, she did not deny it.
She is gone now. The police case is open. The eleven residents whose medications turned up on the side of the road are still living at McMurray Hills, or they were as of late March. The report does not say whether their families were notified, whether they were told themselves, or whether anyone sat down with them and explained what had happened to their prescriptions and who had taken them.
The bag was pink. Someone found it on the road and made the call. That is how this came to light.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Mcmurray Hills Rehabilitation and Healthcare Cente from 2026-03-30 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: Official federal inspection data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Editorial process: AI-synthesized regulatory data, reviewed for accuracy by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: June 17, 2026 · Our methodology
McMurray Hills Rehabilitation and Healthcare Cente in MCMURRAY, PA was cited for violations during a health inspection on March 30, 2026.
The man told a center supervisor he had found a purse.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.