Orville Lynn Majors was born in 1961 in Linton, Indiana. As a teenager, he took care of his elderly grandmother, which inspired him to become a nurse. 

In 1989, Majors graduated from Nashville Memorial School of Practical Nursing. After finishing school, he got a job at Vermillion County Hospital in Clinton, Indiana, which is north of Terre Haute. 

For a short time, Majors worked at a higher-paying job in Tennessee. However, in 1993, he decided to return to Vermillion County Hospital.

Orville Lynn Majors was a popular nurse at Vermillion County Hospital (VCH) in Indiana, especially liked by elderly patients. He always received excellent evaluations from his supervisors.

However, suspicion grew when the death rate at VCH increased dramatically after Majors returned to work there. Before he came back, about 26 patients died each year at the 56-bed hospital and its four-bed intensive care unit. After Majors started working, the death rate shot up to over 100 per year, with nearly one out of every three patients dying.

The circumstances of these deaths were strange. Although many patients were elderly, some died from unusual causes like an erratic heartbeat following respiratory arrest, which is not the normal pattern. Others passed away from conditions they didn’t have when they were admitted, or they suddenly became very sick even though they had been healthy.

Majors' coworkers started noticing a link between the spike in deaths and his shifts. They even joked about when the next patient would die. In 1995, nursing supervisor Dawn Stirek checked the time cards and found that Majors was on duty for 130 of the 147 deaths between 1993 and 1995. Alarmed, she informed hospital officials, who called the Indiana State Police. Majors was suspended during the investigation, and the Indiana State Nursing Board suspended his license for five years for exceeding his authority with emergency drugs and working in the ICU without a doctor. VCH also fired him.

Investigators discovered that when Majors was on duty, a patient died on average every 23 hours. When he was off duty, the death rate dropped to one every 551 hours (or 23 days). They found that patients were 42 times more likely to die when Majors was working.

Majors denied any wrongdoing. While running a pet store in his hometown of Linton, he hired a lawyer and went on talk shows to proclaim his innocence. However, several relatives of patients who died at VCH contacted the police after seeing Majors on TV, reporting that their loved ones had died or coded right after receiving injections from him.

The state police noticed unusual heart patterns in patients around the times they died when Majors was on duty. Electrophysiologist Eric N. Prystowsky reviewed the EKGs and suggested that the patterns could be caused by a potassium overdose, a sudden heart attack, or a large clot in the lung. In September 1995, officials exhumed 15 patients who had died after getting injections and showed these heart patterns. None had signs of a heart attack or lung clotting, proving they were murdered. A former roommate of Majors mentioned seeing vials of potassium chloride and epinephrine in their house. Police searched the house and found vials that could be traced back to the hospital.

After a two-year investigation, Majors was arrested in December 1997 and charged with seven murders, although investigators believed he might have killed between 100 and 130 people. Prosecutors focused on seven cases to avoid overwhelming the jury. In 1999, during his trial, 79 witnesses testified, including some who said Majors hated elderly people and believed they should be "gassed."

On October 17, Majors was convicted of six murders; the jury couldn't agree on the seventh case because that victim took longer to die than the others. He was sentenced to six consecutive 60-year terms, ensuring he would spend the rest of his life in prison. The judge called Majors' actions "diabolical acts" and said the maximum sentence was the least he could impose.

The hospital, renamed West Central Community Hospital after Majors left, faced wrongful-death lawsuits from the families of 80 patients. Most suits were settled, and the hospital was fined $80,000 for negligence and code violations. It briefly lost its accreditation and was later taken over by Union Hospital, which renamed it Union Hospital Clinton.

Majors appealed to the Indiana Supreme Court, but the verdict was upheld in 2002. He served his sentence at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, where he died of heart failure on September 24, 2017, while arguing with correctional staff.