My name is Rachel Waters. When my mom was declared "actively dying" from Alzheimer's and cancer, hospice refused to prescribe morphine to her assisted living. This left me to rely on her comfort kit that was prescribed to ease her pain at end of life.

Just hours after her death, I became a suspect. Then, in 2025, I was charged with murder. Within days, I lost everything: my career and ability to find work, as well as my and husband's life savings and retirement.

In just two weeks, we plunged deep into six-figure debt in the fight to save my life. Though all charges were dismissed just 6 months later, the money and my career were gone forever.

Now, I'm trying to stay afloat as I fight for justice for what happened to me and my mom while working to pass a law to protect families who rely on home hospice care.

This is our story:

In July 2023, I was called by my mom's home hospice provider and told I needed to get down to Georgia from NYC immediately. My mom, who had Alzheimer's and end-stage cancer, had been found doubled over, non-responsive with blackened fingers and toes. She was declared “actively dying” by hospice staff and had "hours to days" to live.

My husband and I got there as quickly as we could, grabbed our hospice-prescribed comfort kit, and set up a bed in her room at the assisted living facility that she had moved into several months after going on hospice.

After three days with no responsiveness to anything but a pained face as she was turned and no food or fluids, my mom began to gasp for air.

Despite my repeated requests for morphine to be prescribed to the facility to ease her pain and respiratory distress, the hospice company never prescribed a comfort kit or morphine to the assisted living facility itself.

Though facility employees cannot administer any medications not prescribed to them, residents are permitted by law to self-administer their own medications. Since my mom was unable to do so and I was her medical and legal proxy, I was only person able to medicate her.

We informed the staff that we had my mom's comfort care kit from home. Then, my husband and I called hospice as we’d been trained to do. They then gave us the instructions for use via phone.

Sadly, the small amount of morphine under her tongue did nothing to alleviate her distress. She died, still gasping for air.

What followed was unimaginable.

While reeling from the trauma of watching her die in such distress, staff reported her death as suspicious. Despite this added trauma, we believed this misunderstanding would soon be cleared up. We assumed this because, not only were there many witnesses to her rapidly declining condition, but also because she had a valid comfort kit prescription that we'd used in accordance with our training and her "actively dying" status prior to our arrival was well documented.

Sadly, we were wrong.

In February of 2025, I was charged with two counts of murder in the state of Georgia: Felony murder and malice murder, both of which carry the possibility of the death penalty.

Luckily, I had collected ample evidence showing that I had acted in good faith, much of which didn't seem to have been available to the medical examiner or district attorney at the time of my arrest. This evidence included eyewitness testimonies to her death and the days leading up to it, videos and photos of her condition, proof of her prescribed morphine, phone and text records, as well as hospice records that showed she had been declared "actively dying" and that I was called down from NYC to be with her.

With this new information, the medical examiner updated her cause of death and it was no longer rules a homicide. The DA then dropped all charges in August and I was released from bond.

Though I was cleared, the experience shattered my life. I lost my career, life savings (and my husband's), my family, and my reputation while grieving my mom's death and fighting for my own life.

Now, I'm doing everything in my power to make sure that what happened to me and my mom NEVER happens to another family ever again.

Every year, MILLIONS of American families are prescribed and instructed to use comfort kits with their dying loved ones. These comfort kits typically contain controlled substances like sublingual morphine, lorazepam, and other medications meant to ease distress at end of life.

But although caregivers are expected to medicate their loved ones using these “comfort kits," there are no legal protections that help shield them from criminal allegations once their loved one dies.

In fact, depending on the hospice company, there is often little to no documentation showing that family members -- who are not trained medical professionals -- are authorized to give their loved ones these medications at all. As a result, law enforcement, medical examiners, and district attorneys who are unfamiliar with hospice practices may think that family members who give their loved one morphine are committing a crime, as appears to have been assumed with me.

This is why I'm proposing Marsha's Law.

Marsha's Law would mandate that, as soon as families are prescribed a comfort kit, hospice must document and confirm, in writing, that the kit is for the family to use in accordance with their training/guidelines.

The law would also require that family members be given a copy of this documentation to be kept with their comfort kit so that, in the event of an investigation or search warrant, law enforcement could see that the family had been officially authorized to administer these comfort medications to their loved ones.

Why does this need a fundraiser?

Building a national advocacy platform takes an enormous amount of time and resources. In addition to hiring publicists and legal advisors, it also requires a great deal of travel to state and federal legislatures to get the proposed law on the ballot.

How will the money I donate be used?

Funds will enable me to begin to pay down my debt so that I can focus on securing:

Why can't you work and pay for this yourself?

It's hard to comprehend how life-shattering a murder charge is, even once cleared. My charges still show up on most types of background checks. In addition, the headlines still brand me a murderer, which makes getting (or keeping) a job almost impossible. I've been unemployed since March 2025, despite multiple job applications.

What about life insurance?

My mom's federal policy, when it paid out after I was cleared, was not even enough to cover 1/3 of my nonrefundable legal and bond fees, which not only took our savings, but drove us into debt.

What about these podcasts and media appearances? Aren't you getting paid?

Not a dime. All appearances have been unpaid and strictly to raise awareness of what happened and to build the platform for Marsha's Law.

If you lost so much, then why are you so focused on this campaign?

Because I have to sleep at night. And I can't rest knowing that, if this happened to me, then it WILL happen to someone else. And that person may not have the same savings, network, education, or understanding of the criminal legal system to avoid losing their freedom or even their lives.

Though I've been shattered emotionally, financially, and professionally, I feel obligated to use my privilege to do all I can to prevent this from happening to another person.

Most of all, it's how my mom raised me. I owe it to my mom and her memory to live up to the principles she instilled in me.

Thank you for helping me channel the most traumatic and agonizing chapter in my life into a force for lasting change.

— Rachel Waters