Texas nurse accused of giving daughter unneeded insulin for fake illness arrested again
An East Texas nurse who is accused of falsely claiming her daughter had diabetes and giving her unneeded insulin was arrested for the second time and faces five additional charges.
Ellen “Elle” Rupp-Jones’ life was a web of lies, according to a Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department investigation. The 36-year-old woman is accused of falsely claiming her 7-year-old daughter had severe diabetes and repeatedly injecting the girl with unneeded insulin.
Rupp-Jones was first arrested in June and charged with injury to a child with serious bodily injury. Her daughter, Dani, was removed from her mother’s care and now lives with her father in Tarrant County.
On Nov. 6, Rupp-Jones was arrested again at the Tarrant County Courthouse, where she had a consultation hearing. She was given five additional charges — two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of injury to a child and one count of exploitation of a child.
The deadly weapon in this case refers to the insulin Rupp-Jones allegedly injected her daughter with. Giving insulin to someone without diabetes can cause them to go into a coma or even die.
Rupp-Jones also started a GoFundMe and garnered donations in order to buy her daughter a diabetic alert dog, investigators said. Two news stories ran about Rupp-Jones and her daughter — one as they raised money for the dog and another when someone donated a Labradoodle puppy to the family.
A fundraiser held at a family member’s church also raised about $4,000 for Dani, which was put into a “Paws for Dani” bank account. Rupp-Jones used all the money in the account for everyday expenses, according to the investigation.
Rupp-Jones would take her daughter to various doctors and claim she had different medical problems, such as diabetes, according to the investigation.
The allegations against Rupp-Jones are in line with the condition Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which caregivers often exaggerate or create medical symptoms in a child or someone in their care in order to gain attention.
The investigation
Michael Weber, an investigator with the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office, began investigating Rupp-Jones after an endocrinologist at Cook Children’s Medical Center shared concerns that he believed she gave Dani unneeded insulin in order to present the child as hypoglycemic, or having low blood sugar.
Rupp-Jones was a registered nurse at the Palestine Regional Medical Center. She and Dani lived in Frankston, southeast of Dallas in Anderson County, but went to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth in mid-January after first visiting a hospital in Tyler.
Blood tests done at Cook Chldren’s showed Dani’s blood sugar level was slightly low with an elevated insulin level — a sign of potential insulin poisoning, according to an arrest warrant affidavit written by Weber.
Giving someone without diabetes insulin “would cause a substantial risk of death, even if administered by a nurse,” the endocrinologist told Weber.
The endocrinologist also was suspicious of Rupp-Jones because she said she had been in the military and also had diabetes. The endocrinologist had been in the military himself and knew it is not possible to serve in the military if you have diabetes.
Dani’s father told Weber he had never seen Dani have any seizures, low blood sugar or other symptoms. He referred to his wife as “extremely attention seeking.”
Rupp-Jones admitted to Weber in February that at times, she tried to make her life more exciting, according to court documents.
Munchausen by proxy cases have received an increasing amount of attention in popular culture. In March, the series “The Act” premiered on Hulu. The eight-episode series told the true story of Dee Dee Blanchard and her daughter Gypsy.
In 2015, the Star-Telegram published a three-month examination of Munchausen by proxy cases in Tarrant County.
This story was originally published November 12, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
