Sister-in-Law Sentenced in Death of Wenham Native

This story was written by Exeter Patch Editor Jason Claffey and New Hampshire Patch Regional Editor Marc Fortier.

A nurse was given a suspended prison sentence Thursday after authorities said she provided a lethal dose of drugs to her brother-in-law, a Wenham native who for years lived and worked on the North Shore and was suffering from cancer.

Catherine George, 49, of Derry, N.H. pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor charge of drug possession.

The N.H. Attorney General's office said George gave her brother-in-law, Randall Percival, a lethal dose of insulin at his Raymond, N.H. home. Percival had been suffering from cancer, authorities said.
Percival grew up on the North Shore and had worked in Peabody for the last six years at Carl Zeiss, NTS, as a research and development optics engineer. According to his obituary, Percival had lived in Raymond, N.H. for the last 26 years, but he grew up in Wenham and formerly lived in Beverly, as well.

After his death on Oct. 9, 2012, George admitted to police that she gave Percival the drugs. Last year, the N.H. attorney general's office said George went to the Derry, N.H. Police Department on Oct. 14 and stated that she had killed her brother-in-law. She reportedly told police that she gave her brother-in-law 300 units of insulin, which she claimed to have brought home from her job.

On Thursday, she was sentenced to 30 days in prison. That sentence was suspended on the condition she remain on good behavior for two years. She also permanently surrendered her nursing license, which had been suspended last October.