The Insulin Mystery: When a Nurse Becomes the Suspect
March 2026 | Justice Is A Process
On August 12, 2024, Mark Farnsworth walked into the basement bedroom of his niece's home in Highland, Utah. What he found terrified him. His niece, 38-year-old Kacee Lyn Terry, was unconscious, barely breathing, the sound coming from her lungs like she was drowning. Sitting in a chair next to her was Kacee's friend. A registered nurse named Meggan Sundwall.
Farnsworth wanted to call an ambulance. Sundwall told him not to. She said Kacee had a do-not-resuscitate order. She said she had power of attorney. She said Kacee didn't want to go to the hospital.
None of that was true.
Farnsworth called 911 anyway. Paramedics arrived and rushed Kacee to Mountain Point Hospital in Lehi. Her blood sugar level was 14. For context, anything below 40 is considered life-threatening. Kacee was not diabetic. She had no medical reason to have insulin anywhere near her. But a diabetic needle was found at the foot of her bed.
Three days later, Kacee was declared brain dead. She never woke up.
Seven months after that, the woman in the chair was arrested. Meggan Sundwall is now charged with aggravated murder and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors allege she spent years convincing her friend that she was dying of cancer, urged her to end her suffering with insulin, and ultimately administered the fatal dose herself. The alleged motive? A $1.5 million life insurance policy that Sundwall believed she would inherit.
That policy never existed.
The defense sees it differently. They say Kacee Terry took her own life. They say Sundwall was a friend who was present but not responsible. And they've asked the jury to consider assisted suicide as an alternative to aggravated murder.
This is not a simple case. There are layers here that most people won't see unless someone pulls them apart. Twenty-eight thousand text messages spanning four years. A woman who believed she had cancer but never did. A nurse who had the knowledge and access to administer insulin. A family that tried to intervene years before Kacee died. And at the center of all of it, a question that the jury will have to answer: Did Meggan Sundwall kill her friend, or did she watch her friend die?
Meggan Sundwall is presumed innocent. She has not been convicted of anything. The State of Utah bears the full burden of proving these charges beyond a reasonable doubt. That is not a formality. That is the foundation of everything we do here.
This is Justice Is A Process. Let's begin.
The relationship between Meggan Sundwall and Kacee Terry goes back years. According to court documents, the two women were roommates before Terry moved into her grandparents' basement in Highland. Sundwall, a licensed registered nurse, met Terry during a period when Terry was dealing with real medical problems. She was born without a kidney and suffered from chronic kidney disease, endometriosis, hypertension, depression, and anxiety. Those conditions were real, documented by doctors, and part of the reason the two women connected.
But somewhere along the way, according to prosecutors, the story of Kacee Terry's health took a darker turn. Terry began telling family members she had leukemia. Her sister, Kylee Terry Clark, told hospital staff that Kacee had been battling terminal cancer for four to five years. The family believed it. Friends believed it. For years, Kacee Terry walked through life as a woman dying of cancer.
She wasn't. The autopsy confirmed it. No cancer. No tumors. No terminal illness of any kind beyond the chronic conditions she'd lived with for years.
That distinction matters. Kacee Terry was not a perfectly healthy woman. She was born without a kidney. She dealt with chronic kidney disease, endometriosis, high blood pressure, depression, and anxiety. Those are real conditions that cause real suffering. She wasn't faking being sick entirely. But the leap from chronic illness to terminal cancer? That came from somewhere. And whoever or whatever drove that leap set the stage for everything that followed.
Who planted the idea? Court documents don't definitively answer that question. The State's theory is that Sundwall, with her nursing background, convinced Terry she was terminally ill and then spent years reinforcing that belief. A registered nurse telling a vulnerable friend with real health problems that those problems are actually cancer carries weight. Terry would have had every reason to believe her. The defense has not conceded this point. What is clear from the record is that by December 2019, the two women were exchanging text messages about Terry's "illness" and about using insulin to end her suffering.
And it wasn't just private conversations. The cancer narrative had infected Terry's entire support system. Sundwall would reportedly have her own father come to the house where Kacee was living to give her what the family described as LDS "release blessings" to help her pass on. Think about that. Religious rituals, performed by Sundwall's family members, designed to ease a dying woman into the next life. Except the woman wasn't dying. The rituals were built on a foundation that may have been entirely fabricated.
Terry's sister eventually grew alarmed enough to intervene. She moved Kacee out of the apartment she shared with Sundwall and into their grandfather's basement in Highland. The reason, according to search warrants? Kacee had been complaining about Sundwall bringing insulin home and pressuring her to use it. Even after the move, though, the friendship continued. The texts kept coming. And the conversations about dying didn't stop.
More than 28,000 of those messages would eventually be recovered from Terry's phone.
The text messages are the backbone of the prosecution's case, and they span from December 2019 through August 2024. According to charging documents, the messages reveal a pattern. Sundwall allegedly detailed different methods Terry could use to end her own life. She offered to help. She discussed insulin specifically and repeatedly.
Prosecutors have cited messages in which Sundwall allegedly told Terry things like she should "let go" because it was "past time," and that someone, probably Sundwall, should stay with her and continue giving her doses so her blood sugar would stay low and she could pass. In another message, Sundwall allegedly wrote that she could give Terry insulin repeatedly until it worked and that she would come help her.
The investigation also uncovered that Sundwall and Terry had reportedly discussed using insulin to cause death many times since 2020. According to police, Sundwall was consistently urging Terry to go through with it while Terry regularly pretended she had attempted it but claimed it didn't work.
By early 2024, the financial pressure enters the picture. Sundwall was discussing what prosecutors describe as her "dismal" financial situation. She had recently lost her job. According to the charges, Sundwall told Terry in February 2024 that if Terry's death would get her out of the mess and darkness she was in, she would take it.
Throughout all of this, Terry had been telling Sundwall she was the beneficiary of a life insurance policy worth over a million dollars. Sundwall apparently believed it. Police say that belief became the alleged motive for murder.
The morning started with a text message. At 9:47 AM, according to police, Sundwall sent Terry a message asking if she wanted to take some promethazine when Sundwall arrived so that she would be asleep when "this" was happening. Promethazine is a sedative. What "this" referred to is one of the central questions of this trial.
Sundwall arrived at Terry's home at approximately 10:00 AM. The two women were alone in Terry's basement bedroom for the rest of the day.
At approximately 1:45 PM, Sundwall texted her mother. She said she couldn't get Kacee to wake up. Sundwall is a registered nurse. She had medical training. She did not call 911. She did not call for an ambulance. She did not, according to police, provide any lifesaving care.
A blood glucose monitor found at the scene told its own story. It showed 19 readings over a 10-hour period on August 12. The last three readings simply displayed "Lo," meaning below 19. According to police, Kacee would have been unconscious and unable to test her own blood sugar at that point. Someone else was monitoring her levels as they dropped.
Seven hours passed.
At approximately 9:00 PM, Terry's uncle Mark Farnsworth arrived at the house. He found Kacee unresponsive with Sundwall sitting nearby. Sundwall told him Kacee had a DNR and didn't want medical help. Sundwall's parents had also come to the house at Sundwall's request, reportedly to give Kacee what the family described as an LDS "blessing of release" to help her pass on.
Farnsworth overruled everyone and called for help. But it was too late. Kacee Terry never regained consciousness. She was declared brain dead and died on August 15, 2024.
The Medical Examiner confirmed the cause of death: an overdose of promethazine, probable exogenous insulin, and other drugs. Exogenous insulin means insulin administered from outside the body. Kacee Terry was not diabetic. According to a forensic pathologist consulted during the investigation, the only way her blood sugar could have dropped to 14 was through exogenous insulin.
The investigation didn't stop at cause of death. Detectives discovered that Sundwall allegedly asked police to search Terry's room for life insurance papers after she died. No papers were found. Sundwall then called the insurance company directly and learned what police had already suspected.
There was no life insurance policy. There never had been.
Police also found that approximately 900 text messages had been deleted from Sundwall's phone, specifically messages that addressed insulin or her financial problems. When investigators asked Sundwall why she deleted them, she reportedly told police she didn't want it to look like what she was being accused of.
Meanwhile, no documentation was ever located for the do-not-resuscitate order Sundwall had claimed existed. No power of attorney was found either. Terry's own primary care physician confirmed she had never been diagnosed with cancer. And investigators say Terry's family and friends told police they believed Sundwall had been trying to kill Kacee with insulin for years.
Before she became a case number, Kacee Lyn Terry was a person who people genuinely loved. Born May 30, 1986, she grew up in Alpine, Utah, a small community nestled against the Wasatch Mountains. She went to Alpine Elementary, Mountain Ridge Junior High, and Lone Peak High School. Her obituary describes a social butterfly who made friends everywhere she went, including a best friend named Michelle who stayed close until the end.
Kacee loved the outdoors. Hunting, camping, the sand dunes. She married Casey Tanner and became a stepmother to his son Cayson, who she adored. The one thing she wanted more than anything was to be a mother. She never had biological children of her own, but everyone who knew her said the same thing: she filled that role for kids all around her.
She found work at Chrysalis, a company that helps disabled adults. She told people it didn't feel like a job because she loved everyone she was with. That's the kind of person her community remembers. Not a victim. Not a case file. A woman who cared about people and wanted to help.
But Kacee's life was harder than most people knew. Both of her parents, Kyle and Michelle Terry, died before she did. She was born without a kidney. The chronic health problems were real and constant. She was living in her grandparents' basement in Highland at the time of her death, not because she was thriving but because she needed help. She was vulnerable in ways that mattered.
A friend of Terry's named Nico Anderson, who had lived next to her in American Fork, told reporters after the arrest that Sundwall seemed to want Kacee isolated. She described Sundwall showing up uninvited and Kacee locking her doors to keep people from just walking in because of Sundwall's habit of appearing unannounced. Whether that's controlling behavior or just an overbearing friend depends on which version of this story you believe.
Kacee is survived by her older sister Kylee Terry Clark, her grandparents Newell and Pat Farnsworth, and many aunts, uncles, and cousins. Her wishes were to be buried with her dog Bella alongside her parents in Alpine.
She was 38 years old.
Meggan Sundwall is 48 years old, from Santaquin, Utah. She is a licensed registered nurse, a mother, and a wife. She has no prior criminal record.
That last point matters. In a case built on allegations of years-long manipulation and premeditated murder, the defendant has never been in trouble with the law. Her defense attorney presented that fact prominently at the bail hearing, and it's worth sitting with for a moment. Does that mean she's innocent? No. Does it mean the allegations don't fit a pattern? Maybe. Does it mean the jury has to reconcile a first-time offender with the prosecution's portrait of a calculated killer? Absolutely.
At her detention hearing in September 2025, nearly a hundred people submitted character letters on her behalf. Her defense attorney, Scott Williams, described supporters who took off work to appear in the gallery. A large show of support filled the courtroom. These weren't form letters. Williams told the court they contained detailed explanations of who Sundwall was as a mother, wife, and member of her community.
The prosecution responded to those letters with a chilling counterpoint. Prosecutor Lauren Hunt reminded the court that Kacee Terry herself considered Sundwall a close friend, and if the allegations are true, Sundwall weaponized that trust. Character letters, Hunt argued, cannot be taken at face value from someone accused of deceiving even her closest relationships.
Sundwall was arrested on March 20, 2025, approximately seven months after Kacee Terry's death. She has been held in the Utah County Jail since that arrest after being denied bail. Her nursing license, as of the last public records update, remains technically active, though the Utah Division of Professional Licensing launched an investigation.
Sundwall is presumed innocent of all charges. She has not been convicted, and the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt rests entirely with the State.
The prosecution is led by Lauren Hunt and Lindsay Combs from the Utah County Attorney's Office. Hunt has been the lead voice for the State throughout pretrial proceedings, describing the case in forceful terms during the detention hearing. She characterized Sundwall as calculated and argued that the case represents premeditated, financially motivated violence.
The defense is led by Scott C. Williams, joined by Emily Adams. Williams has pushed back aggressively on the State's narrative, calling the prosecution's tactics a "dragnet" on his client's character and describing the evidence as circumstantial. His core argument: Kacee Terry took her own life.
The case is being tried in the Fourth District Court, Provo Department, before the Honorable Judge Sean M. Petersen.
What it means: Under Utah law, aggravated murder is the most serious homicide charge the State can bring. The "aggravated" designation means the State alleges the killing was committed under specific circumstances that elevate it beyond standard murder. In this case, the aggravating factor is the alleged financial motive, specifically that the killing was committed for pecuniary gain through the expected insurance payout.
What the State must prove: That Kacee Terry is dead. That Meggan Sundwall caused her death. That the killing was intentional. That it was committed for financial gain. Every single element must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Important note on death penalty: Aggravated murder is a capital offense in Utah, meaning it carries the possibility of the death penalty. However, the prosecution has filed a formal notice declining to seek the death penalty. This makes the charge a non-capital felony for purposes of sentencing and pretrial proceedings, but it remains the most serious charge in the Utah criminal code. If convicted, Sundwall faces 25 years to life in prison.
Lesser included charge: The defense has indicated that jurors will likely be instructed to consider assisted suicide as a lesser included offense. This gives the jury an alternative to convict on a less severe charge if they believe Sundwall helped Terry die but did not commit the act herself.
What it means: The State alleges Sundwall took steps to interfere with the investigation of Terry's death. Specifically, prosecutors point to the deletion of approximately 900 text messages from Sundwall's phone, particularly those addressing insulin and financial problems, and Sundwall's own admission that she deleted them because she didn't want the evidence to look like what she was being accused of.
What the State must prove: That Sundwall intentionally destroyed, concealed, or altered evidence with the purpose of hindering the investigation or prosecution. This charge carries a potential sentence of 1 to 15 years.
This might be the strangest wrinkle in an already complicated case.
According to prosecutors, the entire alleged motive for murder was built on a life insurance policy worth $1.5 million that Sundwall believed she would inherit when Kacee Terry died. Terry had reportedly told Sundwall "numerous times over the years" that Sundwall was her beneficiary. Starting in January 2024, as Sundwall's financial problems worsened, Terry allegedly reassured her that the policy was real and that the money would come.
After Terry's death, Sundwall allegedly asked investigators to find the life insurance paperwork in Terry's bedroom. Nothing was found. Sundwall then contacted the insurance company directly. And that's when the entire alleged scheme collapsed.
There was no policy. According to police, no evidence of a life insurance policy was ever located. Terry may have told Sundwall it existed. It didn't.
Think about what that means for this case. If the prosecution's theory is correct, a woman is dead and another woman faces life in prison over an insurance payout that was never real. The alleged motive evaporates into nothing. But does that help the defense or the prosecution?
For the prosecution, the phantom policy might actually strengthen their case. It shows desperation. Sundwall's financial situation was, by her own words in text messages, "dismal." She had just lost her job. If she was counting on that $1.5 million and killed for it, the fact that it didn't exist doesn't undo the intent. You can commit murder for money that turns out not to be there. The motive is about what the defendant believed, not what was real.
For the defense, the nonexistent policy raises different questions entirely. Why would someone plan a murder over a policy they never verified? And who was really driving the insurance conversation? If Terry was the one repeatedly bringing it up, repeatedly reassuring Sundwall, what does that say about the dynamic between these two women?
The jury is going to have to sit with that tension. A crime allegedly committed for money that didn't exist, by a woman who may have been deceived by the very person she's accused of killing.
Prosecutors are building this case on a clear narrative: Meggan Sundwall is a manipulative registered nurse who spent years convincing her vulnerable friend that she was dying of cancer, then killed her with insulin when financial desperation peaked, all to collect on a life insurance policy she believed would solve her money problems.
The key evidence the State is relying on includes the 28,000-plus text messages, the forensic evidence showing exogenous insulin caused the fatal blood sugar drop, the blood glucose monitor readings showing someone monitored Terry's declining blood sugar throughout the day, the promethazine text sent that morning, and the seven-hour delay before anyone called for medical help despite Sundwall being a trained nurse.
Prosecutors have also highlighted Sundwall's behavior after Terry's death: the deleted text messages, the immediate search for life insurance paperwork, and the false claims about a DNR and power of attorney.
Scott Williams has laid out a fundamentally different version of events. The defense concedes that Sundwall was present in the room that day. They do not dispute the cause of death. But they maintain that Kacee Terry administered the insulin to herself.
The defense theory is suicide. They argue Terry was a troubled woman dealing with real health problems who had been contemplating ending her life for years. The text messages, from this perspective, don't show a predator urging a victim toward death. They show two women in a dysfunctional conversation about suffering and dying, one of whom eventually went through with it.
Williams has called the State's case "circumstantial." There is, according to the defense memorandum filed during the bail hearing, no insulin found in the evidence syringes collected from the scene. That's a significant forensic gap. The State says the insulin was administered. The defense points out that the physical evidence connecting Sundwall to the actual injection is less clear than the prosecution suggests.
The jury will likely be instructed to consider assisted suicide as a lesser included charge. That's a much lower bar than aggravated murder, and it gives the defense a middle ground. Even if jurors believe Sundwall played a role in Terry's death, this lesser charge would mean the difference between life in prison and a significantly shorter sentence.
Judge Petersen made several consequential rulings in the final pretrial hearing on February 5, 2026, and each one will shape what this jury sees and doesn't see.
The defense scored a major win on the timecard fraud issue. Prosecutors wanted to tell the jury that Sundwall was fired from her nursing job for suspected timecard fraud right before Terry's death, arguing it showed financial desperation. Judge Petersen ruled that since no fraud charges were ever filed, the jury will only hear that Sundwall lost her job suddenly and without warning. The jurors will receive an instruction not to speculate about the reason. That's a significant piece of bad evidence that won't reach the jury box.
The defense also kept out evidence of text messages between Sundwall and her husband about their financial struggles in the months and years leading to Terry's death. The jury won't see those either.
But the State got a win of its own. Judge Petersen denied the prosecution's motion to prevent the defense from telling the jury that Kacee Terry was under investigation for theft at the time of her death. The defense can use that fact, but only as a potential motive for Terry to take her own life. They cannot use it to attack Terry's character.
Both sides lost something too. The defense cannot tell the jury that Terry was selling or trafficking drugs, despite text evidence that she told a friend she was able to get insulin. And the prosecution cannot go into the full details of Sundwall's termination. These rulings create a carefully curated version of the facts for the jury, one where both sides have had damaging material excluded.
My dad spent 23 years practicing criminal defense in West Virginia. He was twice prosecuted by the system he challenged, once for protecting attorney-client privilege, once for teaching people their constitutional rights from a coffee shop. He taught me that the process is what matters. Not the verdict. Not the sentence. The process.
This case puts several constitutional principles directly at stake.
First, the burden of proof. The State is alleging aggravated murder. They must prove that Sundwall physically administered the insulin, not just that she was present, not just that she encouraged it over text, but that she was the one who caused Kacee Terry's death by her own hand. The texts show conversations. The forensic evidence shows exogenous insulin. But there's a gap between "she encouraged it" and "she did it." That gap is where reasonable doubt lives. Can the State close it?
Second, the lesser included charge question. Assisted suicide is a serious crime, but it is a fundamentally different act than murder. If the jury instruction on assisted suicide is included, it creates a path for jurors who believe Sundwall was involved but aren't convinced she administered the insulin herself. How the judge crafts that instruction, and how the attorneys argue around it, will shape the outcome of this trial. We'll be watching those instructions closely.
Third, the evidence suppression rulings. Judge Petersen excluded damaging evidence against both sides. That is exactly how the system is supposed to work. Evidence rules exist to prevent unfair prejudice. The timecard fraud ruling protects Sundwall from being judged on uncharged conduct. The theft investigation ruling allows the defense to present a suicide motive. These aren't technicalities. These are the guardrails that keep trials fair.
And then there's the question nobody is asking loudly enough: what role did Kacee Terry play in her own story? Court documents paint a complicated picture. Terry was telling people she had cancer when she didn't. She was telling Sundwall about a life insurance policy that didn't exist. She was, according to the appeals court opinion, regularly pretending she had attempted suicide with insulin but claiming it didn't work. The prosecution frames this as a vulnerable woman being manipulated. The defense frames it as an autonomous person making her own choices. The truth is probably more complicated than either side wants to admit.
We're not here to pick sides. We're here to watch whether the system gets it right. Whether the burden is met. Whether the process is followed. Whether twelve people can sift through four years of text messages, conflicting narratives, phantom insurance policies, and deleted evidence and arrive at justice.
Whatever justice looks like in this case.
1. Who administered the insulin? This is the whole ballgame. The State says Sundwall did it. The defense says Terry did it herself. The forensic evidence shows exogenous insulin killed Kacee Terry. But connecting that needle to Sundwall's hand, rather than Terry's, is the prosecution's biggest challenge. The defense has already pointed out that no insulin was found in the evidence syringes. If the State can't close this gap with forensic or circumstantial evidence, everything else falls apart.
2. What do the text messages actually prove? Twenty-eight thousand texts over four years. They will be the most scrutinized evidence in this trial. The prosecution reads them as a roadmap to murder, a nurse grooming a vulnerable woman toward death. The defense reads them as a mutual conversation between two troubled people, one of whom eventually chose to end her life. Both readings are possible. The jury will decide which one is true.
3. What about the seven-hour gap? Sundwall texted her mother at approximately 1:45 PM saying she couldn't wake Kacee. She's a registered nurse. She didn't call 911. She didn't start CPR. She didn't drive to a hospital. She sat there for seven hours until someone else discovered them. Was that negligence? Was it shock? Was it someone waiting for her friend to die? The prosecution will hammer this. The defense will need to explain it.
4. Did Kacee Terry believe she had cancer, and who told her? The prosecution alleges Sundwall convinced Terry she was terminally ill. But court records don't definitively answer how Terry came to believe she had cancer. Terry's own sister told hospital staff that Kacee had been diagnosed with leukemia years earlier. If Terry herself believed it, if she was the one telling her family, how does that affect the State's theory? The source of the cancer belief could be pivotal.
5. Will the assisted suicide instruction change the calculus? If the jury gets the option of convicting on assisted suicide rather than aggravated murder, it could fundamentally reshape deliberations. Jurors who believe Sundwall was involved but struggle with the "she did it herself" question suddenly have a middle path. It's a lower sentence but still a felony conviction. How the judge instructs and how the lawyers argue this option could determine the verdict.
We're in that courtroom. Every day. Watching every witness, every exhibit, every ruling.
You'll get live broadcasts as it happens. No Breaks editions for uninterrupted viewing. Trial Analysis Podcast episodes for deep dives. Justice Breakdowns with analysis after each day of testimony.
This isn't about speculation. It's about watching the system work.
The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That is not a technicality. That is the foundation of everything we do here.
Let's watch the system together.
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