A Utah nurse is suspected of murdering her friend for a hefty insurance payout after a five-year-long campaign of deception.
Meggan Randall Sundwall was arrested on March 20 on charges of aggravated murder and obstruction of justice in the death of Kacee Lyn Terry, 38, who was tricked into believing she had cancer.
Sundwall, 47, allegedly preyed on her friend’s vulnerabilities for years, convincing Terry that she was ill and administering medication she didn’t need. Last summer, on Aug. 12, 2024, Terry received a lethal dose of insulin along with the sedative promethazine, according to the medical examiner, who ruled her official cause of death an overdose.
Sundwall, a registered nurse, was alone with Terry in the victim’s Highland home for 11 hours straight, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., as she fought for her life, yet she never called paramedics, according to a police affidavit obtained by KUTV.
Terry’s uncle, Mark Farnsworth, arrived that evening and immediately called 911 after finding his niece unconscious in her bedroom and having difficulty breathing, KSL reported. When he asked Sundwall why she hadn’t alerted anyone, the nurse allegedly claimed that Terry had a “do not resuscitate order” and did not want to go to the hospital, although police have not found a DNR or any paperwork designating Sundwall as her power of attorney.
The family reportedly believed she was truly sick but had suspicions about Sundwall. The uncle told the 911 dispatcher that Terry had “major, major health issues” and that it “sounds like she’s drowning.”
Terry’s sister then informed hospital staff that she had been suffering from leukemia for at least four years, a search warrant revealed. Terry died three days later at the hospital on Aug. 15.
The shocking truth finally emerged when the family spoke to Terry’s primary care doctor. She “had no cancer and no health problems,” the affidavit stated. Although her blood sugar level at the time of death was dangerously low, she was not even diabetic.
The medical examiner determined that Terry’s cause of death was an overdose of promethazine, probable insulin, and other drugs.
Meanwhile, according to police, Sundwall’s scheme unraveled further when they found 28,000 text messages between the two women dating back to December 2019.
The affidavit alleges that Sundwall was struggling financially and wanted to cash out a “rumored $1.5 million life insurance policy held by Kacee” that she believed she was the beneficiary of. The two had discussed “Meggan’s money problems being solved by Kacee dying and Meggan receiving her life insurance payout,” the court documents read.
In their texts, Sundwall communicated that she “believed that Kacee was very sick” and had laid out different ways she could “help” her friend die. The affidavit further alleged that Sundwall knew that giving insulin to the non-diabetic Terry would kill her.
One text exchange, in particular, stood out to police: At 9:47 a.m. on the day Terry received the lethal dose of insulin, Sundwall asked, “Do you want to take some promethazine when I get there so that you are asleep when this is happening?”
After Terry’s death, Sundwall allegedly deleted more than 900 texts from her phone and conducted a search for her life insurance policy, news outlets reported. However, authorities have not mentioned that they found any proof that Terry had taken out a life insurance policy with Sundwall as the beneficiary.
Sundwall is currently being held at the Utah County Jail.
