Nurse who cut off patient’s foot for use in sickening taxidermy shop display escapes jail sentence

Warning: Disturbing content

A Wisconsin nurse who amputated a patient’s frostbitten foot without authorization and planned to use it as a ghoulish display in her family’s taxidermy shop was given a sweetheart plea deal in which she’ll serve no time in prison and pay just $443 in court costs.

Mary K. Brown, 40, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of negligently abusing a 62-year-old patient at Spring Valley Senior Living and Healthcare Campus in 2022 for the rogue surgical procedure.

The patient died days later, though no definitive link was made between his death and the amputation, according to a criminal complaint.

She was initially charged with intentionally causing great bodily harm and mayhem and physically abusing an elder person, but the felonies, which could have each carried a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, were dismissed after pleading guilty to lesser charges.

The victim, Doug McFarland, was being treated for severe frostbite in both feet after suffering a fall in his home. His feet had become necrotic — remaining attached to his leg by only a tendon and two inches of skin — and he was moved to hospice care, according to KSTP.

After cutting off his right foot — which she referred to investigators as “mummy feet” — she told nursing home colleagues she planned to preserve the foot and display it in a taxidermy shop owned by her family as a graphic warning about the dangers of frostbite.

She planned to display a sign with the foot that said, “Wear your boots, kids,” according to the charges.

Court papers allege she told investigators she was “trying to make the quality of life better for him” and that “she would have wanted [the foot] off” were she in his condition.

A nursing home administrator had told police that he explicitly told Brown not to perform the amputation, despite acknowledging a doctor might have later done so given its extreme condition.

His sister, Heidi McFarland, said she was “extremely upset” when she learned of the unauthorized procedure.

“When I found out, I pretty much lost it,” she said, saying her late brother “had a heart of gold” and was a “phenomenal artist.”

Although Brown escaped a jail sentence, she may face disciplinary proceedings from the Wisconsin Board of Nursing and is no longer allowed to work as a caregiver in any capacity.