Mitchell Kaminski
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A Linn Creek woman was charged on Tuesday in Camden County with four felonies after authorities claim she used fake credentials to serve as a nurse.
The Missouri Attorney General’s office has charged Darcee Heath with three counts of forgery and one count of practicing nursing with fraudulently obtained academic credentials. Court documents also accuse Heath of using the aliases of Darcee Hedrix, Darcee Sipes, Darcee Spaudlding, and Darcee Bush.
Court documents allege Heath applied for a nursing position in Osage Beach and submitted falsified academic records, including a college transcript and a forged diploma indicating she was eligible to work as a graduate practical nurse.
In July 2025, Heath was hired after providing an employer — whose name was redacted in court records –with documents indicating she had graduated from a Licensed Practical Nurse program.
According to the Missouri Board of Nursing, obtaining an LPN license requires completing a state-approved practical nursing program, passing a licensing exam, submitting an application for licensure, providing identity and educational documentation, including transcripts, completing a criminal background check and paying licensing fees.
Skylar Mitchell, who worked as a registered nurse in Des Moines, Iowa, for four years before becoming a registered nurse in Colorado and has also worked as a preceptor, told ABC 17 News that nursing credentialing includes multiple layers of review and is typically hard to forge.
Iowa and Colorado are both compact states, like Missouri, meaning nurses licensed in one participating state can practice in another compact state, which makes many of the review processes similar.
“No part of me was ever, like, I could easily forage all of these,” Mitchell said. “They send all of your information up to the Board of Nursing, and they’re the ones who review your application and approve or deny that, and then they’ll issue you a license number. A lot of jobs, when you are applying for them they require you to give your license number.”
After Heath was hired, several licensed nurses, known as preceptors, were assigned to oversee the care she provided as part of standard practice. However, court documents allege the preceptors immediately raised concerns about Heath’s lack of nursing skills, including difficulty performing routine tasks such as obtaining vital signs.
“That’s a very basic skill that you learn in your schooling and that you should be fairly confident in when you start your actual job,” Mitchell said.
Investigators said the preceptors eventually refused to oversee Heath’s work out of fear that they would lose their own nursing licenses.
Mitchell, who has been a preceptor, said that the role carries a lot of liability with it.
“It is uncomfortable at first when you are following someone around that, doesn’t quite know what they’re doing. But you can kind of tell when you’re training, if they’re picking things up,” Mitchell said. “When you are training as an experienced nurse, your license is on the line because you’re essentially, in charge of that person and their care.
“So you want to make sure that whatever they are doing, they’re more competent in it. So if you feel like, maybe they’re not doing something right or like, this isn’t safe, you would have to kind of raise concerns to that person and whoever is in charge as well.”
She added that having an inexperienced nurse, let alone one who had forged documents, can add extra stress on the medical teams.
“It’s like a fine balancing act between they need to also learn how to time manage and provide care, versus me knowing, ‘Hey, this stuff needs to get done now,’” Mitchell said. “So it does add a lot more stress in your job because you have an extra person that doesn’t quite understand.”
Court documents say following the preceptor’s concerns, Heath was terminated from her first job in August 2025 after an internal investigation found she had forged her college transcripts. Her employer later reported the incident to the Missouri Board of Nursing.
The Board of Nursing interviewed the dean of students at a college — that was also redacted from court records. According to court documents, the dean noted Heath’s transcript listed a 10-digit student identification number, whereas the school uses 7-digit identification numbers.
After being fired, court documents allege Heath was hired by a senior living community in the Lake of the Ozarks area as an LPN. However, after completing onboarding, she did not return to orientation and was later terminated, the probable cause statement alleges.
Court documents allege Heath continued to apply to several other health care facilities in Osage Beach and the Lake of the Ozarks area, using additional falsified records claiming she had recently graduated from an LPN program and planned to begin an RN program in the spring.
Heath was later hired at a Lake Ozark health care facility in October after submitting a new “certification of graduation from the Associate Degree in Health Science LPN program,” which investigators determined was falsified because the school she claimed to have attended does not offer that degree program.
She held the job for only 10 days after staff determined she lacked the knowledge and skills required to work as a nurse, the statement says. Court documents state no “patients or nursing home residents were harmed by her incompetence.”
ABC 17 News reached out to the attorney general’s office and the Missouri Board of Nursing for comment.
A warrant for Heath’s arrest was requested on Tuesday.
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