A Lawrence nursing home worker deprived her elderly and dying clients of pain-relieving morphine, police said Wednesday, stealing it off their bodies for her own use.

Officials at Pioneer Ridge Retirement Community said they had fired the employee, a Lawrence woman in her 20s, and reported the matter to police.

Police said two Pioneer Ridge residents — a 79-year-old woman and a 96-year-old man who was living out his final days — had their morphine stolen. The man died Monday, but nursing home officials said there was no connection to the drug deprivation

“This was identified quickly enough that no resident experienced any pain or experienced any adverse affects,” said Lee Eaton, a regional manager for Topeka-based Midwest Health Management, which owns Pioneer Ridge.

He added: “As far as we know, it had been caught immediately.”

Lawrence Police Sgt. Dan Ward said no arrest had yet been made in the case.

But he said that police determined that the employee had removed morphine patches from the residents, removed the morphine compound from the patches, then put the patches back on the residents.

The employee “has been interviewed and the case referred to the District Attorney’s Office,” Ward said.

Douglas County Dist. Atty. Charles Branson was unavailable to comment Wednesday on possible criminal charges.

According to the police report, the thefts took place between Jan. 7 and Jan. 28 at Pioneer Ridge, 4851 Harvard Road.

Eaton said a resident of the nursing home told officials there that a worker had taken her morphine patch. Workers were ordered to check patches on the residents during every shift thereafter, he said.

“Within three days, we had discovered that someone had clipped an edge of another resident’s pain medication patch and had squeezed the pain medication out,” Eaton said.

A funeral was held Wednesday morning for the 96-year-old man. His family did not return calls for comment. Ward said the coroner had not determined the cause of death.

“There was no correlation whatsoever between the resident’s death and this situation,” Eaton said.

Eaton said the worker had been employed at Pioneer Ridge for less than six months.

“We have no evidence” that the morphine thefts had been occurring until shortly before the investigation, he said.

Barb Conant, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department on Aging, said Pioneer Ridge would be required to report the incident to the state.

“We would look at the facility’s culpability in this, but we also tend to hold the individuals accountable,” she said. “It could be the nursing home did the right thing, but still ended up with a bad apple.”