A Florida woman allegedly suffocated her husband to death by holding his nose while he lay unresponsive in a hospital bed while recovering from back surgery, PEOPLE confirms.

Jan Sochalski, 61, was charged with second-degree murder in connection to the May 19 death of her husband, Henry Sochalski, 64, according to an arrest warrant from Daytona Beach authorities obtained by PEOPLE.

Get push notifications with news, features and more.

According to the arrest report, nurses at Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center allegedly witnessed Sochalski lying on top of the victim before his death, and one nurse saw her allegedly pinching her husband’s nose.

In a police interview, Sochalski said she was lying on her husband’s chest because she wanted to “be close to him,” the report states.

• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

Sochalski is a retired nurse of more than 40 years, the arrest report states.

Before the victim’s death, nurses allegedly witnessed a series of troubling events involving the suspect.

According to the arrest report, the victim was hooked up to a push-button pain-medication machine, and nurses had to ask Sochalski to “refrain from administering the pain medication to her husband.”

Staff members told police that the button on machine is supposed to be pressed a maximum of six times an hour, but when they checked the machine, they discovered Sochalski had allegedly pressed the button 264 times over and 8-hour period. (The machine has a safety control and did not administer excess medicine.)

In another instance, one nurse said the suspect allegedly requested medication that would drastically slow the suspect’s breathing, the report states. The request was denied.

“[The suspect’s] request was basically asking [the nurse] to kill the patient,” the arrest report states. “Because if someone can’t breath then that is not compatible with life.”

Police opened an investigation into the victim’s death when the medical examiner determined his death to be a homicide.

According to the arrest report, the medical examiner listed the cause of death as asphyxia.