10 Serial Killer Nurses
Beverley Allitt
For nearly two months in early 1991, young nurse Beverley Allitt intentionally harmed 13 patients in the children’s ward at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire, England. Four of those attacks were ultimately fatal, while nine survived but were left seriously injured. Many of the cases were the result of insulin overdoses. Allitt came under suspicion after the death of infant Claire Peck on April 22, 1991. After she was apprehended in April 1991, medical experts believed Allitt suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy. In May 1993, Allitt received 13 life sentences for multiple charges including murder, attempted murder, and causing grievous bodily harm. Due to her mental illnesses, she’s served her time at Rampton Secure Hospital in Nottinghamshire.
Lucy Letby
As of writing, Lucy Letby’s trial is ongoing. However, the notoriety of her alleged crimes warranted inclusion. In the mid-2010s, the neonatal intensive care unit at England’s Countess of Chester Hospital had an alarming increase in infant deaths. During the years-long investigations, nurse Lucy Letby, whose work schedule coincided with the many fatalities, was arrested as a murder suspect, and eventually charged with eight counts of murder and another ten counts of attempted murder. She’s accused of injecting the infants with insulin and with air. When police searched her home, they found a note allegedly written by Letby saying “I killed them on purpose,” and “I am evil I did this.” She has entered a plea of not guilty.
Kristen Gilbert
Kristen Gilbert began working as a nurse at Northampton’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Massachusetts, in 1989. During her seven years of employment, the hospital’s death rate tripled. In 1996, three other nurses reported their suspicions about Gilbert, prompting an investigation. She allegedly injected high doses of epinephrine, or adrenaline, into patients’ IVs which caused cardiac arrest. It’s speculated that Gilbert orchestrated emergencies seeking attention from her boyfriend, hospital police officer James Perrault. In 1998, she was sentenced to 15 months in prison for calling in a false bomb threat to the hospital. Then in March 2001, she was found guilty of four murders and two attempted murders and sentenced to consecutive life terms with an additional 20 years.
Richard Angelo
For seven months, Richard Angelo worked the overnight shift in the special-care unit at Good Samaritan Medical Center in New York. Though he was well-liked at the hospital, Angelo felt inadequate and he put patients’ lives in danger just so he could heroically save them in front of his colleagues. He’d administer paralytic drugs Pavulon and Anectine via IV. But things didn’t always go according to plan and several patients died. On October 11, 1987, elderly patient Gerolamo Kucich survived one of Angelo’s attempts and identified him as the culprit. Angelo, whose lawyers claimed he had dissociative identity disorder, confessed to police, and it was determined that dozens of patients were drugged, with several dying as a result. He was sentenced to 61 years to life.
Lainz Angels of Death
In the 1980s, Lainz Hospital in Vienna, Austria employed four nurses aides who murdered at least 49 patients - and possibly up to 200. Waltraud Wagner allegedly killed the first victim in 1983. She claimed an elderly patient asked for help in ending her life, and Wagner relished the power it gave her. She enlisted her fellow aides Irene Leidolf, Maria Gruber, and Stefanija Mayer, and they began murdering as a group, usually by administering lethal injections. But they also used Wagner’s “water cure,” pouring water into a patient’s throat with their nose pinched closed. The four killers were given sentences ranging from 15 years to life imprisonment. By 2008, all four had been released, Wagner and Leidolf for good behavior.
Orville Lynn Majors
Licensed practical nurse Orville Lynn Majors was a favorite among patients at Indiana’s Vermillion County Hospital. But suspicions arose when the hospital estimated that they had one death every day while Majors was on duty, but averaged one every 23 days when he wasn’t. In March 1995, Majors was suspended from VCH, and that December, the State Nursing Board revoked his license. But it would be another two years before he was arrested for killing patients with lethal potassium chloride injections. Majors’ coworker and former roommate Andy Harris testified that he said old patients “should be gassed.” Though he’s suspected of up to 130 murders, Majors was charged with seven and ultimately convicted of six, earning him 360 years in prison.
Jane Toppan
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Jane Toppan, born Honora Kelley, began as a nurse trainee in 1885 at Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts, where she was given the nickname “Jolly Jane” for her pleasant demeanor. Soon, she started experimenting with morphine and atropine, using her patients as test subjects. Toppan continued as a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital before she was fired for overdosing patients. She then became a private nurse and went on a spree, killing a dozen patients, including her landlord and his wife and her own foster sister. She remained largely undetected until she murdered an entire family in less than two months. Toppan was arrested in October 1901 and eventually confessed to 31 murders, claiming to have felt a sexual thrill from the experience. Deemed not guilty by reason of insanity, she spent the rest of her days at Taunton State Hospital.
Genene Jones
In October 1978, Genene Jones, a licensed vocational nurse, began working in the pediatric intensive care unit of San Antonio’s Bexar County Hospital. Staff noticed an increase in infant mortality during her shifts, which dropped after she left in March 1982. Despite rumors of the nurse’s behavior, Jones was hired at a small pediatric clinic in August 1982, and by September, several patients had died. After lengthy investigations, in 1984, Jones was given a 99-year prison sentence for murder, and later, another 60 years for almost killing another patient with heparin. To keep Jones from being released in 2018, she was charged with the 1981 murder of Joshua Sawyer. In 2020, she accepted a plea deal to drop additional charges and received a life sentence.
Charles Cullen
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From 1988 to 2003, Charles Cullen murdered as many as 40 patients in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania, though some experts believe the real number is likely in the hundreds. As a nurse, he went from hospital to hospital, nine in total, injecting patients with lethal doses of digoxin, insulin, and epinephrine. When he was fired for stealing medications, he just got another job and continued killing. He wouldn’t be arrested until December 2003. His friend and coworker at Somerset Medical Center, Amy Loughren, wore a wire to help police obtain evidence. In March 2006, he received multiple consecutive life sentences, avoiding the death penalty per his plea agreement.
Niels Högel
In 2001, hospital staff at the Oldenburg Clinic in Germany discussed the recent surge in patient deaths and resuscitations, more than half of which occurred when nurse Niels Högel was working. Like other serial killer nurses, Högel put patients in life-threatening situations so he could resuscitate them and be seen as a hero. He was asked to resign a year later but was given a positive recommendation and continued his methods at Delmenhorst Clinic. In June 2005, he was caught giving a patient the arrhythmia-inducing drug ajmaline. In 2018, Niels Högel was charged with 100 counts of murder. He only admitted to 43, but was ultimately convicted of 85 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He’s suspected of killing roughly 300 patients in all.
