–CRIMINAL RECORD
Name Charles Edmund Cullen (1960-)
place of business New Jersey and Pennsylvania (USA)
deaths 40 confirmed and 400 unproven
1) Born in New Jersey, Cullen had a tragic childhood and adolescence. When he was still a baby, his father died of a heart attack. At age 9, Cullen tried to kill himself by ingesting products from a chemistry kit, and at 17 he lost his mother and sister in a serious car accident. Alone in the world, he dropped out of high school.
two) He enlisted in the US Navy in 1978. He joined as an operator of ballistic missiles for submarines and ships, but after a few years in the job he began to show signs of mental instability. Interned, he was discharged only in 1984, after recovering from seven suicide attempts.
3) Still in 1984, she enrolled in a nursing course. His good grades landed him a coveted job in the burn unit at a medical center. However, he traded dedication to his career for the practice of stealing medication, which he used to get high or try to take his own life.
4) It was in this medical center that he claimed his first victims. Between 1988 and 1992, he administered lethal insulin overdoses to dozens of terminal and non-terminal patients, in addition to contaminating IV bags. An investigation by hospital authorities found Cullen guilty, but did not gather enough evidence.
5) Fired, he was hired by a hospital, where he killed three old ladies with overdoses of a drug that causes a heart attack. One of them would have reported to her own family that a “nurse sneaky” had injected something nasty into his arm while he was sleeping. But the comment was treated as delirium.
6) In 1993, after divorcing his wife and losing custody of their daughters (he had married in 1987, a year before he started killing), the serial killer had an outbreak and invaded the home of a co-worker, while she and the son slept. After trying to molest them, the nurse was denounced to the Court, which issued a request for hospitalization for a few months so that he could treat his depression.
7) Despite a history of emotional instability and suspected murders by physical assault, poisoning, asphyxiation, and neglect, he continued to work in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. US hospitals have always faced staff shortages and never bothered to do background checks.
8) In 2002, though, Cullen was caught at work raping and consuming medication. The medical inquiry forced him to resign. In the sequence, seven former colleagues alerted the police about suspicions that Cullen applied drugs to kill patients. But, again due to lack of evidence, the complaint was filed.
9) In 2003, already in another hospital, Cullen was detected by the computer system accessing the patient records that weren’t yours. Later, colleagues saw him picking up drugs that had not been prescribed. After a few deaths from strange overdoses, the institution was able to collect enough evidence against the assassin.
WHAT END DID IT TAKE?
Cullen admitted to the crimes and, since 2003, has been serving a life sentence for the murder of 40 people. But, according to analysts, the total number of victims could reach 400.
SOURCES Books The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder, by Charles Graeber; websites The New York Times It is Associated Press; program 60 minutes (CBS News)