True crime Friday: Charles Edmund Cullen, The Angel of Mercy Serial Killer

Charles Edmund Cullen is an American serial killer. Cullen was a nurse who murdered hundreds of patients during his a 16-year career spanning several New Jersey and Pennsylvania medical centers until being arrested in 2003. Out of hundreds of murders he may have committed only 29 of them have been confirmed by the police. He confessed to committing murders through interviews with police, psychiatrists and journalists suggesting he committed many more. Researchers who are intimately involved in the case believe Cullen may have murdered as many as 400 people. Because he murdered people in a hospital setting most of these cases cannot be confirmed due to lack of evidence and medical records.

The Early Childhood of Charles Cullen

Charles Cullen was born on February 22, 1960, in the state of New Jersey. Charles was raised in a very strict religious Catholic family as the youngest of eight children. Cullen’s father, Edmond Cullen died on September 17, 1960, when Charles was seven months old. Cullen later described his childhood as awful. He stated he was constantly bullied by his schoolmates and sisters' boyfriends. He attempted suicide when he was just nine years old.

His mother, Florence Cullen as born in England and immigrated to the US after World War II as bride of war. She was killed in a car accident on December 6, 1977. Charles who was 17 years old at the time was devastated! He was upset that the hospital did not immediately inform him of her death and cremated her body instead of returning it. He said this is one of the reasons he decided to become a nurse so that other families would not have to endure what his family had to overcome.

Cullen graduated from high school and then enlisted in the United States Navy. He served aboard the submarine USS Woodrow Wilson. He successfully passed basic training and the psychological examinations required for submarine crews. Cullen rose to the rank of Petty Officer second class as part of the team that operated the vessel's Poseidon Missiles. Cullen was bullied during his time in the Navy by his fellow crewmen. At least one time, Cullen was discovered seated at the missile controls wearing a surgical mask, gloves, and scrubs rather than his uniform. Cullen was disciplined for that action but never explained why he had dressed that way. The Navy reassigned Cullen to a lower-pressure job on the supply ship USS Canopus. He attempted suicide and was committed to the Navy psychiatric ward several times over the subsequent few years. Cullen received a Medical Discharge from the Navy in 1984, for undisclosed reasons.

Cullen eventually enrolled at Mountainside Hospital’s nursing school in New Jersey. He was elected president of his nursing class, he graduated in 1986 and started work at the burn unit of Saint Barnabas in the state of New Jersey.

Cullen met and married Adrianne Baum in 1987. Their first of two girls, was born later that year. However, Cullen's wife became increasingly disturbed at his unusual behavior and his abuse of the family dogs. In 1993, she filed a restraining order against him based on her fear that he might endanger her and their two children. She claimed that Cullen had spiked people's drinks with lighter fluid, burned his daughter's books, and left his daughters with a babysitter for a week. Cullen denied these claims, saying that his wife was exaggerating.

The Victims of Charles Edmund Cullen at Varies Faculties

• Somerset Medical Center
• Warren Hospital
• Leigh High Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest
• St. Luke’s Hospital
• Hunterdon Medical Center
• Morristown Memorial Hospital
• Liberty Nursing and Rehabilitation Center 
• Easton Hospital
• John W. Yengo, Sr., 72
• Lucy Vigilone Mugavero, 90
• Mary Natoli, 85
• Helen Dean, 91
• LeRoy Sinn, 71
• Earl Young, 76
• Catherine A. Dext, 49
• Frank Mazzacco, 66
• Jesse Eichlin, 81
• Ottomar A. Schramm, 78
• Matthew Mattern, 22
• Stella Danielczyk, 73 (Survivor)
• John Gallagher, 90 (Survivor)
• Irene Krampf, 79
• William Park, 72
• Paul Galgon, 72 (Survivor)
• Samuel Spangler, 80
• Daniel George, 82
• Edward O'Toole, 76
• Eleanor Stoecker, 60
• Joyce E. Mangini, 74
• Giacomino J. Toto, 89
• John J. Shanagher, 83
• Dorthea K. Hoagland, 80
• Melvin T. Simcoe, 66
• Michael T. Strenko, 21
• Philip Gregor, 48 (Survivor)
• Reverend Florian J. Gall, 68
• Jin Kyung Han, 40 (Survivor)
• Pasquale M. Napolitano, 80
• Christopher B. Hardgrove, 38
• Frances Agoada, 83 (Survivor)
• Krishnakant Upadhyay, 70
• James R. Strickland, 83
• Edward P. Zizik, 73

Charles Cullen’s History of Mental Instability

In some cases, individual workers took it upon themselves informally to try to prevent Cullen from being hired or to have him terminated. Even with his history of mental instability and the number of deaths during his employment at various hospitals, Cullen continued to find work because of a national shortage of nurses at that time. Also there was no real reporting mechanism yet existed to identify nurses with mental health or employment problems. No one suspected Cullen was murdering patients at St. Luke's until a co-worker found medication vials in a disposal bin. The drugs were not valuable outside the hospital and therefore, the theft was highly unusual. An investigation showed that Cullen had taken the medication. He was offered a deal by St. Luke's to resign and be given a neutral recommendation, or to be fired. He chose to resign.

When a patient at Somerset Hospital died of low blood sugar in October 2003, the hospital alerted the New Jersey State Police. This patient was Cullen's final victim. An investigation into his employment history revealed past suspicions about his involvement in patient deaths. Somerset fired Cullen on October 31, 2003, of all things for lying on his job application. Somerset nurse Amy Loughren, a co-worker of Cullen's alerted the police after she had become alarmed about Cullen's records of accessing drugs and his links to patient deaths. Police kept him under surveillance for several weeks until they had finished their investigation. Investigators assigned Loughren to visit Cullen after work hours and to talk with him while she wore a wire. With that evidence, police had produced enough probable cause for his arrest. Cullen moved from facility to facility undetected because of the lack of requirements to report suspicious behavior by medical workers and inadequate legal obligations on employers. New Jersey and Pennsylvania, like most other states, required health care facilities to report suspicious deaths only in the most egregious cases. This lead to employees failing to report incidents they considered minor.

Lady Justice

On March 2, 2006, Cullen was sentenced to 18 consecutive life sentences by Judge Armstrong in New Jersey; he is not eligible for parole until June 10, 2403. Cullen is being held at New Jersey State Prison. After Cullen's criminal conviction, many of the hospitals at which he had worked were sued by the families of his victims. The files and settlements against the New Jersey hospitals, all of which were settled out of court, are sealed.

The 2004, Patient Safety Act increased hospitals' responsibility for reporting "serious preventable adverse events". The 2005, Enhancement Act, a supplement to the Patient Safety Act, required hospitals to report certain details on their employees to the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs and mandated that complaints and disciplinary records relating to patient care be kept for at least seven years.

Reference

Charles Cullen - Wikipedia

The True Story Behind Netflix’s ‘The Good Nurse’ (nymag.com)

Where Is Charles Cullen Now? The Good Nurse: True Story Makes Netflix Debut – NBC New York

Who Were Charles Cullen's Victims? A Complete Timeline (seventeen.com)