If ever there was someone you needed to know you could trust, it would most definitely be your doctor. After all, medical professionals play an important role in our world, helping those of us with ailments and injuries, assuring us that we’ll be okay. However, there have been times when those with authority over our physical well-being have had more malicious intentions in mind. Warning, these stories are far from pleasant, containing topics including graphic violence and sexual abuse, so reader discretion is advised.
10. Charles Cullen
As is the case for many of the men and women on this list, the disturbing thing about Charles Cullen was his calm demeanor. Who would have ever suspected that this seemingly docile male nurse was housing a disturbed mind?
Cullen’s childhood, as well as his later years, were rife with misery, pain, and mistreatment, the perfect recipe for a mentally frayed mind. During Cullen’s tenure as a nurse across New Jersey and Pennsylvania in various facilities, he would claim, what was confirmed at the time to be, 29 victims. This number would later be raised to an even more disturbing count of 40 victims following Cullen’s eventual arrest in 2003. His sickening method of choice was administering lethal doses of medications to his patients and those who were in severe condition.
The truly haunting thing about Cullen was his justification, committing these acts, not out of malice, but rather out of kindness. He seemed to think he was committing a noble deed of sorts, that he was relieving his patients of their suffering. Cullen’s murder spree went on for 16 years, often evading capture and investigations, that was until, as previously mentioned, his arrest in 2003.
9. Michael Swango
If the case of Michael Swango shows us anything, it’s how a lack of communication between hospitals and states can result in massive issues. Swango’s macabre machinations began as early as his surgical internship at Ohio State University Medical Center in 1983. It was during this time he’d be caught injecting something into a patient who soon became ill afterward. He’d escape scot-free after this, later poisoning several of his coworkers during his time with the Adams County Ambulance Corps. This would land him in jail for five years but once he was out it wasn’t too long before he resumed his sickening deeds.
For the next few years, Swango would continue an endless streak of killing patients, tamping with medications and even altering medical records to cover his tracks. Following several more incidents of killing his patients, Swango relocated to Zimbabwe and obtained a job at Mnene Lutheran Mission Hospital. However, by the mid-1990s, Swango’s crimes finally caught up to him and he’d finally be arrested, officially being thrown behind bars in 2000. The final tally of his confirmed victims clocked in as many as 60 in total, a staggering statistic that the FBI feels makes him one of America’s most prolific serial killers.
8. Jane Toppan
Jane Toppan, born Honora Kelley, had an early life that was nothing short of tragic orphaned at a young age and sent to the Boston Female Asylum. Kelley would eventually wind up as an indentured servant in the home of Mrs. Ann C. Toppan, eventually taking on their surname before beginning nurse training in 1885.
However, following her adoptive mother’s passing, a switch seemed to flip in Toppan, triggering something very malicious within her. During her medical training, Toppan began experimenting with various medications, discreetly slipping deadly doses to her patients, often observing their reactions with childlike intrigue. This sickening fascination led Toppan to various hospitals and private homes, leaving a sizable trail of bodies in her wake. Her preferred method of murder was heavily informed by her nursing training, using deadly concoctions of drugs, including morphine and atropine.
One of the more disturbing aspects of Toppan’s crime was her bizarre lack of a concrete motive, further mystifying her deranged mental state. It seems Toppan just derived immense pleasure from having caused her patients immense suffering up until their deaths. Following her eventual arrest in 1901, Toppan confessed to her crimes in copious detail, ultimately being committed to the Taunton Insane Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
7. Beverley Allitt
The crimes of Beverley Allitt take on a particularly loathsome nature when you learn that all of her victims were children. These heinous actions are made only more disturbing when you learn about Allitt’s general temperament, generally regarded as a seemingly compassionate nurse. Allitt’s medical-based crimes took place between February and April 1991 while she was employed as a pediatric nurse by Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire.
Throughout this brief 59-day period, Allitt preyed on a total of 13 children, claiming four of their lives via lethal injections of insulin and potassium. The remaining nine didn’t survive unscathed, however, with Allitt having attempted to suffocate them or induce severe episodes of hypoglycemia. Following the death of one victim, Becky Phillips, the medical staff quickly connected the dots as to who the culprit was. They realized that Allitt was the only nurse present for all the attacks and had access to all the necessary drugs.
Once the police got involved, all was said and done for Allitt’s rampage, officially being arrested in May 1991. Despite being caught, Allitt’s motives have never been demystified, though many speculated she simply enjoyed the attention of causing a health episode and being the one to fix it.
6. Stephan Letter
Our next medical true crime tale leads us to Germany and the horrific actions of Stephan Letter, another nurse turned serial killer. When Letter began his nurse training in the early 2000s, nobody could’ve predicted the sinister and disturbing event that would soon transpire. The venue for Letter’s crimes was the Alb-Donau-Klinikum Hospital in Ulm, Germany, a hospital with a large population of elderly patients.
From January 2003 to July 2004, a pattern of more than 80 deaths occurred during shifts he was present for. Letter had a proclivity for dosing his patients with lethal doses of heart medication to induce cardiac arrest, later reviving them so he could be the hero. Letter, much like Beverley Allitt, seemed to crave the attention of saving someone’s life and having power over their ultimate fate.
By 2004, the high number of people dying during Letter’s hospital shifts was raising some eyebrows, leading to a police investigation. The exact victim total is a bit murky as many of Letter’s victims had been cremated before they could be properly examined and tested for certain substances. However, there was still more than enough evidence to confirm Letter’s grotesque actions and earn him a life sentence.
5. The Lainz Angels of Death
Continuing with horrific cases of senicide, we bring our discussion to the country of Austria and the Lainz Angels of Death. Throughout the 1980s, four nurses at the Lainz General Hospital in Vienna claimed the lives of at least 49 victims (at least, that’s the number to which they confessed).
The four nurses in question were Waltraud Wagner, Maria Gruber, Irene Leidolf, and Stefanija Meye, four Lainzs employees who soon formed a team with a sinister agenda. Things began when, in 1983, Wagner killed her first victim with an overdose of morphine, discovering her fetish for playing god in a medical setting. It wasn’t too long before Wagner found other like-minded individuals in the form of Gruber, Leidol, and Meyer, all four conspiring together to murder more and more patients. They even developed a uniquely depraved murder method, with one pinching the victim’s mouth while another would pour water into their mouth, drowning them in their bed.
This continued until, their shared cockiness got the best of them, and the quartet was overheard by another doctor bragging about their exploits at a nearby bar. In 1991, all four were arrested, with Eanfer receiving life in prison, Gruber and Leidolf receiving 15-year sentences, and Meyer being found unfit to stand trial due to mental illness.
4. Donald Harvey
Much like a few others on this list, the quality of Donald Harvey’s early years had a profound effect on him and the horrific actions he’d commit later in life. Having been molested at a young age and attempting suicide twice during his time with the Air Force, Harvey was an unwell man. Eventually, Harvey began a career in the world of healthcare during the 1970s, working at various hospitals in Kentucky and Ohio.
During his first job as an orderly at the Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky, he claimed at least a dozen patients’ lives, per a later confession by Harvey. From there, his depravity only increased, killing both the elderly and even young children via various twisted methods. These methods included smothering with a pillow, poisoning with arsenic and cyanide, and even deprivation of oxygen using a faulty oxygen tank.
These methods allowed Harvey to avoid detection for years, allowing him to carry out his twisted sense of justice by providing his victims with “mercy.” It wasn’t until 1987 when an autopsy revealed high levels of cyanide present in a victim’s body that Harvey was finally questioned. Harvey would end up confessing to his crimes and receiving multiple life sentences, eventually being beaten to death in his prison cell in 2017.
3. Kristen Gilbert
Those who knew Kristen Gilbert during her teenage years might’ve pegged her as a problem child early on, but none could’ve predicted her eventual descent into darkness. Those who were close to her would later note her proclivity for lying and even faking suicide attempts to garner sympathy and attention. This sick need for attention is likely her key motivation for carrying out her crimes during her time as a nurse.
Gilbert would end up working for the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she’d claim a total of four confirmed victims. Her killing method involved a drug known as epinephrine, a substance that can cause fatal heart attacks if dosed incorrectly. However, Gilbert was far from a criminal mastermind and it didn’t take too long before other nurses began connecting the dots and calling for an investigation. In another example of her mental instability, Gilbert attempted to derail the investigation by calling in a bomb threat to the hospital.
Eventually, the law caught up with Gilbert and she was arrested in 1996, with more evidence being discovered shortly thereafter. She’d officially be convicted in 2001, eventually winding up in FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where she remains incarcerated to this day.
2. Orville Lynn Majors
When Orville Lynn Majors began his job as a nurse at Vermillion County Hospital in 1989, it didn’t take too long before things turned sinister. Based on his work and various evaluations, Majors was a solid employee, often regarded quite favorably by elderly patients at VCH. Major’s true nature didn’t come into focus until his temporary departure from VCH to go work for a higher-paying job in Tennessee.
When Majors resumed his VCH duties in 1993, the death rate of the hospital’s patients shot up by a distressing amount. Many of Major’s coworkers even began joking around that someone was bound to die if he was on duty, which was disturbingly right on the money. Also, even though most of Major’s victims were elderly, the details surrounding their deaths raised some justifiable skepticism. This included several patients dying from conditions they developed while at VCH and others, who seemed to be on the mend physically, taking sharp downturns.
Eventually, Major’s connection to the death spike couldn’t be ignored, leading to an investigation and, his arrest in December 1995. Witness claims indicate that Majors seemed to get rid of patients that were either needy, whiny, or just added too much to his workload at VCH.
1. Harold Shipman
Our journey through the sickening world of medical true crime stories concludes with perhaps the most infamous of them all, “Doctor Death” Harold Shipman. Shipman’s medical career kicked off in the 1970s, working in the West Yorkshire town of Todmorden before moving to Hyde, Greater Manchester, in 1992. The bulk of Shipman’s crimes, specifically the ones he’d be put on trial for, all occurred between 1995 and 1998.
Much like many others on this list, Shipman’s victims were all elderly, though he seemed to have a fixation on killing elderly women specifically. This might have been attributed to the death of his mother who herself was often given morphine by a doctor who’d visit their home. Adding to that theory is Shipman would kill his patients by administering lethal doses of diamorphine, a powerful opioid painkiller, and then alter their medical records.
Shipman’s last victim was Kathleen Grundy, a patient whom he even forged a will for, which would’ve left him £386,000. Thankfully though, Grundy’s daughter, solicitor Angela Woodruff pushed for an investigation which proved to be the final domino to fall for Shipman’s capture. Despite denying his guilt, Shipman was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000, though he’d hang himself in his cell just four years later.