1988 –June 11-June 18, 2003, hospital/nursing home (Cullen) poisonings, NJ, PA –35-45

 Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 1-26-2025 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/

—   35-45  Wikipedia. “Charles Cullen.” [1]

—      <40  NYT (Perez-Pena, Kocieniewski, George). “Death on the Night Shift…” 2-29-2004.

— 29-~40  CNN Law Center. “Killer nurse gets 11 life sentences.” 3-10-2006.

New Jersey     (40)

— 40  Wikipedia.  “Charles Cullen.”

— 22  CNN Law Center. “Killer nurse gets 11 life sentences.” 3-10-2006.

Pennsylvania  (  7)

— 7  CNN Law Center. “Killer nurse gets 11 life sentences.” 3-10-2006.

Narrative Information

CNN, March 10, 2006: “Somerville, New Jersey (CNN) — On the day New Jersey’s most prolific serial killer received 11 consecutive life sentences, family members of his victims gave the former nurse a verbal lashing in court….

“Judge Paul W. Armstrong then handed down 11 consecutive life sentences. Parole is out of the question, since Cullen, 46, will not be eligible until he has served 397 years.

“Cullen has pleaded guilty to committing 22 murders in New Jersey and seven in Pennsylvania. He also admitted attempting to murder six people.

“Cullen administered lethal doses of medication to patients under his care in nursing homes and medical facilities. He claimed at one point that he was an angel of mercy trying to end his patients’ suffering. But the judge rejected that notion. He said the court “would not countenance the characterization of these crimes as acts of human compassion.”….

“As part of his plea agreement, Cullen has been working with law enforcement officials to identify additional victims. He originally told authorities he killed up to 40 patients during the course of his 16-year nursing career….”

Wikipedia: “….Cullen committed his first murder on June 11, 1988. Judge John W. Yengo, Sr., had been admitted to St. Barnabas Medical Center suffering from an allergic reaction to a blood-thinning drug. Cullen administered a lethal overdose of medication intravenously. Cullen admitted to killing several patients at St. Barnabas, including an AIDS patient who died after being given an overdose of insulin. Cullen quit his job at St. Barnabas in January 1992 when hospital authorities began investigating who might have tampered with bags of intravenous fluid. In fact the St. Barnabas internal investigation revealed Cullen was deemed the person most likely responsible for contaminating IV bags with insulin. The act of randomly contaminating so many IV bags with insulin is believed to have caused the deaths of dozens of patients during his three year tenure at St. Barnabas.

“Cullen took a job at Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, in February 1992. He murdered three elderly women at the hospital by giving them overdoses of the heart medication digoxin. His final victim said that a “sneaky male nurse” had injected her as she slept, but family members and other healthcare workers dismissed her comments….

“Cullen left Warren Hospital in December 1993 and took a job at Hunterdon Medical Center in Flemington, New Jersey, early the next year. Cullen worked in the hospital’s intensive care/cardiac care unit for three years. During his first two years, Cullen claims, he did not murder anyone. But hospital records for the time period had already been destroyed at the time of his arrest in 2003, preventing any investigation into his claims. However, Cullen did admit to murdering five patients in the first nine months of 1996. Once more, Cullen administered overdoses of digoxin….

“Cullen worked at Easton Hospital in Easton, Pennsylvania, from November 1998 to March 1999. On December 30, 1998, he murdered yet another patient with digoxin. A coroner’s blood test showed lethal amounts of digoxin in the patient’s blood, but an internal investigation was inconclusive and nothing pointed definitively to Cullen as the murderer or so they said.

“Cullen continued to find work. A nationwide nursing shortage made it difficult for hospitals to recruit nurses, and no reporting mechanisms or other systems existed to identify nurses with mental health issues or employment problems. Cullen took a job at a burn unit at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in March 1999. During his tenure at Lehigh Valley Hospital, Cullen murdered one patient and attempted to murder another.

‘In April 1999 Cullen voluntarily resigned from Lehigh Valley Hospital and took a job at St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Cullen worked in St. Luke’s cardiac care unit. Over the next three years, he murdered five more patients and attempted to murder two. On January 11, 2000, Cullen attempted suicide again. He put a charcoal grill in his bath tub, lit it and hoped that the carbon monoxide gas would kill him. Neighbors smelled the smoke and called the fire department and police. Cullen was taken to a hospital and a psychiatric facility, but was back home the following day.

‘No one suspected Cullen was murdering patients at St. Luke’s Hospital until a co-worker accidentally found vials of unused medications in a disposal bin. The drugs were not valuable outside the hospital, and were not used by recreational drug users, so their theft seemed curious. An investigation showed that Cullen had taken the medication, and he was fired and escorted from the building in June 2002. Seven St. Luke’s nurses who worked with Cullen later met with the Lehigh County district attorney to alert the authorities of their suspicions that Cullen had used drugs to kill patients. They pointed out that, between [[January 2002] and June 2002, Cullen had worked 20 percent of the hours on his unit but was present for nearly two-thirds of the deaths. But investigators never looked into Cullen’s past, and the case was dropped nine months later for lack of evidence. It was later learned that hospital administrators had stymied the investigation by not being totally forthcoming with investigators.

“In September 2002, Cullen found a job at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, New Jersey. Cullen worked in Somerset’s critical care unit. Cullen’s depression worsened, even though he had begun dating a local woman. Cullen murdered eight more patients and attempted to murder another by June. Once more, his drugs of choice were digoxin and epinephrine.

“On June 18, 2003, Cullen attempted to murder Philip Gregor, a patient at Somerset. Gregor survived and was discharged; he died six months later of natural causes. Soon afterward, the hospital’s computer systems showed that Cullen was accessing the records of patients he was not assigned to. Co-workers were seeing him in patient’s rooms. Computerized drug-dispensing cabinets were showing that Cullen was requesting medications that patients had not been prescribed.

“The executive director of the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System warned Somerset Medical Center officials in July 2003 that at least four of the suspicious overdoses indicated the possibility that an employee was killing patients. But the hospital put off contacting authorities until October. By then, Cullen had killed another five patients and attempted to kill a sixth.

“State officials penalized the hospital for failing to report a nonfatal insulin overdose in August. The overdose had been administered by Cullen. When Cullen’s final victim died of low blood sugar in October, the medical center alerted state authorities. An investigation into Cullen’s employment history revealed past suspicions about his involvement with prior deaths. Somerset Medical Center fired Cullen on October 31, 2003, for lying on his job application. Police kept him under surveillance for several weeks until they had finished their investigation.” 

Sources

CNN Law Center. “Killer nurse gets 11 life sentences.” 3-10-2006. Accessed 9-28-2016 at: http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/02/killer.nurse/index.html

New York Times (Richard Perez-Pena, David Kocieniewski, Jason George). “Death on the Night Shift: 16 Years, Dozens of Bodies; Through Gaps in System, Nurse Left Trail of Grief.” 2-29-2004. Accessed 9-28-2016 at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/nyregion/death-night-shift-16-years-dozens-bodies-through-gaps-system-nurse-left-trail.html?scp=1&sq=death%20on%20the%20night%20shift&st=cse&_r=0

Wikipedia. “Charles Cullen.” 8-19-2016 modification. Accessed 9-28-2016 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Cullen

[1] “He confessed to authorities that he killed up to 40 patients during the course of his 16-year nursing career. But in subsequent interviews with police, psychiatric professionals, and journalists Charles Graeber and Steve Kroft, it became clear that he had killed many more, whom he could not specifically remember by name, though he could often remember details of their case. Experts have estimated that Charles Cullen may ultimately be responsible for over 300 deaths, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in American history.