17 Serial Killer Nurses Who Murdered Patients

In February 2015, German nurse Niels Hoegel faced jail time for two murders and several attempted murders at Delmenhorst Hospital. He injected patients with a cardiovascular drug to cause a medical emergency, then stepped in to resuscitate them at the last moment. Hoegel worked from 1999 to 2005.He injected his patients.Hoegel injected patients with a cardiovascular drug to create a medical emergency, then stepped in to resuscitate them at the last moment. Hoegel worked between 1999 and 2005.

In January 2018, a new indictment charged Hoegel with killing an extra 97 patients over the years. His exact number of victims remains unclear because concrete evidence linking him to deaths at his workplaces is missing.The exact number of victims remains unclear because concrete evidence linking him to deaths at his workplaces is missing.Lack of concrete evidence connecting Hoegel to suspicious deaths in his employed hospitals makes determining his victim count difficult.

On June 6, 2019, Hoegel faced a decision.He was convicted of 85 intentional deaths and received a life sentence. He worked at a hospital in Oldenburg from 1999 to 2002 before moving to Delmenhorst, where he worked until 2005.Hoegel worked at a hospital in Oldenburg from 1999 to 2002, then moved to Delmenhorst where he worked until 2005.

During his trial, Hoegel apologized to his victims' relatives, showing remorse and admitting the shame of the suffering he caused.

Amelia Dyer is a notorious serial killer. Though convicted of 12 deaths, evidence suggests her true body count reached at least 400.Her true body count reached at least 400.Amelia Dyer's crimes spanned twenty years in the late 1800s. All her victims were babies.

Dyer, a trained nurse, turned to baby farming for money. She offered to adopt or nurse a child for a fee but usually ended the babies within days by drugging them with opium substances or smothering them. She served six months in prison for negligence in 1879.

Police did not arrest Dyer until 1896. Her terror ended permanently on June 10, 1896, when she was executed by hanging for killing 12 infants.She was executed by hanging for the murder of 12 infants.The execution followed the murder of 12 infants.

Arnfinn Nesset's case is odd: he was caught, convicted, jailed, and later released. The former Norwegian nurse finished his prison time and supervision in 2005. Nesset now uses a new, unreported name, so victims' families cannot find him.

Nessen admitted killing 27 patients at a nursing home in 1982 after he was caught. He used a lethal injection of suxamethonium chloride.Nesset recanted his confession.This admission added five months to his murder trial. He was ultimatelyHe was found guilty.He was found guilty of killing 22 people, but his true body count is estimated near 140.

Edson Izidoro Guimarães was convicted of four murders in 2000. The nurse admitted to killing five patients, and some estimates place his victim list at over 130. All these deaths occurred between January and May 1999.The nurse admitted to killing five patients.Some estimates place Edson Izidoro Guimarães's victim list at more than 130. All these deaths happened between January and May of 1999.

A co-worker stopped the killings by reporting it after seeing Guimarães inject a patient with potassium chloride. After his arrest, Guimarães stated he had no regrets because he helped people in irreversible comas.

Investigators suspected Edson Izidoro Guimarães killed people to earn $60 each.Edson Izidoro Guimarães earned $60 each.Locals called him "the Nurse of Death." He got a 76-year prison sentence.

Italian nurse Daniela Poggiali allegedly killed at least 90 patients on purpose because they bothered her. The Italian government charged her in 2014.

Daniela Poggiali not only...Poggiali was present for 96 deaths during her nursing time. Authorities say that number is very high.Poggiali also took selfies with her dead patients.

Police said she stole money and jewelry from victims. She bragged that she killed them because they "annoyed" her.

Jane Toppan, nicknamed "Jolly Jane," confessed to 33 murders in 1901. She injected patients with lethal morphine doses, then climbed into bed with them and held them until they died. Toppan was found not guilty by insanity and lived in a mental institution.

Jane Toppan stated that it was...sexually thrilling to take people to the brink of death, bring them back, and then kill them.Even more disturbing wasToppan's stated life's purpose was"to have killed more people - helpless people - than any other man or woman who ever lived."

She may not have reached her goal, but people called her the "greatest criminal of modern times"Jane Toppan said "by the..."Clinton Morning AgeJane Toppan did this in 1902.

Charles Cullen worked as a serial killing nurse for 16 years before being caught in 2003. He admitted to ending the lives ofCharles Cullen killed up to 40 patients.Cullen used lethal injections on patients during that time. This count might be low.

Cullen is solely to blame for his actions. Many medical staff could have stopped him. After Cullen was caught, most of the seven hospitals he worked for reported thatThey had suspected Charles Cullen.Charles Cullen was hurting the people he cared for.

No hospital contacted the police or told later employers about concerns when they checked Cullen's work references. Cullen's long career in medicine let him become New Jersey's most prolific serial killer. He received a 127-year prison term.

Serial killing nurse Genene Jones worked from 1977 to 1982. She murdered infants or children with lethal medication. Jones is thought to have killed at least 60 people, but she was first only convicted for one patient's death.

More than 30 years later, Jones got aGenene Jones faced a second murder charge.This charge came to stop her from getting an early release due to prison overcrowding. The real number of deaths Jones caused might never be known because some relevantHospital records.Records have been destroyed.

From 2003 to 2004, German nurse Stephan Letter used lethal injections to end at least 29 patients, many elderly. Letter likely took more lives because approximatelyEighty people passed.He was on duty.

Letter admitted some deaths but claimed he was a mercy killer. The jury rejected this story and convicted Letter on 28 capital charges. The number of killings Letter committed in a short time makes him responsible for the worst deaths in GermanyThis happened since World War II..

In 1999, Orville Lynn Majors received a 360-year prison sentence for a three-year crime that killed up to 130 patients. Majors worked at a hospital in Clinton, IN, from 1993 to 1995, and the small-town hospital's death rate spiked after Majors was hired.

It was estimated thatThirty-three percent of all patientsadmitted to the hospital died during this time, and the odds of expiring while Majors worked were much higher.

Prosecutors could not find a motive, but the Journal of Forensic Sciences reported thatJournal of Forensic Sciences Majors chose victims partly based on which patients complained the most and were most demanding. Andy Harris, Majors's former roommate, testified Majors thought the elderly "All should be gassed."

In 1989, Richard Angelo received a minimum of 50 years in prison after being convicted of killing four patients and harming four others. Further investigation showed he actuallyHe poisoned at least thirty-five people.during his seven months at a Long Island hospital.

Investigators caught Angelo after suspicion arose from an unprescribed medication found in a patient's urine. Angelo's motive for medical attacks was to cause breathing or heart failure so he could step in andSave the patients.He did this in front of his colleagues at the last minute.

Kimberly Saenz is a convicted medical serial killer who got her last job byShe falsified information.This caused tragedy for at least five people, though medical problems affected 16 patients.

In one 30-day period in 2008, the dialysis center Saenz worked at called for emergency help 30 times. Only two emergency calls occurred in the previous 15 months.

Saenz denies wrongdoing, buttwo co-workers testifiedthey saw her inject bleach into dialysis lines. Investigators also found Saenz searched online to check if bleach could be detected in a dialysis line. Saenz managed toAvoid the death penalty., but she faces life in prison.

Kristen Gilbert's co-workers jokingly referred to her as the "Angel of Death" because so many patients passed during her shifts in 1995 and 1996. Over time, though, those same co-workers began to notice disturbing evidence suggesting Gilbert was actually murdering some of the veterans placed under her care at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northampton, MA.

When the medical center's Epinephrine supply began mysteriously and rapidly disappearing, a few nurses alerted the authorities. Gilbert then made her first major mistake when she called in a bomb threat in an attempt to derail the early stages of the investigation into the increase in cardiac arrests.

During her trial, prosecutors claimed Gilbert killed at least four patients by overdosing them on epinephrine, which caused them to suffer from a heart attack. They also indicated that Gilbert's main motive was to get more attention from a hospital security guard she was dating. She could have received the death penalty, but a jury sentenced Gilbert to life in prison in 2001.

In 2006, Czech nurse Petr Zelenka was arrested for injecting at least 17 of his patients with Heparin. Left undetected, a large enough dose of Heparin will result in the receiver dying from internal bleeding. Zelenka reportedly said he wanted to test doctors to find out if they could discover the internal bleeding before each afflicted patient passed.

Seven people wound up dead as a result of his game. The hospital first began to suspect Zelenka in September 2006, but he was able to keep his job - and continue killing - until December. Zelenka was given a life sentence for his crimes.

Beverley Allitt was entrusted with the lives of numerous kids in a British hospital's children's ward in the spring of 1991. Tragically, she managed to attack 13 young patients and kill four over less than a two-month period. Investigators determined that an unneeded insulin injection was the murder weapon in at least some of the cases.

Allitt was later diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy; her need for attention and sympathy may have been the motive for her crimes. At the time of her sentencing in 1993, Allitt was given one of the longest prison terms for a female convict in UK history.

Since then, she has been receiving treatment for mental health issues at a secured hospital. Allitt received 13 life sentences but will be eligible for parole in 2022.

Canadian nurse Elizabeth Tracey Mae Wettlaufer worked with elderly patients from 2007 to 2014 before she was caught and convicted of killing eight people. Tragically, many of these deaths could have been avoided if the four people she had confessed to, including a pastor, had taken her seriously enough to tell the police.

Wettlaufer was very forthcoming after her arrest, and she tried to justify her actions by claiming God wanted to use her in this way. She also described feeling a "red surge" before injecting her victims with a lethal dose of insulin.

During an interview with a homicide detective, Wettlaufer said she picked at least some victims because she thought they were "Elizabeth Tracey Mae Wettlaufer terminated patients because they were mean, appearing on the list '17 Serial Killer Nurses Who Murdered Patients'." In total, Wettlaufer's "red surge" caused eight deaths and six attempted murders. In 2017, a judge sentenced her toElizabeth Tracey Mae Wettlaufer faced life in prison.She receives no chance of parole for 25 years.

Cathy Wood and Gwendolyn Graham worked together and were in a romantic relationship that ended in death. The media called them the "Lethal Lovers." Graham and Wood killed at least five patients together in a Michigan nursing home during a two-month stretch in 1987.

Graham suffocated an elderly Alzheimer's patient in the first murder. This death was not first seen as suspicious. The pair thought havingGwendolyn Graham's connection to the list '17 Serial Killer Nurses Who Murdered Patients' involves a murder pact.Gwendolyn Graham would keep them together.

Wood later admitted to the killings. She claimed Graham physically committed every crime. Graham ended upbreaking their pactafter only a few months and started dating another person. In 1989, police arrested and convicted the former lovers in five patient deaths.