🍿 2022-11-14 23:10:41 – Paris/France.
When Charles Cullen's arrest first made headlines, it was reported that the former nurse was having spring rolls and beer with a friend - 'a date' as described by New York Times– when officers took him into custody. In fact, the woman was not a date, but Amy Loughren, a former colleague of Cullen's who had worked with investigators and eventually helped authorities arrest and prosecute a serial killer nurse.
Cullen worked for 16 years in hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. After his arrest in December 2003, he confessed to killing 29 patients, often by overdose, at various health centers where he worked. The case marked one of New Jersey's most infamous serial murders. It also raised questions about the system that allowed Cullen to continue practicing, even as people continued to die in unexpected circumstances while in his care.
A dramatized version of Cullen's crimes is the subject of the next Netflix film The good nurse. Eddie Redmayne plays Cullen and Jessica Chastain plays Loughren. It is the English language debut of Danish screenwriter Tobias Lindholm (whose previous credits include another round 2020, with Mads Mikkelsen, and A-Warnominated for an Oscar in 2015).
The film is an adaptation of the 2013 book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder by journalist Charles Graeber. (In a rave review of the book, Stephen King referenced the murderous nurse at the center of his own novel. Misery, and wrote, “Did you think Annie Wilkes was bad? Read this chilling true story of Charlie Cullen. Borrowing trademark Annie Wilkes lingo, King added of Cullen, “He's a hell of a brat. ")
Charles Cullen in court on December 15, 2003 in Somerville, New Jersey
(John Wheeler/Getty Images)
Born February 22, 1960, in West Orange, New Jersey, Cullen had what he described to Graeber as a "miserable" childhood. His family was working-class and Irish Catholic; her father died shortly after she was born, and her mother died when Cullen was in high school. Cullen enlisted in the United States Navy, where he sometimes displayed troublesome behavior and was known to be reserved. After a suicide attempt (one of several, according to New York Times), Cullen was granted medical discharge in March 1984.
Cullen enrolled in nursing school in Montclair, New Jersey, that same year. To finance his education, he worked in a series of franchise restaurants; at Roy Rogers, he met Adrianne Baum, whom he married in 1987, the year of his graduation. As a nursing student, Cullen was elected class president, a "symbolic position," Graeber writes in his book, but still a special one that made Cullen the "chosen son" of his school.
Throughout his career, Cullen changed jobs frequently. New York Times reported in 2004 that he held nine positions over an 11-year period. His first full-time job as a nurse was at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey, where, according to a former colleague, he was known to be very private. "If you asked him, 'Are you married?' or something like that, I'll get back to you with a note,” Jeanne T. Hackett told the New York Times for his 2004 article on Cullen. "I remember the day I saw his car and said, 'God, now I know something about Charlie Cullen: I know what car he has.' »
Cullen's final workplaces included Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg, New Jersey; Morristown Memorial in Morristown, New Jersey; and Liberty Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “He worked in cardiology and intensive care units, where death is often expected, surrounded by the most seriously ill patients, many of whom are unconscious,” he wrote. New York Times. “…Many medical serial killers find it pleasant to work at night, with the sickest patients. »
Eddie Redmayne as Charles Cullen and Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren in "The Good Nurse"
(JoJo Wilden/Netflix)
Cullen's first murder victim was reportedly John W. Yengo Sr., a Jersey City judge who died in 1988 at age 72. An obituary published at the time of his death states that he died of "Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a rare allergic reaction." But after Cullen's arrest, it turned out, as The Associated Press reported in 2004, that while Yengo had been admitted to St. Barnabas Hospital due to an allergic reaction, Cullen l killed him by injecting him with a drug that stopped his heart.
"I was always suspicious because it happened so fast," Yengo's daughter told the news agency at the time. “Not knowing anything else, I assumed it was God's will. This was clearly not the case. »
In 1993, 91-year-old Helen Dean, a patient at Warren Hospital, was recovering from breast cancer surgery when Cullen came into her room, asked her son Larry out, and gave him an injection. The next day he fell seriously ill, writes Graeber in his book, and died of heart failure.
A 1993 post-mortem examination failed to test for digoxin, a substance later found to be one Cullen frequently used in his murders. Helen Dean's death was believed to be the result of natural causes, but Larry Dean was convinced that Cullen had killed his mother. Larry died in 2001, before the nurse was arrested and her crimes exposed. In 2004 Helen Dean's body was exhumed for further testing. Cullen eventually admitted to killing her.
Five years later, 78-year-old Ottomar Schramm, a stroke victim, was admitted to Easton Hospital after food was aspirated into his lungs. His daughter Kristina Toth, according to Graeber, later recalled that a "strange man" with a syringe took her father for "tests". Schramm's health unexpectedly deteriorated before improving. Blood tests revealed abnormally high levels of digoxin, even though he had not been prescribed the substance. Schramm's health deteriorated again and he died a few days later, in December 1998. His death was initially ruled accidental. Cullen ended up pleading guilty to murdering Schramm in 2004.
In 2003 Reverend Florian Gall was taken to Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey with pneumonia and sepsis. Although he was seriously ill and on a ventilator, those close to him hoped he would recover, as he had during previous bouts of illness, he said. New York Times. One morning in June, Gall went into cardiac arrest and could not be revived. His body was exhumed after Cullen's arrest, Cullen eventually pleaded guilty to killing the priest by injecting him with digoxin.
Even when Cullen was laid off several times throughout his career, he managed to find work at new facilities. In his subsequent analysis of the case, New York Times posited that this was primarily due to the “weakness” of state and federal reporting systems for healthcare workers, and because “employers frequently refused to pass on negative information, including about the people they had fired, lest the former employee sue them for slander.
A letter to the editor published by the journal in March 2004 underscored this concern: "The difficulty in identifying professionals who pose a risk to patients stems from a widespread problem: those who write recommendations, whether for , appointment to staff or other positions. , believe with some reason that they will face lengthy and costly litigation if they reveal anything about their adverse experience with someone,” wrote pediatrician David E. Knoop, a board member of Morristown Memorial Hospital accreditation. .
In May 2005, in response to news of Cullen's crimes, then-Governor of New Jersey Richard J. Codey signed the Health Professional Complaints and Professional Liability Enhancement Act, establishing new requirements and protections for individuals and organizations in the healthcare sector to report healthcare workers. which can put patients at risk.
While Cullen's professional life was seemingly uninterrupted for years, his personal life was almost nonstop tumultuous. Neighbors in media interviews have described him as either a rather secretive loner or a man known for acting oddly and mistreating his dog. “In the middle of the night, he would go out to hunt cats, yell at them and talk to himself,” said a neighbor. New York Timeswhile another said Cullen "makes weird faces, like he's really angry or seriously thinking" when he thinks no one is looking at him.
Eddie Redmayne, Jessica Chastain, Amy Loughren and Tobias Lindholm attend the UK Premiere of 'The Good Nurse' on October 10, 2022 in London
(Kate Green/Getty Images for BFI)
Cullen's marriage to Adrianne Baum ended in divorce. She filed it in January 1993, citing "extreme cruelty" as the reason, according to morning call, a newspaper covering eastern Pennsylvania. In her lawsuit, she accused him of abusing the family's two dogs and fighting back when she complained he had turned off the heating in their homes, causing it to go to uncomfortable levels in answer. In 1993, Baum called the police and filed a domestic violence complaint against her husband; according to Graeber, she said Cullen was an alcoholic and his drinking led to dangerous situations.
It was a decade after their divorce, in 2002, that Cullen began working at Somerset Medical Center. There he met Amy Loughren, the nurse who would ultimately play a pivotal role in his arrest. She was "outspoken and honest," according to Graeber, and "a shadow Cullen could hide behind." The two formed a working friendship. In 2003, she was contacted by two detectives investigating a series of suspicious hospital patient deaths. Consulting hospital records, she tracked down Cullen's modus operandi and shared her findings with investigators. But the evidence remained circumstantial and Cullen himself made no confession to the two detectives. So in December 2003, investigators asked Loughren to meet Cullen using a microphone, hoping it would get him talking. Loughren said 60 minutes in 2013 that when she confronted him about the murders, Cullen told her, "I want to fight. »
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SOURCE: Reviews News
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