The True Story of The Viral Netflix Movie — The Good Nurse
The Good Nurse (2022), has generated millions of views. What fascinates viewers the most is that the movie is based on a real-life serial killer, Charles Cullen.
Charles Cullen was a nurse for 16 years. He had been employed in several different hospitals throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Over these sixteen years, Cullen had overdosed multiple of his patients with deadly drugs through the patient’s IV. While only 29 murders have been confirmed, Cullen claims he is responsible for the deaths of 40 people. It’s believed by investigators that he has killed hundreds of people.
Cullen’s Background
When Cullen was only an infant, his father passed away. He then lost his mother during high school. Not too long after, both his siblings passed away as well. His brother who battled with cancer for many years was in his care, though unfortunately, he did lose the fight against cancer and passed away. It’s very clear that death and misfortune have always been a part of Cullen’s life.
He ended up dropping out of high school and enrolling in the Navy. Cullen attended the Mountainside Hospital School of Nursing in Montclair. After graduating in 1987, he got married and became the father of two daughters.
His Rocky Marriage Life
Adrienne Taub, Cullen’s wife, filed for divorce in January 1993. She had informed the authorities that her husband scared her. It was revealed by Taub that Cullen had done some terrifying things such as spiking people’s drinks with lighter fluid and even asking about the rates of a local funeral home. She feared for her and her children as Cullen had access to drugs at the hospital he worked at.
Taub had filed several domestic violence complaints. Details surrounding a series of terrifying incidents have been revealed by Taub’s complaints. From these details, we can see how truly deranged Cullen is. He stuffed their pet ferret into a trash can, burned a book of his daughter’s in their fireplace, and even left his daughters at a babysitter and didn’t come back for a whole week. Taub said she had to get rid of the pets in the family because she was afraid Cullen would kill them.
Throughout the divorce, Cullen’s behavior quickly became out of control. He was desperate to gain custody of his daughters but did not find any success. Alcohol was his new friend as he had turned to it to cope. He had even turned to suicide multiple times. Taub was finally granted a restraining order after Cullen had broken into the house of a nurse.
Cullen’s Killings
Cullen’s first known killings take place in Warren Hospital, Phillipsburg, New Jersey. He ended up killing three of his patients by giving them a fatal dose of the drug, digoxin. Lucy Mugavero, Mary Natoli, and Helen Dean were the three victims. Before Dean’s death, she informed her family of a male nurse injecting her with a needle. It was not long after that Cullen resigned from his position. A proper investigation into Dean’s death was not put into action as the pathologist concluded her death was a result of cancer.
From this point forward, Cullen worked at several different hospitals, leaving them when suspicions of his work ethic began to arise. For the next nine years, he’d brutally murder his patients by overdosing them with drugs such as digoxin, insulin, dobutamine, nitroprusside, norepinephrine, and pavulon.
He was allowed to do this for so long due to the fact that hospitals were not allowed to share information with each other and poisoning patients is a silent death.
No Criminal Gets Away Forever
In 2002, a nurse contacted authorities saying she was concerned with a particular male nurse who was killing patients. There was a list of sixty-nine patients who she believed he had killed. While the police had spent nine months investigating Cullen, the investigation came to a standstill.
It wasn’t until December 2003 that Cullen was arrested. People at Somerset Medical Center became aware of the alarming number of patients who had high levels of digoxin in their system at the time of death. Cullen was fired because of highly questionable lab results surrounding his patients. Authorities were alerted of this and Cullen was being surveillanced.
After the arrest, Cullen admitted to multiple murders. He avoided the death penalty due to confessing and giving an estimate of all the murders he had committed.
When he made his appearance in court, he pled guilty to twenty-two murders and three attempted murders. He was sentenced to 11 consecutive life terms in prison. Later on, he did confess to seven more murders and three more attempted murders.
Cullen claimed he killed to end the suffering of his victims. Dr. Michael Welner, a psychiatric teacher at New York University Center, goes on to explain.
“Mercy killing is a common defence.” “But that is a rationalization a person employs to convince themselves they’re doing the right thing.”
Perhaps Cullen actually believed he was doing the right thing, or maybe it was just an excuse. Either way, what he did is disgusting. I’m not sure how someone can live with themselves after harming a patient who put their trust in you.
People like Charles Cullen make me feel sick.
