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Daily Mail
26-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
She murdered 31 and snuggled victims as they died for sexual kicks - the 'jolly' killer you've never heard of
Jane Toppan had become a crutch to the prominent Davis family as they were struck by tragedy after tragedy. It was summer and the wealthy railroad dynasty had welcomed their longtime friend and adored 'jolly' nurse into their idyllic Cape Cod home. But, one by one, the family members suddenly dropped dead. In just over a month, four had died - succumbing to a seemingly unrelated myriad of illnesses. Family matriarch Mary 'Mattie' Davis was first, with her death explained away by her diabetes. Days later, her daughter Genevieve Gordon was dead from apparent heart failure. After losing his wife and one of his daughters, Alden Davis - who made the family fortune running the railroad from Boston to Cape Cod - suffered an apparently fatal stroke. His other daughter Mary Gibbs would be dead within days - seemingly of a broken heart. But to Gibbs' father-in-law, the sudden wipeout of the entire Davis family was oddly suspicious. Something sinister was going on. Toppan, the popular Boston nurse and Davis family friend who had cared for each of the four victims, was harboring a macabre secret. As a nurse, Toppan (pictured) killed patients and anyone else who got in her way with lethal doses of morphine For years, Toppan was known by the affectionate nickname 'Jolly' Jane due to her warm and jovial bedside manner. But, in reality, she was an 'Angel of Death' - killing patients and anyone else who got in her way with lethal doses of morphine. Some were injected with a fatal dose of the drug while others were poisoned with Toppan's special laced bottles of Hunyadi mineral water. In a sick twist, Toppan reveled in toying with her victims' lives by bringing them to and from the brink of death with alternating doses of morphine and atropine. As her helpless victims lay dying, the 'jolly' nurse would curl up in bed with them - getting a twisted sexual thrill while they gave their last breaths. By the time 'Jolly' Jane Toppan was exposed as one of America's first female serial killers, she had claimed the lives of at least 31 victims, according to her own remorseless confession letter. But many fear the number could truly top 100. 'She really was probably the first woman serial killer,' Diane Ranney, the former assistant director of the Jonathan Bourne Public Library in Massachusetts who has researched the Toppan case for decades, tells '[But] it seems odd to me that the fame really never reached her.' Despite her sadistic murder spree, Toppan is a serial killer that few have heard of. Even in the Cape Cod town of Bourne - where many of the murders took place - Ranney says the chilling past is a little known tale among the community. 'People don't know about it… for some reason, it's one of those well-hidden secrets,' she says. Born Honora Kelly in Boston's south end in 1854 to Irish immigrant parents, Toppan's start in life was turbulent to say the least. Her mom died when she was only a small child, leaving her and her sister to be raised by her alcoholic father. In a bizarre twist, her dad - in the throes of mental health issues - sewed his own eyelids shut and abandoned his two daughters at the Boston Female Asylum. Honora was later taken in as an indentured servant by the wealthy Toppan family and her name changed to Jane Toppan. 'I'm probably the only person who's been researching her who feels sorry for her,' Ranney says. 'Everyone else calls her a monster, which in a way she was, but the more I looked into things, the more I thought, she's a very interesting person.' Through her years of research, Ranney says it's 'a question of why she was like she was'. It's a question Toppan gave a curious answer for after she was caught. In her young adulthood, Toppan was jilted at the altar by her fiancé. She went on to blame her lover - and being unmarried - for sending her down her dark and deadly path. 'If I had been a married woman I probably would not have killed all these people,' she infamously claimed. Rejected by her lover, Toppan decided to train at Cambridge Hospital to be a nurse - a vocation that would give her the knowledge of drugs and position of trust that she would later exploit. When Toppan started working as a nurse, she became an instant hit, earning her the nickname Jolly Jane as she would always joke with her patients. 'She had a rather strange way of expressing her love for her patients. She took very, very good care of them… But in the end, she wound up killing them,' Ranney says. It is unclear exactly when the killing spree started. During her time at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Cambridge School of Nursing, many patients mysteriously died in her care. When she then turned to private nursing, providing her rich patients with home visits, there were also curious spates of fatalities. But surprisingly, the deaths were always explained away by some illness or another - and no alarm was raised. Several years would pass before anyone suspected the nurse of killing the patients she had doted on with such care. For other victims, Toppan's murders were far more personal. There was her foster sister Elizabeth Brigham who she had grown up with. Her best friend Sarah Connors whose job she wanted to take at a theology school. Her love interest's sister Edna Bannister who she felt was getting in the way of a romance. And her former landlords Israel and Lovey Dunham. Toppan's luck only ran out when she murdered the Davis family in summer 1901 after they had dared to ask her to finally pay the $500 in overdue rent she owed. Even Toppan went on to admit this may have finally been a step too far, declaring: 'That was the greatest mistake of my life.' Following pressure from Gibbs' father-in-law, her body was exhumed and a fatal dose of morphine discovered. Toppan's depraved killing spree was a secret no more. In October 1901, the 47-year-old was arrested for murder. Ultimately, she only stood trial for the murder of Gibbs in a case that hit headlines across the US as the media and public poured over the story of a perverse female serial killer who got a sexual kick out of killing. Victims who lived to tell the tale came forward with their shocking stories. One patient described Toppan plying her with a mystery drink and then clambering on top of her, kissing and caressing her while she lay suffering in a hospital bed. At the time, the woman passed the bizarre encounter off as a dream - only learning how close she came to being another victim when Toppan was arrested. While suspected of 11 murders, a bombshell confession letter published in the New York Journal revealed Toppan's actual death toll was at least 31. In the shocking declaration, Toppan boasted that her depraved goal was 'to have killed more people - helpless people - than any other man or woman who lived'. She also described being driven by an 'uncontrollable passion' for death, writing that: 'No voice has as much melody in it as the one crying for life; no eyes as bright as those about to become fixed and glassy; no face so beautiful as the one pulseless and cold.' Ranney says there is no indication that Toppan deliberately chose a career in nursing to give her the opportunity to kill. 'I don't think it started out like that. I think she may have accidentally killed someone without realizing… she may have just decided, 'oh, look what I can do. Wow, that really gave me a thrill.' But I don't think she became a nurse for that reason,' she says. 'I think part of it was a sense that she was powerful.' More than a century on, however, questions remain as to whether it was really Toppan who penned the shocking confession letter. Ranney isn't so sure. 'I've always wondered whether it really was [her],' she says. 'It did not strike me that it was her writing… just the way it's written. I don't think she would have been quite so blunt about things. It just seems to me that her nature was to be more secretive.' She adds: 'But then again, by that time, she may have decided that she was just going to confess because it brought her more notoriety.' Toppan was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was sent to the Massachusetts psychiatric hospital in Taunton. She lived there until her death in 1938. Somewhat ironically, Toppan would often refuse to eat and drink at the facility - paranoid that someone was trying to poison her.
Daily Mail
19-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Inside the chilling true story of hospital worker who murdered 87 patients to put them 'out of their misery'
When Donald Harvey was hired as an orderly in a Kentucky hospital in 1970, he appeared on the outside as an eager teen desperate to escape his poor upbringing and make a better life for himself. But on the inside, he was a gruesome murderer looking for victims to prey on. For 17 years, Donald brutally killed over 80 patients while working at various medical facilities. He would slip poison into their food or drinks, inject them with morphine when no one was looking, smother them with a pillow in the middle of the night, or lace their coffee with fluid infected with HIV. How he got away with it for nearly two decades is still a question that hasn't fully been answered, but when he was finally caught in 1987 he was not ashamed of what he had done. In fact, Donald was quick to confess, and has since described his actions as 'mercy killings,' claiming he was simply putting sick victims 'out of their misery.' His harrowing story completely captured the globe in the late 1980s, and his belief that he was actually helping dying patients earned him the nickname the 'Angel of Death' killer. Here, FEMAIL takes a look back at Donald's tormented childhood, his 17-year killing spree, and his disturbing justification for the murders. Donald grew up in the tiny Appalachian town of Booneville, Kentucky, and his parents were struggling tobacco farmers. He admitted during an interview from behind bars years after his trial that he knew he was gay from a young age, but struggled with his identity because of his strict religious upbringing. 'Being very effeminate acting and being a homosexual was not ideal for eastern Kentucky,' he said. 'I knew there were other places to be where it was more acceptable, and it was very Baptist-oriented type community.' He also claimed that he was sexually molested as a child by his uncle and a neighbor 'for about 13 years.' He dropped out of school in the ninth grade, and started working as an orderly at the Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky, at age 18. In 1970, he committed his first murder: he smothered an innocent 88-year-old patient named Logan Evans who had been admitted to the hospital for a stroke. And it sparked a gruesome, 17-year killing spree that saw him murder as many as 87 people. Donald has claimed that he mostly killed out of 'mercy,' as he believed he was putting sick patients 'out of their misery.' He said, 'Most of the patients, that I have killed - the families, they come to visit at first ... [but then] they no longer visit. 'They have no one, and it's terrible to lay in [the hospital] day after day... And that's why I put 'em out of their misery like I hope someone would put me out of my misery.' But he also admitted that sometimes he would act out of anger, describing himself as a 'nice and caring person' who had a 'meanness in him' when 'provoked.' Donald used various ways to kill his patients - poisoning them, turning off ventilators, giving them too much morphine, suffocating them with pillows, inserting a coat hanger into a catheter, or even giving them fluid tainted with hepatitis B or HIV. And his murder victims didn't just include people at the hospital, as he also murdered his lover Carl Hoeweler after he began to suspect he was cheating. He also poisoned one of his friend, Diana Alexander, by putting hepatitis in her coffee. 'She's supposed to've been friends of both Carl and I, and she did nothing but cause trouble for us,' he said of Diana. 'I guess I wanted to teach her a lesson. I was just mad, and I thought well...' Donald got away with killing patients for nearly two decades, evading police by moving to different hospitals when people began to get suspicious. But he was finally caught in 1987, after a patient named John Powell abruptly died in the hospital he worked at in Ohio. An autopsy showed large amounts of cyanide in his system, and investigators began to pick apart the hospital and its staff. They suspected Donald after noticing how often he had moved around and brought him in for questioning, where he confessed. Donald's lawyer asked for a plea bargain - if the prosecution took the death penalty off the table he would accept a sentence of life without parole and confess to all his murders - which was accepted by the prosecution. His exact number of killings is still unknown, but he has claimed to have killed 87 people in total - 37 of his victims have been confirmed. As per the plea bargain, he pleaded guilty to all 37 murders and was sentenced to life plus 20 years. He was admitted to Toledo Correctional Institution in October 1987. When asked if he regretted his killings, he told interviewers, 'Yes.' 'There are some of the mercy killings I feel if I had to do over again I would do. Some of them no,' he added. 'There's a lot of countries that believe in mercy killing, but by a qualified physician. I guess I'd still do the same thing over on some of the cases. 'I'm at peace with myself... I think once I can tell my story maybe I can help someone else out. 'They're maybe having the same kind of problems, and maybe they'll recognize and able to go out and maybe get the proper help. Then I'll feel like, well, maybe I've accomplished something.' In March 2017, after 30 years behind bars, Donald, then 64, was beaten to death by a fellow inmate.
Daily Mail
06-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Elderly patients 'murdered by serial killer nurse' who was dubbed the 'Angel of Death' may have died of natural causes, Court of Appeal told
New expert knowledge may mean the conviction of a Scots nurse for the murders of four elderly patients in Leeds was unsafe, the Court of Appeal has heard. Colin Campbell, formerly known as Colin Norris, was jailed for 30 years in 2008 for the murder of four pensioners and the attempted murder of another at hospitals in Leeds, Yorkshire, by injecting them with insulin. Prosecutors relied on a 'wholly circumstantial' case, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) said after referring the case to the Court of Appeal in London four years ago. Michael Mansfield KC, for Campbell, told a Court of Appeal that new developments in medical knowledge mean there is now more evidence to support the argument that the patients may have died from natural causes. Campbell, who was dubbed the Angel of Death, was convicted of murdering Doris Ludlam, 80, Bridget Bourke, 88, Irene Crookes, 79, and 86-year-old Ethel Hall. All four were elderly inpatients in 2002 on orthopaedic wards where Campbell worked and each died after developing severe, unexplained hypoglycemia. Campbell was alleged to have been present when or shortly before each of the patients suffered hypoglycemia and because of the rarity of such a cluster of cases happening within a short space of time prosecutors said the nurse must have been responsible. A total of 20 experts gave evidence during a five-month trial at Newcastle Crown Court after which Campbell was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 30 years. Campbell denied any wrongdoing and said he did nothing to cause hypoglycemia in any of the patients. He unsuccessfully appealed against his conviction in 2009 and applied to the CCRC in 2011. Mr Mansfield told the court on Tuesday: 'The nature of the prosecution case was that this appellant, Colin Campbell, was a nurse, recently qualified, who was at two teaching hospitals in Leeds - the General Infirmary and St James's. 'The prosecution case was that he injected the five individuals with insulin and as a result of that injection they all suffered a sudden and severe episode of hypoglycemia, namely, low blood sugar.' He said there was a consensus among the experts at trial that a sudden and severe onset of hypoglycemia was extremely rare. But new developments in medical knowledge mean there is now more evidence to support the argument that the patients may have died from natural causes, Mr Mansfield said. He told the court: 'The approach of the witnesses we intend to call on behalf of the appellant indicates an evolution of understanding, of knowledge, about hypoglycemia and about glucose generally. 'So we say there is now a range of possibilities relating to natural causes.' He also said that towards the end of Campbell's trial the jury had asked whether there were other cases of patients suffering from 'sudden and profound' hypoglycemia in any of the Leeds teaching hospitals after Campbell stopped working. Four such cases have since been identified, Mr Mansfield told the court, with the deaths recorded between January 2003 and August 2005, and that 'no-one is suggesting that these cases were anything other than natural causes'. The barrister also noted the 'remarkably similar' ages in all nine cases with the patients being between 78 and 93 years old but this 'was not discussed' at the trial. In referring the case, the CCRC said new expert evidence suggests the women may have died from natural causes and so there is a real possibility that the Court of Appeal may find the conviction unsafe. There have also been other developments in the understanding of hypoglycemia that cast doubt on the expert evidence given at trial, the CCRC said. James Curtis KC, for the Crown Prosecution Service, which is opposing the appeal, is due to give oral submissions at a later date. The appeal, before Lady Justice Macur, Sir Stephen Irwin and Mr Justice Picken, is expected to last three weeks.
