Number 8 Elizabeth Wettlaufer
Between 2007 and 2016, Canadian nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer killed and injured roughly 14 people
under her care. She first found employment at Caressant Care, an elderly home in Woodstock.
While there, she started injecting patients with fatal doses of insulin. Her first victim
was 84-year-old James Wilcox, a veteran of World War II and a father of six. During her time at
the home, Wettlaufer struggled with alcoholism and substance abuse. She killed at least six
more people at Caressant Care before she left the facility, in 2014. Some of her victims survived,
and Wettlaufer would later plead guilty to attempted murder in those cases. After Caressant
Care, she killed another patient and injured two others as she sporadically found work in Ontario.
In 2016, she entered a drug rehabilitation program at a psychiatric hospital in Toronto, where she
confessed her crimes to the staff. The police were notified and Wettlaufer was arrested. She was
subsequently sentenced to eight consecutive life terms. In her confession, the woman claimed that
she knew the difference between right and wrong but added that she had uncontrollable surges.
She said that God, the devil or some other unknown force or entity wanted her to kill. Before taking
a life, she could hear herself laughing and claimed that it felt “like a cackling from the pit
of hell”. The laughter, she added, wasn’t audible but rather a feeling in her chest. For her crimes,
Wettlaufer is regarded as being among the worst serial killers in the history of Canada.
Number 7 Niels Högel Judging from the total number of victims
he’s suspected to have claimed, former nurse Niels Högel is the most prolific serial killer
in the history of peacetime Germany. In 1999, he started work at a clinic in Oldenburg. It wasn’t
long before the facility started to notice a sharp increase in resuscitations and inexplicable
deaths, the vast majority of which had occurred while Högel was on duty. The nurse was constantly
present in emergency situations. In fact, it was Högel who’d injected the patients with ajmaline,
sotalol, calcium chloride or other substances. He’d done so, according to his prosecutors, out of
boredom and a desire to display his resuscitation skills. In 2002, he transferred to Delmenhorst
Clinic, again, emergencies relating to arrhythmia or sudden drops in blood pressure started to
spike. A police investigation was launched, in 2005, after staff caught Högel sabotaging
a patient’s injection with ajmaline. Högel was arrested and initially sentenced to life in prison
for the murder of 6 patients. The inquiry into his activity as a nurse continued and, in 2019,
he was convicted of a total of 85 murders. Further investigative efforts revealed 300 possible
victims, spanning a period of 15 years. Number 6 Kimberly Clark Saenz
Shortly after Kimberly Clark Saenz was hired as a nurse at a DaVita dialysis clinic, in Lufkin,
Texas, the facility saw a dramatic rise in patients becoming ill during treatment. A number
of them had gone into cardiac arrest, which is extremely rare for dialysis patients. In
April of 2008, the authorities were called to the clinic after two patients reported seeing Saenz
inject bleach into patients’ dialysis lines. Several syringes used by her then tested positive
for bleach. When questioned by the police, before the officers even mentioned the substance, Saenz
claimed she’d used bleach to clean dialysis lines. Further research revealed that, in April, she’d
been present at every incident in which a patient had died. Moreover, her hard drive revealed Google
searches concerning the lethality of bleach. As part of the investigation, an analytical chemist
proved that the bleach had entered the patients’ bloodstream, causing red blood cells to explode
and release iron which sent them into cardiac arrest. Saenz was sentenced to life plus 60 years
for killing 5 patients and injuring 5 others, although she was believed to have been involved in
many other incidents. Number 5 Petr Zelenka
From May to December of 2006, Czech nurse Petr Zelenka killed 7 people under his care and
attempted to murder 10 others. At the time, he was working at a clinic in Havlíčkův Brod, about 60
miles southeast of Prague. Zelenka administered lethal injections in which he used heparin,
a blood-thinning drug that caused massive internal bleeding. The main theory is that he killed his
patients as a twisted test for doctors at the clinic, whom he didn’t believe were proficient
enough to discover his crimes. He confessed upon his arrest and, in February of 2008,
was sentenced to life in prison. Number 4 Kristen Gilbert
Massachusetts nurse Kristen Gilbert was convicted, in 2001, for the murder of 4 patients at the
Veterans Affairs Medical Center, in Northampton. She’d started working at the center in the late
1980s. Before long, other nurses jokingly called her the “Angel of Death” due to the high number of
deaths that occurred on her watch. Gilbert would inject her patients’ intravenous bags with massive
amounts of epinephrine and, once they went into cardiac arrest, she’d attempt to resuscitate them.
She’d create these crisis situations to display her perceived proficiency as a nurse but also
to attract the attention of then-boyfriend Justin Perrault. He was a Veterans Affairs
police officer and hospital procedure dictated he had to be present in case of an emergency.
In the midst of mounting suspicions, Gilbert left the hospital in 1996. Afterwards, she checked
herself into psychiatric hospitals, at least 7 times. In 1998, she called in a bomb threat
at the VA medical center, in retaliation to her former colleagues and Perrault. She was arrested
at which point her past crimes were investigated by the police. Perrault told the authorities that
Gilbert had confessed a murder to him during a call from the psychiatric ward. VA Staff linked
Gilbert to over 300 medical emergencies and up to 350 deaths. She was only convicted for 4 of them
and ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment. Number 3 Edson Izidoro Guimarães
In 1999, a hospital porter at the Salgado Filho Hospital, in Rio de Janeiro, witnessed
nurse Edson Izidoro Guimarães as he fatally injected a patient with potassium chloride.
Guimarães was arrested and several suspicious deaths were subsequently linked to him. The man,
who’d come to be known as the “Nurse of Death” confessed to five murders. He claimed that he’d
chosen patients, mainly those suffering from AIDS, who were in irreversible comas.
Guimarães said that he was at peace with the killings, as he’d spared the patients and their
families of prolonged pain. He was convicted of 4 killings and sentenced to 76 years in prison.
It’s believed that, from January the 1st to May the 4th of 1999, he was responsible for up to
131 victims. Rio’s secretary for public security suspected that money may have also been a motive
for Guimarães’ crimes as, every time he reported a death to a funeral home, he was paid $60.
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Number 2 Jane Toppan
American serial killer Jane Toppan, active from 1885 to 1901, in Massachusetts, was born Honora
Kelley, into a nightmarish household. Her father was an abusive alcoholic who, according to rumors
of his mental instability, ultimately sewed his own eyelids shut while working as a tailor. Kelley
spent a few years in an orphanage before being placed, as an indentured servant, in the home of
the Toppan family. She took the name Jane Toppan and began training as a nurse. She would come to
be known as “Jolly Jane” because of her positive disposition. Beyond the façade, however, lay a
disturbed serial killer. Toppan experimented with morphine and atropine on sick, elderly patients.
She altered their prescribed doses and would get a sexual thrill from seeing them drift in and out
of consciousness. Toppan fondled her victims as they died and, according to one report,
looked into their eyes trying to understand the inner-workings of their souls.
Her killing spree continued after she became a private nurse. In 1901, she moved in to take
care of the elderly Alden Davis after the passing of his wife. Unbeknownst to him,
it was Toppan who had killed her. Within weeks she fatally poisoned Davis, his adult daughters
and his sister. She was detected following a toxicology report from her latest victim.
Toppan confessed to 31 murders but was concretely linked to 12. At one point,
Toppan was quoted as saying that she wanted “to have killed more people—helpless people—than any
other man or woman who ever lived". Number 1 Charles Cullen
During his 16-year activity as a nurse in New Jersey, Charles Cullen killed numerous patients,
mainly by injecting them with insulin, digoxin and epinephrine. Cullen dropped
out of high school and, after joining the Navy, passed the rigorous psychological exams
necessary for working on a submarine. While he was serving aboard the Woodrow Wilson,
an officer found him at the missile controls wearing scrubs, gloves and a surgical mask.
Cullen gave no reason for his behavior. Ever since he was a child, Cullen had fantasized
about death and suicide. During his time in the Navy he’d be admitted to psychiatric wards,
on several occasions, for trying to take his own life. After he was medically discharged,
he started working as a nurse and murdered his first victims, in 1988, at St. Barnabas. Due
to a national nurse shortage, Cullen was able to move between hospitals, whenever suspicions arose.
He was detected in 2003, while working at the Somerset Medical Center. The police kept him under
surveillance and, through a fellow nurse wearing a wire, found enough evidence for a probable cause
arrest. Cullen agreed to cooperate with the authorities, in exchange for them not pursuing
the death penalty. He confessed to killing 40 people under his care and was given 18 consecutive
life sentences. Cullen claimed that he’d overdosed terminal patients to spare them from going into
cardiac or respiratory arrest. Yet, not all of his victims were terminal and many were on the mend.
He also said that he’d lived his life “in a fog” and blacked out during most of the murders.
Experts who’ve investigated his activity believe that he may have been responsible
for 400 deaths, making him the most prolific serial killer in recorded history.
Thanks for watching! In a medical emergency, would you accept treatment from a nurse who’s
been suspected of killing their patients? Let us know in the comments section below!