Killer Nurse Gets Life Term; Victims’ Families Sound Off
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SOMERVILLE, N.J. — A nurse who killed at least 29 patients was sent to prison for the rest of his life Thursday after his victims’ families angrily branded him “vermin,” “garbage” and a “monster” who ruined lives and shattered their faith in the medical profession.
Charles Cullen, one of the most prolific killers the U.S. healthcare industry has ever seen, escaped the death penalty after making a deal with prosecutors to tell them which patients he killed with hard-to-detect drug injections.
He received 11 consecutive life terms at a tense, sometimes turbulent hearing in which his victims’ families confronted him for the first time. Wearing a bulletproof vest under his sweater, Cullen sat quietly as victims’ relatives yelled at him from a lectern about 15 feet away.
Cullen, 46, pleaded guilty to murdering 22 people in New Jersey. He will be sentenced later for seven murders in Pennsylvania. He has claimed to have killed as many as 40 people over 16 years.
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