Based on the book by journalist Charles Graeber, the drama stars Eddie Redmayne as Charles Cullen and Jessica Chastain as his co-worker Amy Loughren.
Following the success of the controversial Netflix series,“ Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”, exposing the murders of the Milwaukee Butcher , one of the most savage serial killers in our recent history, Netflix has dramatized the story of serial killer Charles Cullen, who was convicted of murdering dozens of patients under his care, with the new movie “The Angel of Death.” Based of one of the books of Charles Graeber , the drama stars Eddie Redmayne as Charles Cullen and Jessica Chastain as his co-worker Amy Loughren. But what is the true story of this relentless killer?
The true story of Charles Cullen
Charles Cullen has admitted to committing between 30 and 40 murders, but the real number is believed to be closer to 400, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in US history.
Born in New Jersey in 1960, Charles Cullen was the youngest of eight children. His father was a bus driver who died before Cullen was a year old and his mother, a homemaker, died in a car accident when he was a teenager. After a tough youth, he spent a brief stint in the Navy and then graduated from nursing school in 1987.
He met his wife, Adrianne Baum, working at Roy Rogers, one of the few part-time jobs he held to pay his tuition. Cullen proposed to her six months after her first date and they were married the week after he graduated from nursing school.
In 1993, Cullen divorced his wife, with whom he shared two daughters, at which point he is believed to have started killing his first victims. His crimes were committed over a period of 16 years, before he was discovered in 2003. According to reports, he had been working in some hospitals and nursing homes during his career and was investigated for malpractice on several occasions. . He was accused of breaking into patients’ rooms and giving them injections when he was not the assigned nurse and stealing medicine.
According to investigations, Cullen drugged his victims with a substance called digoxin, a drug generally used to treat heart failure that is fatal in high doses. He also injected lethal doses of insulin into patients, among other drugs.
Charles Cullen.
In 2003, what he had done was finally discovered. While working at his last hospital, he befriended another nurse named Amy Loughren. But, after the sudden deaths of two patients, detectives began to suspect Cullen. At the time, a patient known as Florian Gall was at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville , New Jersey . There, Gall suffered a sudden heart attack and died despite previously showing signs of improvement . After an investigation into the mysterious death, it was discovered that Gall had been given a lethal dose of digoxin.
“He stole a lot of deadly drugs that you wouldn’t use unless you wanted to kill someone,” nurse Amy Loughren told CBS at the time. For her part, Loughren began collecting evidence at the hospital and even admitted trying to manipulate the killer into confessing . Likewise, in a recent interview with the media “ Digital SpyLoughren revealed that, upon seeing the film, she was finally able to “feel proud” of what she did. “I couldn’t forgive myself for a long time, and the fact that he was hurting people right in front of me. I just couldn’t let it go,” she explained, to which she added, “And as much of a spiritual journey as I’ve been on these 20 years to put that behind me and give it some kind of reasoning. He still couldn’t stop being who he was 20 years ago. ”.
Cullen was eventually arrested in December 2003 and confessed to investigators that he was administering these overdoses to “put sick patients out of their misery.” He has admitted to committing between 30 and 40 murders , but the true number is believed to be closer to 400 , which would make him the most prolific serial killer in US history . In 2006, Cullen was sentenced to 11 life terms and is currently serving time in New Jersey State Prison .
