How was serial killer Charles Cullen finally arrested?
After being released in select theaters on Oct. 19, The Good Nurse finally arrives on Netflix on Oct. 26 and subscribers are ready to see the thriller film for themselves. The movie is based on a true story and follows Amy Loughren, the heroic nurse who helped take down and put behind bars one of the most prolific serial killers in America, Charles Cullen.
Charles Cullen had a troubled childhood. After his parents’ deaths, he suffered from depression and attempted suicide many times. Later, he served in the Navy for a short stint before being medically discharged for undisclosed reasons. He then enrolled at Mountainside Hospital’s nursing school, where he was named president of his class. After graduating in 1986, he began working in the burn unit at Saint Barnabas Medical Center, which is where his first murder occurred. Around this time, Charles met and married Adrianne Baum and they had two daughters together. They had a turbulent relationship which ultimately ended in divorce in 1993.
After Charles left Saint Barnabas, he went on to work at numerous hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where he committed many more crimes. His modus operandi of killing patients was by injecting their IV bags with lethal doses of insulin and heart medications. This killing spree went on until 2003.
So, how was Charles finally caught? Where is he now? We answered these questions below!
How was Charles Cullen finally caught?
Charles was arrested on Dec. 12, 2003, while at a restaurant with Amy Loughren. According to People, Amy joined the police in taking down Charles after she was shown a record of the names and dosing information of drugs Charles had withdrawn while working in the intensive care unit. Charles would look into the records of patients he wasn’t treating and give them drugs they weren’t prescribed, ultimately leading to their deaths. Based on the records, Amy knew something was wrong and believed it was her job to help stop Charles from hurting or killing more people.
She began to work closely with the police on the case. On the day of Charles’s arrest, Amy was assigned by the police to meet with Charles at a restaurant while wearing a wire to record their conversation. The police were waiting outside in the parking lot, listening to the conversation. The plan was to get Charles to confess to his crimes so the police could arrest him. Although Charles didn’t admit to his crimes during the conversation, there was still enough evidence for a probable cause of arrest.
Once Charles was arrested and brought to the police station, Amy eventually got him to admit to the many murders he had committed. Charles was found responsible for the murders of 29 defenseless hospital patients, although he’s believed to have killed several hundred more people over the span of 16 years.
During his confession, he admitted to murdering as many as 40 patients, but only 29 murders could be confirmed. For the 29 murders, Charles was sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences in 2006. However, he’s currently serving 18 consecutive life sentences in New Jersey State Prison.
Check out The Good Nurse coming to Netflix on Oct. 26!