Angels of Death. Emily Webb
County Prosecutor Wayne J Forrest said the data showed that Cullen dispensed digoxin at an ‘abnormally high rate’ while he was employed at Somerset.
The Morning Call newspaper reported on 24 January 2004 that the drug-dispensing machine logs told the Somerset prosecutor’s office Cullen ordered digoxin for one patient who was not prescribed the drug, took it and then cancelled the order ‘in an attempt to conceal his theft of the drug’.
To dodge the death penalty, Cullen agreed to plead guilty and help authorities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania identify all his victims. Investigators say they will never know how many people Cullen really killed. His memory was sketchy and some hospitals he had worked at had destroyed records that may have revealed more victims. By Cullen’s own recollection he killed at least 40 people.
His youngest known victim was murdered at Somerset in May 2003 – 21-year-old Michael Strenko. Michael, a star athlete, had a blood disorder and was in hospital for a spleen transplant. Though it was a serious procedure, Michael was expected to make a full recovery.
A heart-wrenching memorial website made by Michael’s parents shows baby pictures and the promising life of the young man who was cruelly killed by Cullen in a place where he should have been safe.
Michael’s father, Thomas Strenko, was one of the many loved ones of Cullen’s victims who spoke at his sentencing hearing on 2 March 2006.
‘For someone to be able to hop from hospital to hospital with these problems for over 15 years defies trust,’ Mr Strenko said. ‘We are outraged that no one stopped Charles Cullen from murdering my son.’
In a disturbing and deeply distressing scene for the victims’ families, Cullen broke his silence of the previous years and started rambling and repeating over and over again, ‘Your honour, you need to step down.’ He kept chanting the words, despite the judge telling him to stop. Even a white cloth gag with duct tape fixed over it failed to stop Cullen shouting. He kept going for 30 minutes while families were reading out their impact statements.
In another bizarre twist that threatened the justice process, Cullen, who was responsible for taking the lives of so many people, then decided to try to save one.
In August 2006, he donated one of his kidneys to Ernie Peckham, the brother of a former girlfriend. Peckham’s mother wrote to the serial killer, begging him to help her son. Cullen had once lived with Peckham’s sister Michelle, and he was determined to be a match to donate. Cullen’s lawyer, Johnnie Mask, said the kidney donation was a way for his client to ‘atone for his sins’.
So determined was Cullen to donate his kidney that he threatened to stop cooperating with the detectives who were investigating his crimes that stretched back to the 1980s. The families of Cullen’s victims saw this as blackmail and cowardice on the part of the killer who said he would not appear at his sentencing if he were denied the right to surgery to help Mr Peckham. After a series of meetings, New Jersey Attorney General Peter C Harvey agreed to let Cullen have the surgery but only after he appeared at his sentencing hearing.
‘We are victim-focused and have factored in the feelings of the families of the murder victims who are angry and still grieving,’ Mr Harvey said. ‘They [the families] want the court and Cullen to know how much they hurt.’
At the sentencing hearing, as well as interrupting the judge with his rambling, Cullen would not look at any of the families of his victims, as they tearfully and angrily spoke of their pain at losing their loved ones.
‘Charles, why don’t you look up at us?’ yelled one mother as she clutched a photo of her son in his coffin.
‘I want you to die tomorrow so you can meet God tomorrow because you know what? There ain’t no doors out of hell, babe,’ called the granddaughter of victim Mary Natoli. Deborah Yetter-Medina labelled Cullen ‘Satan’s Son’ for murdering her grandmother, who had dementia and was being treated for anxiety when she was killed.
Cullen was sentenced to 11 life sentences without parole for his ‘cowardly crimes’. ‘Satan’s Son’ will live the rest of his lives behind bars.
In 2009, he received his twelfth life sentence for the 1998 murder of retired Pennsylvania steelworker Ottomar Schramm, who Cullen killed with an overdose of digoxin at Easton Hospital.
Charles Cullen’s crimes led people to question how he could have worked at so many hospitals. Cullen was never given a bad employment reference, nor was information shared that he was under investigation or fired from different hospitals.
A major flaw in the system of healthcare recruitment was revealed during the investigation. There were not adequate and legal ways for employment checks to be undertaken by healthcare facilities into the people they hired. Nor were there reporting requirements or legal protections for employers who suspected a healthcare worker of negligence, misconduct or worse. If any of the places that employed Cullen had the legal ability to check with his former workplaces then they would have discovered that he had been under investigation or had been fired, which could have stopped his murder spree.
In New Jersey, the Health Care Professional Responsibility and Reporting Enhancement Act (also known as the Nurse Cullen Act) became law in 2005 as a direct response to the serial killings.
The act requires healthcare professionals and bodies to notify the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs if they have information about incompetence, impairment or negligence of a healthcare worker. The act also means criminal background checks of healthcare workers seeking licence to work in New Jersey is mandatory.
There has been criticism of this act among healthcare professionals in New Jersey who say it is too extreme and people’s careers can be ruined by a legitimate mistake or a simple lack of experience.
In 2013, the American television program 60 Minutes secured an exclusive interview with Cullen. It was the first time the award-winning news show had ever interviewed a serial killer and veteran correspondent Steve Kroft interviewed Cullen, who appeared nervous and pathetic behind a glass barrier.
Recalling the interview for the program’s online extra ‘Correspondent Candids’, Mr Kroft said he wasn’t sure Cullen would even answer any of his questions.
Producer Graham Messick said Cullen was the ‘ultimate insider threat’.
‘It takes a really subversive, devious mind to sort of break all the rules and actually use that to commit the worst crime of all, to kill people,’ Mr Messick recalled.
During the interview, Mr Kroft asked Cullen if he got pleasure from killing people.
‘No, I thought that people weren’t suffering anymore. So, in a sense, I thought I was helping,’ Cullen answered.
Mr Kroft said that many of the victims were expected to recover and were not in pain and Cullen replied, ‘You know, again, you know, I mean, my goal here isn’t to justify … You know what I did there is no justification. I just think that the only thing I can say is that I felt overwhelmed at the time.’
Somerset nurse and Cullen’s closest friend at the hospital, Amy Ridgeway was also interviewed for the program and told Mr Kroft that at first she couldn’t believe Cullen had done anything.
‘He was always early, always on time, crisp. Very serious about getting to work,’ Ms Ridgeway recalled.
She said she had considered him a good nurse but when she was confronted by the investigators about the evidence, his real employment history and the damning drug printouts that showed Cullen had been taking deadly drugs from the computerised dispenser, the truth could not be denied.
It was at this point a devastated Ms Ridgeway knew her friend was killing people and she offered to help the police. Ms Ridgeway was crucial in helping police to obtain a confession from Cullen. She recalled that she lied to Cullen and told him that investigators were also looking at her as a suspect in the killings.
‘What did you say to get him to confess?’ Mr Kroft asked Ms Ridgeway.
‘I