Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Angel of Death” Richard Angelo

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

In the 1980s, Richard Angelo was a Long Island native working as a nurse in the ICU. He’d found his passion — emergency medicine — in college. But somewhere along the way, his drive to be a hero took an ugly detour. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Today Vanessa is joined by Haesue Jo, Licensed Therapist & Head of Clinical Operations at BetterHelp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, medical assault, and animal cruelty. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. When Dharalam Ocush woke up, the first night of dawn was just beginning to filter into his room. It took him a moment to remember where he was, an ICU in New York, thousands of miles from home. He was in his mid-70s, so he knew the flight from Yugoslavia, would be tough, but he never imagined that he'd end up with chest pain severe enough to land him in the hospital. He looked when a figure walked in. A stocky-bearded man in his mid-20s. Jeralamo thought

he looked more like a lumberjack than a nurse, but the scrub said otherwise. The nurse asked him how he was feeling, and Jeralamo responded, not bad. It was a lie. He still felt terrible, but all he wanted was to be discharged so that he could fly home. The nurse pulled a syringe out of his pocket and deposited into Gerolomo's IV. With a smile, he said, Now you're going to feel much better. Something about the nurse's expression made Gerolamo uneasy. He was about to ask what he'd just been given,

but the nurse was already leaving the room. A chill seemed to spread throughout Gerolimo. radiating from his arms into his spine, his heart, and his chest. He tried taking a deep breath, but he couldn't. His lungs felt paralyzed. His ribcage heavy. He struggled to move his arm, but all the strength had been sapped from his body. With a jolt of horror, he realized he couldn't move at all.

Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original. from Parkast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, we're discussing Richard Angelo, whose crimes in the 1980s earned him the nickname, The Angel of Death. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. During the time, Angelo was employed as an ICU nurse at a Long Island hospital, patients under his care began dying in large, numbers. A polite, highly qualified young man with a reputation for being hardworking and good in a

crisis, Angelo was able to hide his crimes from co-workers for months. But for many of his vulnerable patients, he was a grim reaper in scrubs. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the lonely hearts killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally everything, website design, marketing, shipping, and more. So start your business today with the best partner, Shopify, and get that.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash killers. That's Shopify.com slash killers. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting. When detectives looked and searched to find any kind of evidence to find the person they were looking for, like Jack the Ripper, the Golden State Killer, the Unit Bomber. It's tedious work to find what you're looking for. So, if you're hiring, I've got news for you.

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or capture sun-kissed bliss with limonada gelada, where zesty Brazilian lemonade accord meets coconut milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection only at Sephora. Richard Angelo was what one might consider an average man who wanted to be seen as a hero. Instead, he became a villain. His horrific attacks on vulnerable patients seemed to be motivated by a lack of self-confidence and a desire to prove himself. This inner turmoil had its roots in his childhood, idyllic though it seemed.

Born in the summer of 1962, Angelo grew up in Lindenhurst, a middle-class suburb on the south shore of Long Island, New York. His parents, Joseph and Alice, built their dream house there, and their son grew up wanting for nothing. But it seemed like that privilege came with incredibly high standards. Joseph and Alice were both college-educated and had successful careers working in schools, Alice as a teacher and Joseph as a guidance counselor. They were also Eucharistic ministers at their local Roman Catholic Church and pillars of their community.

From a young age, Angelo knew he was expected to follow suit. He worked hard in school and showed a particular aptitude for science. He was also an altar boy at his family's church, and no matter the weather or the activity, his parents made sure he was always well-dressed. But that neat exterior may have concealed a deep loneliness. Angelo didn't have a lot of friends' age. According to neighbors, instead of running around with other kids, he spent his free time at home, helping his father mowl the lawn and clean the gutters. When he was around nine, he tried making friends by taking part in Little League baseball. but he didn't seem to have much athletic ability and struggled to keep up with his teammates.

He was also overweight. Vanessa is going to take over in the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Multiple studies have found that children struggling with their weight are more susceptible to bullying and ostracization from their peers. A 2021 study in the journal PLOS 1 also suggested,

that these kids are often bullied by their supposed friends. Kayla De La Hay, a University of Southern California behavioral scientist who led the study, describes this as, quote, unreciprication of friendships. This type of rejection could make a kid even more withdrawn. At an Angela's case, it made him turn inward, looking to his relatives for the love and acceptance he wasn't getting from his peers. And they seemed happy to give it to him.

His entire family doaded on him. he was there pride and joy. According to one source, his mother spent hours cooking special foods. His father took him on regular hunting and fishing trips, and his grandmother prepared a smorgasbord of homemade Italian pastries whenever he visited. Then there was his uncle, Mark Vincent Angelo, a Franciscan monk who lived in Pennsylvania but visited often. Despite their 40-year age difference,

neighbors described Uncle Mark as Angelo's best friend. Thanks to his uncle's influence, Angel had a deep, genuine belief in God and never missed a Sunday Mass. But he was also interested in other subjects like biology, so much so that in the sixth grade, Angelo dissected a frog in front of his class. This wasn't even on the curriculum. It was a project Angelo came up with himself, along with a classmate. Though he was only 11 at the time, Angelo was fascinated by anatomy, how flesh, bones,

and organs worked together in harmony to create a living creature. creature. Soon, he decided on a career path. He was going to be a doctor. When Angelo began high school, that goal drove him to double down on his studies. He knew he'd need excellent grades to get into medical school. So he kept his head down, absorbed in his own world as his peers began to date, drink, and party. Now a teenager, Angela's lack of social life was more glaring than ever. He rarely spent time with anyone outside of his family and didn't seem interested in dating. His diligence and devotion to his parents,

which had once been endearing, now felt strange to some people. Maybe Angelo considered this isolation a sacrifice he'd made willingly. It was a choice so that he could commit himself to his studies. That choice didn't pay off. Despite how studious he was and how much his parents pushed him,

Angelo didn't make it into any pre-med programs. It was a result that, must have filled him with shame and a sense of inadequacy. Instead of heading off to the medical program of his dreams, Angelo enrolled at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1980. The campus was just a 30-minute drive from home. There, Angelo pivoted to study Earth science. Despite the change in emphasis,

Angelo was just as hardworking as he'd always been and made the honor role. His parents hadn't raised him to be any different. But by the end of his first year, he discovered that his real passion lay elsewhere. Angelo joined the Volunteer Ambulance Corps, a student-run rescue squad based out of the campus infirmary. From his very first shift, Angelo knew he'd found his calling.

He thrived in this high-pressure environment and discovered that he had a knack for keeping people calm when they were in distress. All of his usual hang-ups, his shyness, and his lack of social skills faded away when he was on call. In his sophomore year, Angelo spent as much time as he could volunteering. He was always available and quickly became the go-to replacement if someone else was sick. For the first time in his life, Angelo began to slack off from his studies.

Earth science just didn't hold his attention anymore, not when he could be out responding to emergency calls. And at the end of his second year, he finally plucked up the courage to tell his parents that he wanted to drop out of Stony Brook. At first, Joseph and Alice were alarmed, as they saw it, a college education was essential. But when Angelo told them he wanted to focus on emergency medicine and nursing, they were on board. They'd never quite let go of the medical school dream and hoped this would be a step in the right direction. So in 1982, Angelo switched to a nursing course at New York State University at Farmingdale. As a bonus, the college was closer to home, just five miles from his parents' house. they were probably delighted.

In February of 1983, a couple of semesters into his nursing degree, Angelo joined another volunteer rescue squad in his hometown of Lindenhurst. He took his paramedic duties seriously, so much so that he never went anywhere without his pager. If he got called in, he'd drop everything, no matter what. According to those who knew him, Angelo never talked about anything but his rescue work. Along with nursing school, it was his entire identity.

His topics of conversation were likely limited, because as far as we can tell, Angelo still didn't have much of a personal life. There's no evidence that he had any friends or romantic partners. Despite finding his professional niche, he seemed isolated. Still, Angelo had rescue work to occupy him. He especially loved performing drills, where he and his fellow volunteers practiced life-saving techniques under mock emergency scenarios. He took pleasure in applying makeup on faux accident victim. making them look like they were seriously wounded.

He was so enthusiastic that his bosses put him in charge of designing disaster drills. This meant creating detailed, sometimes elaborate imaginary emergencies. On one occasion, Angela crafted a scene where a baby had become wedged under the front seat of a car. It wasn't sadism that drove Angelo's vivid imagination. Rather, it was the fantasy of being able to swoop in and save the day. There was a gaping hole in Angel's life where friendship, romance and socializing should have been. And it seems that in lieu of these things,

he sought validation from the feeling that he was rescuing others. Typically, those who have a savior complex are driven to spend time and energy helping people. Wanting to save others is certainly a positive instinct, but this complex can also lead to burnout, anxiety, and other poor mental health outcomes. In Angelo's case, it seems like his need to save others

came from a deeper desire to create meaning in his life. life. And this may be the reason he became a health care professional. He wanted a career that would give him constant access to people, patients who depended on him. No matter how much he wanted to, Angela couldn't seem to engage with others on an everyday human level. But when they needed his help, when they were at his mercy, it was an entirely different story. Coming up, Angelo's twisted savior complex begins to escalate. Thanks to our sponsor, BetterHelp. Today I'm sitting down with Hesu Joe, licensed therapist and head of clinical operations at BetterHelp, to discuss mental health, the human experience, and my journey with therapy.

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Learn more and save 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com slash parcast. That's betterhelp.com slash parcast. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about zebbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zetbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection.

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degree he'd tried first, he still wasn't a star student. By the end of 1983, the 21-year-old was academically average at best. Despite his enthusiasm for the subject, the chairman of the college nursing department considered him a B-minus student not outstanding in any way. When it came to his social life, things weren't much better. Angelo was one of just four or five male students in his nursing program. But even among that group, he didn't fit in. Where the other male students took this as an opportunity to flirt, Angelo sat alone in the back of the classroom. Angelo was extremely career-oriented. As far as we know, he attended class, worked his volunteer shifts, and spent the rest of his time at home with his parents.

And soon, his years of hard work paid off. In the summer of 1985, 23-year-old Angelo graduated with an associate degree in nursing. Not long after, he found a job at the best of the middle of his job. burn unit of Nassau County Medical Center, 12 miles from his hometown. At last, after years of volunteer work, he was getting paid to do what he loved. And yet, in his role at the hospital, Angelo faded into the background. As a nurse, he was competent, but unremarkable. Perhaps that invisibility was finally starting to bother him, because once he realized that he wasn't getting the validation he craved at work, Angelo started calling in sick, a lot.

So much so that he got into trouble with his supervisors. When asked to explain his callouts, Angelo claimed that his father, Joseph, was in poor health. It's unclear if this was true. But eventually, his absences became so chronic that he was going to be disciplined. Before that could happen, Angelo abruptly quit. He told colleagues that he was moving to Florida to be closer to his parents and said that he'd found a new job at a hospital there. As far as we can tell, none of this was true.

Joseph and Alice were considering retiring to Florida but hadn't moved yet. Angelo was likely lying to save face and his pride. Rather than endured disciplinary action, he pulled a good old, you can't fire me, I quit. In May of 1986, just a month after leaving his job at Nassau County, Angelo found a new position at Brunswick Hospital Center in Amityville, just 10 miles east. But a few months after starting, there was a big shift in Angelo's home line.

His parents told him they were finally taking the plunge and relocating to Florida for their golden years. That fall, they put their beloved home up for sale. Joseph and Alice offered to give the house to Angelo, but he told them he couldn't take care of it by himself. Instead, he moved into an apartment about a mile away. He was on his own. Angelo's parents had always been his linchpin. They, along with his uncle Mark, had been his best friends growing up. He lived his entire life being no farther than 30 minutes away from them.

Now he felt adrift. And it showed. Angelo started neglecting personal grooming. Before, thanks to his mother's influence, he'd always prided himself on being well turned out. But now he grew a full beard and started wearing baggy clothes and an army fatigue jacket. Some people may start dressing differently when they're on their own for the first time, as they figure out their own tastes. At 24, Angelo was finally having that experience.

But this dramatic change in his appearance could have been a red flag for things to come. In some cases, a sudden rapid decline in grooming habits or personal hygiene can be an early sign of mental illness or an indication that a condition like depression is getting worse. But we can't draw any firm conclusions about Angelo's mental health because there aren't many details about his life during this period of time. We do know that in January of 1987, just two months after his parents left for Florida, Angela resigned from his job at Brunswick. It seems that being on his own was simply too much for Angelo to handle.

He called his parents in Florida and told them he was moving there to live with them. Angel's escape to the Sunshine State was short-lived. We don't know what happened while he was there, but perhaps he finally realized that he couldn't cling to his parents forever. Maybe they even told him as much. In any case, by the spring, Angelo was back in New York. In April, he took a nursing job at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip, Long Island. He was assigned to the night shift in the intensive care unit, working from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

It suited him perfectly. Those hours were busy, and there were very few other staff members around. He could lose himself in his work without having to socialize. Angelo finally found a job where he truly excelled. He liked helping others and thrived knowing that he was saving lives. Senior staff at the hospital viewed him as someone who easily kept a calm head in a crisis and could be trusted with seriously ill patients. Within six months, management promoted him to assistant charge nurse,

which meant he was responsible for coordinating and assigning work to other staff. Despite his prior reluctance for social interaction, He seemed to have no problem managing people. To colleagues and patients, Angelo was a polite, highly competent nurse. But he still struggled with insecurity, which was possibly due to his upbringing. Though Angelo's parents were loving, they also stressed the importance of accomplishment, and there seemed to be pressure on Angelo to succeed. Children who grow up in this kind of home may be more likely to develop imposter syndrome,

which involves chronic feelings of inadequacy and incompetence that don't go away, despite success. Imposter syndrome isn't an official diagnosis, but it's essentially a version of self-doubt. Angelo may well have had imposter syndrome, though he'd graduated from nursing school and was now doing well in a respectable job, he still felt a deep and relentless need to prove himself. Angelo kept all of this hidden from his coworkers, but outside of the hospital, his neuroses were starting to manifest in disturbing ways. One morning in the summer of 1987, 24-year-old Angelo was taking a walk in the park near his

apartment when he saw a field mouse dart through the grass. He caught the animal by its tail, and as he looked down at the tiny creature, he had an idea. Angelo took the mouse home, a plan coming into focus as he walked. After stashing the rodent inside a shoe box, he went to retrieve a syringe he'd brought home from work. was full of a muscle relaxant, Pavalon. Normally used to sedate patients during surgery, it's also a drug used during lethal injections. It causes paralysis in multiple muscle groups, including the ones that control breathing.

Needless to say, this is not a drug, Angelo should have had access to at his house. But given how sparsely snapped the night shift was and the lack of accounting protocol at the time, it was probably easy for Angelo to slip the syringe into his pocket without anyone noticing. And now he had a reason to use it. Angelo injected the mouse with a few drops of the drug and watched in fascination as it stopped breathing and died. Angelo looked down at the dead creature in fascination. Seconds ago, he'd held life in his hand, and now death. Throughout that summer, Angelo injected dozens of mice with varying amounts of Pavlon. According to Angelo, he wasn't trying to be cruel. He saw all of this as an experiment to see how the mice reacted

to the drug. It's not clear what hypothesis he was testing. This wasn't a scientific exercise. It was more of a practice run. By injecting more and more field mice with a powerful paralytic, Angelo seemed to be building himself up for larger prey. Up next, the mysterious deaths at Good Samaritan begin. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual.

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He'd just been promoted in the ICU and had finally achieved the kind of success that his beloved parents had always wanted for him. But despite all the things that were going right in his life, Angela wasn't happy. The sense of inadequacy that had plagued him since childhood was still there. Now that he finally had a respect of both colleagues and patients, he was compelled to prove himself more intensely than ever. It seemed like doing good things wasn't enough for Angelo. He wanted to do great things, but he was to do great things, like actively save another person's life.

And thanks to his Pavalon experiments with field mice, he knew he didn't have to wait around for an opportunity. In early September, 75-year-old John Stanley Fisher was admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital with symptoms of a stroke. Within a few days of care in the ICU, his condition stabilized. Doctors in the department were optimistic

that Fisher could be discharged soon. But four days later, Angela went in, into Fisher's room. It was early in the morning and he was alone. He closed the door quietly behind him. Taking a deep breath, he turned to face the elderly man. Fisher was fast asleep and didn't stir as Angelo approached. This came as a relief, Angelo wasn't a people person, and it would be easier if Fisher never realized what was happening. Angelo reached into the pocket of his scrubs and grabbed a syringe filled with Pavlon. He injected the needle into Fisher's IV and pushed the plunger. According to Angelo, he wanted to induce cardiac arrest or some other medical

emergency. Then he planned to revive Fisher. He claimed that his goal wasn't to kill, but to create a situation where he could save. But if this really was his plan, it fell apart almost immediately. At 2.45 a.m., Fisher's heart rate monitor began blaring. As soon as it did, medical staff, including Angelo, rushed into Fisher's room. But despite their attempts to save him, Fisher died within the hour. Richard Angelo had killed a patient. If this was a mistake, one might think Angela would have been horrified and guilt-written. In his desperation to be a hero, he'd become a villain.

But it doesn't seem like Fisher's death put him off his plan. He waited just over a week before trying again. 74-year-old Milton Pulteney was recovering from gallbladder surgery in the ICU. As Pultene slept, Angelo slipped into his room and injected Pavalon into his IV. Pulteney went into cardiac arrest shortly after. Though we don't have a moment-by-moment account of what happened, it's easy to imagine that Pulteney's room was flooded with nurses. and doctors trying to save his life.

Amidst the chaos, Angelo didn't rise to the occasion with a miracle cure. Instead, he did what he'd always done at the past. He blended into the background. Holtney died minutes after his heart attack. At this point, it seems clear that Angelo was either wildly overestimating his abilities to resuscitate patients, or deep down, he wanted to kill. At the very least, he should have known he was playing Russian roulette with people's lives. Because none of this was random.

He made a point of selecting vulnerable patients. They were elderly and already severely ill. Therefore, their deaths didn't come as a surprise to anyone else in the ward. Over the next six weeks, a total of 25 patients died during Angelo's shifts. However, these deaths were never proven to be his work. People pass away in the ICU all the time. And most of these patients seem to die of natural causes. If an autopsy was performed, the coroner would have no reason to check for Pavillon in their systems.

Here, we're going to discuss only the crimes we know Angelo committed, but the true count may be much higher. In late September, 57-year-old Anthony Green was admitted to the hospital to be treated for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It's a common inflammatory condition of the lungs which causes breathlessness and wheezing. Initially, he seemed to be improving. But around 4 a.m. one morning, Angelo injected him with Pavlon, sending him into respiratory arrest. This time, Angelo's victim was revived, but Green never fully regained consciousness. He remained in a coma for a couple of weeks before dying. No one was singing Angelo's praises. Far from making him a hero.

All these incidents started to reflect poorly on him. Word was spreading in the ICU. One patient who later died said, Keep that nurse with a beard away from me. It's not clear if they thought that Angelo was dangerous, or just dangerously incompetent. Either way, they weren't the only ones getting suspicious. Another nurse, Lauren Ball, took note of all this sudden emergencies that were happening during Angelo's shifts. Even by the standards of the ICU, the number seemed excessive.

Despite Ball's concerns and the patient's open fears about Angelo, nobody intervened. As far as his superiors were concerned, he had nothing to do with any of the deaths. So Angelo carried right on with his plan. That October, 60-year-old Frederick Lagoa was in the hospital awaiting prostate surgery. But the night before he was due to go into the operating theater, Angelo injected him with enough Pavalon to send him into fatal cardiac arrest. By now, Angelo knew perfectly well that he was more likely to kill his victims than to save them. Yet he kept doing the same thing.

Though he never admitted to this, his strategy may have changed. Even if murder wasn't his original plan, perhaps it gave him a rush of power and control. And it's possible that once he felt that, he didn't want to stop. This could explain why Angelo became increasingly reckless. As a target, Laguan was a bizarre choice. He was in the unit because he was awaiting prostate surgery, not because he was chronically ill.

As far as we know, he had no. long-term conditions that would easily explain his sudden death. Angelo was getting sloppy, and soon it caught up with him. That same month, a man in his mid-70s, Gerolomo Kusich, was admitted to the hospital with chest pains. He traveled close to 5,000 miles from his hometown in Yugoslavia to visit his son, but started feeling unwell soon after arriving. Early the next morning, Angelo woke Gerolomo up and asked how he was doing.

Ignoring the answer, he pulled out a syringe full of Pavalon, telling Gerolimo that it would make him feel better. As Angelo pushed the needle into the IV, Gerolimo immediately felt the cold liquid enter his bloodstream. Within moments, he realized he could barely move, and the nurse was now nowhere to be seen. Summoning what little strength he had left, he reached for the call button at his bedside. Luckily for Girolamo, Lauren Ball heard the alarm and came running. As soon as she saw Girolamo, she began resuscitating him and saved his life. When he regained consciousness, Girolamo told her about the male nurse who had injected him with a mysterious drug. At last, Ball had something to back up her suspicions about Angelo, but she knew she'd need more proof.

She showed Girolamo a photograph of Angelo, and he was almost certain that it was the same nurse who drugged him. Ball told her superiors and Angelo was suspended with pay while the hospital and health department investigated. The first thing they did was send a sample of Gerolimo's urine to a lab for analysis. A month later, the results came back. Positive for Pavlon. There was no reason whatsoever for this drug to be in Gerolimo's system. With this grim piece of evidence in hand, the hospital had no choice but to involve the police. Instead of immediately arresting him, they put Angelo under surveillance. They needed time to do pathological work on some of his former patients

to see if they had also been injected with Pavlon. And within a couple of weeks, they seemed to have enough to move their case forward. On November 13, 1987, police arrested Angelo at an EMT conference in upstate New York. His attendance was likely an excuse to skip town. He may have guessed the authorities were onto him and wanted to make an attempt to save himself. Under questioning, Angelo folded. He confessed to injecting just two patients with Pavlon

and admitted that he did it to create a situation where he could save the day. He said that he wanted to, quote, come out looking like I knew what I was doing. I had no confidence in myself. I felt very inadequate. Authorities held him in custody while the bodies of seven patients were exhumed.

All of them had died during Angelo's shifts, and the police wanted to determine how many murders they could charge him with. Ultimately, prosecutors indicted Angelo on four counts of murder and three counts of assault. Those were the crimes they felt like they could prove in court. According to one news report, the judge on this case said there was also suspicion that Angela had used another drug called a nectin on many other patients. But there's no way to tell because it disappears from the skin tissue within a day. When his trial began in the fall of 1989, Angelou had used.

Angelou's defense team enlisted a psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Schwartz, who testified that Angelo wasn't in his right mind when he committed the crimes. Specifically, Schwartz said that although Angelo had injected the patients, he didn't understand the magnitude of what he was doing. He claimed Angelo had a dissociative disorder which gave him, quote, strange kinds of separation from reality. It's not clear which dissociative disorder Schwartz was claiming Angelo had, since there are a few different types. It's possible that he was referring to depersonalization, de-realization disorder,

which can involve feelings of being detached from yourself, your actions, or the world around you. According to an article in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, offenders often claim that they dissociated during a violent crime or experienced amnesia about it after the fact. Though it may sound like a convenient legal strategy, research does show that some types of dissociation can indicate a risk factor for violence. There's no evidence that Angelo had any kind of dissociative disorder, although we can't rule it out. In the end, the jury didn't find the psychological argument compelling. After a two-month trial, they found 27-year-old Angelo guilty of one count of assault,

two counts of murder, one of criminally negligent homicide, and one of manslaughter. The jurors decided on manslaughter for his first victim, John Stanley Fisher, because it seemed plausible that Angelo wouldn't have known that injecting him of Pavlon would kill him. But after that incident, they said Angelo couldn't argue that he didn't realize the risk. Angelo was sentenced to 50 years to life behind bars and remains in a New York State prison to this day. Despite how much he claimed to love nursing, Angelo made a mockery of everything the profession stands for. He abused the trust that patients placed in him. Instead of seeing their humanity,

he treated them like props in a drama that revolved solely around him and his success. It takes real courage to dedicate your life to helping others. Nurses work long, grueling hours, often for pay that's nowhere near what they deserve. Angelo tried cloaking himself in the trappings of that heroic job to disguise his true self, a cowardly villain.

Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back soon with another episode. For more information on Richard Angelo, amongst the many sources we used, we found Newsweek's coverage from 1987 and 1989 extremely helpful in our research. You can find all episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast

for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Stay safe out there. Serial killers is a special. Spotify original from Parcast. Executive produced by Max Cutler, our head of programming is Julian Boireau. Our supervising sound designer is Russell Nash,

with Nick Johnson as our head of production and quality control by Spencer Howard. Stacey Nemick is our supervising editor, and Derek Jennings is our writing lead. This episode of serial killers was written by Emma Dibdin, edited by Robert Tyler Walker and Kate Murdoch, fact-checked by Mary Mathis, researched by Sapphire Williams and Chelsea

Wood, produced by Bruce Kitovich and sound design by Michael Motion. Our hosts are Greg Poulson and me, Vanessa Richardson. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavatheater.com. Only a Yalava resort and casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win?

Must be 21 to enter. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning. podcast crime beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.