Murder, Mystery & Makeup - Jolly Jane, The Angel Of Death Went on A Poisoning Spree

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

Hi Friends! Today I wanted to talk about Jane Toppan, as I have seen many requests to talk about her. She was SCARY. Love you so much and please be safe out there! Hope to be seeing you very soon x o Bailey Sarian Watch the original video here and don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube @BaileySarian! Tik Tok : https://bit.ly/3e3jL9v Instagram : http://bit.ly/2nbO4PR Facebook : http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6 Twitter : http://bit.ly/2yT4BLV Pinterest : http://bit.ly/2mVpXnY Youtube : http://bit.ly/1HGw3Og Snapchat : https://bit.ly/3cC0V9d Discord: https://discord.gg/BaileySarian

Hi, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's murder, mystery and makeup... Monday! Shana-shar, shana-shar, shana-shar-shar-shar-shar-shar. I can't believe this theme song is still going strong. Never intended it to be that way, but here we are.

We made it. Anyways, hi, how are you? I hope your day is as bright as my forehead and you're staying safe out there. You know what I'm saying? Nothing fits me right now unless it has an elastic piece as a waistband. That's where I'm at and I hope you still fit into your pants. All right, cool. Oh, you know what? I forgot to say, if you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would highly suggest you hit that subscribe button because I'm here for you every Monday. Okay, so today we have a story,

a story about Jane Toppin. Have you heard of her? But other than that, I will shit my dirty little trap and let's get right into it, baby. So Jane actually, okay, look, she had a lot of names. Jane was one of them. And she also went by the name Jolly Jane, but we'll get to that.

Jane, she was born March 31st, 1854. Oh yeah, we're going back. So Jane was actually born with the name Honora Kelly. Because this is such an old story, there isn't a lot of information as far as her upbringing goes. There's a lot of theories of how her upbringing was, but things that we do know are that she had a sister

and her sister's name was Delia. And Delia was a little bit older than Jane. We're gonna call her Jane, because that's what she went by. Her parents were Irish immigrants and her mother, Bridget, she died at a young age from tuberculosis. And then her father, his name was Peter. It was said that he was an alcoholic.

And Peter also earned the name Kelly the Crack, like Kelly the Crackpot. That's just the nickname he had, okay? Peter was crazy, as they say, like his neighbors and coworkers, they all knew Peter because he was so crazy. Peter, Jane's father, he actually sewed his own eyelids shut when he was working as a tailor.

Like one day he just snapped and sewed his eyelids shut. In 1863, a few years after Bridget, Jane's mom, after she had died, Peter, he ended up taking his two daughters off to what was called the Boston Female Asylum, which was an orphanage, and it was said that he took them to this orphanage, because he couldn't take care of his children anymore due to his mental state declining, and he had gotten into trouble and was being sent to a mental institute himself,

so he had to drop the kids off. So he takes his girls there, he drops them off, and that is that, which is awful. When the kids were dropped off at the orphanage, the staff would make notes in their file describing something about them, like the children. In both of the girls' file, it was noted that both came from a very bad home. That's all that we know it said.

So it was a very descriptive came from a very bad home. That's all that we know it said so it was a very descriptive file I must say. So a married woman from a wealthy family her name was Miss Ann Toppin. She was looking for a servant so she went to an orphanage which is not funny but like come on wild times. So yeah she was looking for a servant, like some help around her house, and that's when she decided to take in an orphan, not because she really wanted to help any of the children, oh no, but she thought that this, maybe an orphan would make a great servant. So that's when Miss Anne Toppin decided to take in Jane.

Now Jane wasn't technically legally adopted by this family, but she was given the surname of the family, and they changed her name as well. And that's how she got Jane Toppin. Her other name, they just didn't like it. They wanted like an American sounding name. The Toppins also had another daughter and her name was Elizabeth.

She and Elizabeth got along pretty well. They were around the same age, but of course Elizabeth would often remind Jane that she was technically beneath her and the family and just really set Jane in her place. The family was overall pretty fair to Jane, but they did remind her constantly of her Irish heritage and where she came from.

At this time, Irish immigrants were highly criticized. Sometimes, or a lot of the times, they would not be able to find work or live in certain apartments or homes due to being Irish. A common sign that would be placed like on a window or door, whatever, outside of workplaces would state, quote, no Irish need apply, end quote. So they would constantly, the family would remind Jane

that she couldn't go anywhere else, you know, and that she should be thankful to the family for providing her with such a wonderful life. Anytime Jane would kind of like maybe act out of her place, they would remind her where she came from and how she pretty much wasn't wanted. Again, just kind of like patting themselves on the back, like, see what we gave you?

You need to be thankful, Jane. You need to be thankful. It's like if Cinderella was a horror film, not horror, but like horror film. Elizabeth and Jane, they were good friends, best friends, but deep down, you know, Jane would be feeling a little bit jealous, okay? Elizabeth was the daughter of this amazing wealthy family,

and Jane was just the servant. And Jane was really nice to Elizabeth, like to her face or whatever, you know, but deep down it was like the tension would build and build and build as years went on. This is number one meal kit. As Jane was a teenager, many would describe her as super chatty,

she was friendly, she was really easy to like. She was a fantastic party guest and told many great stories. Many in the neighborhood trusted Jane to babysit the children or to like watch friends' children. Friends would come over for a party at the home, drop the kids off with Jane, she would watch them. People just really trusted Jane

and everyone seemed to really like her too. But Jane, Jane, Jane, Jane. Jane was so liked because she created a character, okay? She was a pathological liar. Jane told great stories, right? Grand stories. She would go on about her family saying that her father was a sailor and that her sister married a wealthy prince.

People would just be like, wow, Jane, wow. Sailor, prince, oh wow, Jane. Say no more. They believed her. I don't think they had a reason to question her really. But the reality was that her father was a drunk who sewed his eyelids shut and her sister sadly ended up passing away.

Her sister passed away because she ended up becoming a sex worker and she got killed when she was working the sex. I guess we could do a whole nother video on that. I don't really know too much about the sister. Like it's not much is said other than she died in her place of work. Jane's stories would continue like over into school

and she just loved to gossip and she loved or just enjoyed bringing other people down. Jane would make up stories about fellow classmates, things like that they were cheating in school or just up to no good, just lies, you know, lies. She would make up lies about people who she just didn't really like that much. A lot of the times it would lead

to them getting into trouble. The students would get pulled into the office, they'd get a talking to, and then they would get like expelled from school. I know. So Jane felt like she was really just running the show. Right? I mean, she hadn't gotten in trouble

or called out for any of these things that she was doing. And when the rumors would come back around and they'd be like, Jane, we need to talk to you. We heard you're the one who like started this rumor. Jane was just able to talk herself out of anything. She was just a really good talker, but she was also just a good liar too. So she was never got in trouble

for anything she did in school. In the late 1880s, from 1885 to 1887, Jane began nursing training at Cambridge Hospital. Jane was a strong woman. That would be important because she would have to like lift up patients, help them out. They needed to get up, you know, like she was strong. So she was able to hold her own.

And most importantly though, she was charming. She had a great personality. She was helpful. She was wanting to help people. She was able to really just woo the patients. They loved her, but also her coworkers loved her, okay? She was always laughing. She made everybody laugh.

She just seemed happy all the time. She wanted to be there. Everyone just loved her, and that's how she ended up getting the nickname Jolly Jane, because she was just so goddamn jolly. Okay, so where's the story at? Well, this is where Jane just went downhill real quick, okay? So Jane, she would often misuse morphine on her patients. She was intrigued by the way it affected her patients and she would often use her patients as a guinea pig. She would mix medicine to see how the body

would react to it. Jane, you should have been a chemist. Jane, if you wanna get some reactions, chemistry could have solved all her problems here. Jane would inject her patients with morphine and atropine. The mixture could knock her patients completely out like they were sleeping, you know, just not kill them. Or she would give a little bit just to prevent them

from moving around, but they would be like still awake, but they couldn't move their body, which sounds fucking awful. But she would kind of like play around to see, you know, what kind of results she would get when she mixed these two together. And a lot of the time she liked it when the patients would be in like this zombie state

where they're awake, they know what's going on, but they can't move their body. That's not really a zombie Bailey, but okay, she liked that. She spent a lot of her time alone with patients making up fake charts and medicating them to drift in and out of consciousness, even getting into bed and sexually abusing them when she knocked them out. It was said that Jane only did this if the patient was knocked out, but then if you read other articles, Jane said that she liked it when people were like in and out when they were still awake. This is a personal opinion, but I feel like she probably also did it when they were awake

too. That sense of control. Anyways, Jane would give the patients the medicine by needle. Sometimes she would mix it into the patient's drink or through enemas. Whoa. So she was like making her own aqua to fauna, right? I know. So this concoction, the morphine and the atropine, sometimes it would kill her patients. And as they lie dying, she would crawl into bed with them, she would hold them, she would caress them, and she would whisper in their ears. We don't know what she said,

but she said sometimes she would just whisper, like soothing things into their ear. Aqua tovana. So she's just a full-blown creep, honestly, but who am I to judge? Later, she would admit that the death of her patients held a sexual release for her. Now, this is the 1880s, hospitals were not that great,

and it was very common for a certain percentage of patients to not make it through the night, or not make it through their illness, because it's the 1880s and medicine hasn't come that far yet. You with me? Okay, cool. When Jane's patients died, the hospital wouldn't really question Jane too much, they would ask her what happened, but they wouldn't do like a full-blown study or research into Jane's patients, because they just trusted the fact that they died because that's just kind of how it was,

a good percentage of patients did indeed just die, even when they were being taken care of by a nice nurse. So they trusted that she tried her best, that she used her best judgment and sadly they died and they didn't think anything other than that. It was also very common for nurses to give like an injection of medicine and then kind of stand there and watch their patients to make sure that nothing was going wrong.

So when they would see Jane just standing over her patients like a creep, they didn't think anything of it, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Jane was recommended for the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital in 1889. And while working there, it said that's where she claimed numerous more victims before she was fired. She wasn't fired because she was caught murdering people.

She was fired just because she was not being responsible as far as taking care of her patients and giving them the right amount of drugs, I should say. She returned back to Cambridge, but she was fired from there for administering opiates recklessly. So she's fired from these two places, and she's like, you know

what? I don't need them. I'm just going to become like a private nurse, an in-home caregiver that people can hire directly and not have to go through a hospital, which it worked out for her because she ended up getting a lot of clients this way, patients this way, I'm sorry. And people, again, they loved her. It was perfect for her. So becoming a in-home caregiver, it was a way for her to continue offering her support without the big guys in charge firing her. She was able to be completely alone with her patients this way as well.

Like nobody, there's no oversight, you know? Jane was well sought out in the private sector. She had access to a lot of sick elderly people that she could take care of and slash or experiment upon and just take advantage of. She first killed an elderly couple who was also her landlord. His name was Israel and his wife's name was Lovely.

She had also been living with them. So first she had poisoned Israel. And then once he had died, she moved in with Lovely, the now grieving wife. And she lived with her for almost two years. And then she poisoned and killed Lovely. I know this is very similar to the Aqua Tufana story, but Jolly Jane here was using some hardcore drugs, okay?

After that, Jane got a job taking care of an elderly woman whose husband had just died. He was her main caretaker. This widow's granddaughter just loved Jane. She met her, decided like, "'Jane is gonna now be the caretaker. "'Oh, she's great. "'She's so cheery, so positive.

"'I just love our personality.'" She thought Jane would just be great to take care of her grandmother. Sadly though, Jane did not work for her long as Jane poisoned the poor elderly woman and told the granddaughter it was due to natural causes. Because the grandmother was a mature woman, it just wasn't questioned. So Jane was kind of smart about this because she was targeting older elderly men and women who were already sick

and being taken care of. So it was like, people just weren't questioning it. Recruiter, the smartest way to hire. Jane then moved to her old foster sister. Remember Elizabeth from the beginning? Do you remember? Well, guess what? Jane had visited with the now married Elizabeth

over the years that they kept in touch, and Elizabeth didn't think twice when Jane invited her to Cape Cod for a vacation, but Elizabeth would not make it through the week. Jane would later say that out of all the victims, Elizabeth was the only one that she killed out of malice. She made the death long and drawn out, poisoning her for weeks before she finally killed her. Then, like always, she climbed into bed with Elizabeth, was holding onto her, caressing her,

loving her, loving her, and just watched her die. But Jane said that this one was like really satisfying for her because it was somebody that she obviously had this built up anger, jealousy, everything was built up inside. So she was like really getting off on this one. Jane had moved into a house owned by a family named the Davis family. And they thought once again, very highly of Jane

that she was so helpful, especially with the remedies to any of their sicknesses or illnesses. The neighbors also enjoyed Jane as well. Jane would make little house calls to them if anyone was feeling ill or needed help. And she's just building this community of trust, right? Again, they would let Jane watch their children, sometimes take large groups of them all together

to the beach for picnics. And Jane would say in her years living on the Davis home, Jane had collected a debt of $500, which today would be equal to $15,000. Jane had collected this debt. It was money that she had borrowed from the family over time. She said it was for her supplies or any medications, stuff that was like work

related. The matriarch of the family, the Davis family, her name was Maddie. And she went over because Jane was like living in the back house. So she went over to Jane and she asked Jane, can you give us some of the money, like make a payment, anything, you know, because you owe us. Jane ended up talking her way out of the situation and then instead invited her in, offered her a glass of mineral water. But of course it was not just any mineral water. Nay nay, no, of course not.

This mineral water was laced with heavy doses of painkillers, just a typical Wednesday. Once Maddie was knocked out, Jane then took Maddie to the spare room in the home where she injected her with more morphine. She would drug her and then let her rest, keeping her going in and out of consciousness for an entire week.

Jane had told the family that Maddie had some kind of illness and was being treated, but Maddie was so out of it, nobody could even ask her what was wrong or what happened. Sadly, Maddie died one week later. Soon after this, Jane went to go live with the patriarch of the Davis family, and his name was Alden,

to take care of him and his children now because the wife died. So Jane decided to kill this family. Jane still owed the family money, and because of this, she's like, "'I just gotta get rid of them because that's the only way I can resolve this in her mind. You know, like, okay.

So Jane ended up starting with the youngest daughter first, and her name was Genevieve, and she had killed Genevieve by poisoning her with putting it in her drinks, and sadly, she died pretty quickly. Jane spread a rumor around town saying that Genevieve had been suicidal and that she had been seen holding an arsenic like glass before returning it to the shelf.

Jane ended up killing her with her traditional overdoses of morphine. So Jane had this rumor going around that Genevieve killed herself. People believed it. I don't know why no one was questioning Jane. Not even two weeks that Genevieve killed herself. People believed it. I don't know why no one was questioning Jane. Not even two weeks after Genevieve's death, Jane killed Alden. And then four days after his death,

Jane finished off the Davis family by killing the eldest daughter, Minnie. Doctors were confused by these deaths because there were no signs leading up to the death. They couldn't figure out what had caused them in general and they couldn't seem to get any answers as to what killed them. People are thinking but there's no proof that anything fishy is really going on. The night that Jane had killed or injected Minnie,

somebody was watching. Somebody saw what Jane was up to. Thank God, right? Minnie's father-in-law had dropped by the home the day that Jane decided to inject Minnie. He went looking for, you know, for the family, kind of looking around and Jane is over Minnie's bed, about to, she's about to inject her.

So this father-in-law is like peeking through the door. You know, he's like, what's going on in here? And he sees that Jane was injecting her with something, standing there watching. And then this father-in-law found out later that Minnie had died and he's putting the pieces together. Like, oh shit, I saw Jane just kind of standing over her, inject her with something.

I mean, maybe she's up to it. He didn't have any proof that Jane had killed Minnie, but he had that gut feeling that something wasn't right, and most of the times, if you ever listen to your gut, it tells you things like, hey, that was some bad tuna you had, or it says, hey, something's not right here. He is the one that went to doctors and was asking more questions. He's like, what's up with this whole Davis family?

What caused the death? He's the one pushing. Can you find some answers? We need answers. Something's just not right here. Has anyone looked into this Jane lady? And he's just pushing, pushing, pushing. And because of his suspicion, and because it's a wealthy family,

investigators decided to exhume the bodies of the Davis family. Not good for Jane. So Jane went on to try and woo her dead foster sister's husband. I know, I'm sorry, this is confusing. Okay, so Elizabeth, remember the foster sister? She was married to this man named Ormel. Now Elizabeth is already dead. She killed Elizabeth. Ormel, he was working as a church pastor. Now this is a personal opinion, but I think Jane wanted to prove that she was better than Elizabeth and that the best way she could get true revenge or prove that she's better than Elizabeth

was to get Ormel to fall in love with her or to marry her. Personal opinion, I don't know if this was her motive, but this is what I believe. Jane moved in with Ormel, his sister, Ormel's sister, and their housekeeper. Jane was just gonna be their live-in nurse to take care of them if they ever need anything,

plus she was technically family, so it was like, sure, come on in. Jane, though, was like, I need to get rid of the housekeeper so then I can have this job as a housekeeper. So Jane did just that. She first killed the housekeeper so then I can have this job as a housekeeper. So Jane did just that. She first killed the housekeeper, okay? Then she took the job. So now she's a housekeeper.

She's like, you guys, I can do it. I'll be your housekeeper. Then Ormel's sister was questioning Jane. She was like, I'm not getting a good feeling with this Jane girl. So Ormel's sister is kind of like in the way and Jane knew this. Is this not a Lifetime movie?

I know it truly is. Jane was like, I need to get rid of the sister. So she was putting some stuff in her drink in the sister's drink. And then the sister was getting more and more ill. And then the sister dies. Jane is wiping them out. Bye.

She's getting rid of everyone in her way. I don't know what she wants. Jane thinks this Ormel guy's gonna like solve all her problems, but he's not. So everyone is now dead around Ormel, the whole family. Jane is trying to show some interest, get his attention. And Ormel showed no interest in Jane and he wanted nothing to do, nothing to do with her.

Jane finally realizes he's not going to marry me, he's not in love with me, so my best bet is to just now kill him because he's just, he'll know, he'll eventually know what really happened if she keeps him alive. So she began to lightly poison him. She then threatened him saying that she would tell the town

that she was pregnant and that he was the father if he ever decided to question her or go after her. Because of this, Ormel decided that she was fired and Jane decided that she was just gonna kill herself because she needed him in her life. So she's like, I'm just gonna kill myself. But she didn't really wanna kill herself. She just wanted the attention

because she knew what she was doing. Hear me out, don't come after me for that comment because this is what she was doing. She gave herself enough morphine to make herself go unconscious, but she didn't give herself enough to kill her. She wanted to be unconscious, but she didn't wanna die. She just wanted him to be like, oh my God, no.

He knew though, he knew. Ormel went to police and told him, look, this Jane girl is up to no good. I know what she's doing. She tried to kill me. She's trying to poison me. She killed my whole family. He's making all these claims.

Again, he didn't have proof of this. He just knew it. On October 29th, 1901, Jane was arrested. Uh-huh. Police initially began to suspect that Jane had used arsenic to kill her patients, but police couldn't prove that she actually purchased arsenic. They thought that was gonna be the smoking gun. Can we find a receipt?

Can we find any type of proof that she was buying arsenic? Anybody? None. She does get arrested though, because suspicion was enough. Now they went to court and when Jane appeared in court, she actually wore a nurse's uniform to persuade the public that she had just been doing her job all along and that everybody else was just an asshole for accusing her of such crime.

I am a nurse. Look at me nurse. A smart move because people were feeling bad and on Jane's side. Why wouldn't they be? She's a nurse. Look at her. She's helping the people. So Jane is sitting her ass in prison okay waiting for her trial and when she's in prison she started writing romance novels and she had a new goal in life she wanted to become an author jane you should have thought this a long time ago but that wouldn't happen because let me tell you police finally found the morphing and the atropine in the bodies of the davis daughters remember the davis family their bodies were exhumed and they were actually going to look and see if they could find something in the system. They found it. They got it. So at this time she was going to be charged with just three murders.

But before she could stand trial, Jane needed to be interviewed by a psychiatrist to see if she was sane. At first Jane wouldn't admit to the murder saying she was afraid of corpses so she couldn't kill anyone because she had this big fear of corpses. You have to believe me, I'm afraid of corpses, so she couldn't kill anyone because she had this big fear of corpses. You have to believe me, I'm afraid of dead people. But this act didn't last long. Jane ended up confessing after some pushing, and she told the psychiatrist that she had killed only about 12 people,

but the doctors believed that she had killed a lot more, way more than that, actually. Additionally, Jane told the doctors that she had gotten a sexual more, way more than that, actually. Additionally, Jane told the doctors that she had gotten a sexual pleasure from the murders. Because of that, the doctors would find her insane and they noted that she had a lack of moral sense. So they believed her. They're like, yeah, she's not okay.

Jane told her defense lawyer a completely different story. Now she told them that she had killed about 31 people and probably a lot more than that. She went on to describe them and used her fingers to count them off and that's how they got to 31 because she could remember 31. The trial lasted eight hours and Jane was found not guilty by reason of insanity. She was sentenced to life in Taunton and Sane Hospital, and when her verdict was read aloud, it was said that Jane just laughed. And they really took that jolly Jane, you know,

in the newspapers and everything, because she was laughing, jolly Jane. So her confession was published in the paper, and it said something along the lines of, quote, "'She had convinced the doctor she was insane "'by saying that she was sane,' end quote." So I guess that's how you get them. Additionally, she had probably killed more than 31 people,

but she could only remember, again, the 31. The superintendent of the asylum said that she had no remorse for the murders. She was proud of the amount of murder she had committed. As time went on inside of the hospital, it was said that Jane's mental well-being declined. She was seeing people who weren't there, she would have conversations with people that weren't there,

and she had no idea why she was there in the first place. Jane would stay at the Taunton and Sane Hospital until the age of 81, when she died of pneumonia. She, Jane, was considered to be the first female serial killer and it's believed that she had over a hundred victims because she had worked at so many hospitals and saw so many patients. They believe, investigators,

that she had killed over a hundred people. I swear every female serial killer, they claim that she's the first female serial killer in America, you know? So I guess it's up for debate who the first female serial killer in America, you know? So I guess it's up for debate who the first female serial killer is, but Jolly Jane was definitely up there. Now this story is terrifying because obviously

you are heavily relying on a nurse to take care of you and not murder you. So when this story got out, people were truly terrified that there was some corrupt nurses out there. And throughout history, there has been, but for the most part, thank God, nurses do the right thing and are here to help us.

Thank you, nurses. And that, my friends, is the story of Jane Toppin. Jolly Jane, she was truly fucked up. I believe that she probably killed a lot more people because she had these patients, why, like why? I don't know, maybe she didn't, but it's hard to believe that she didn't kill more people. I felt like that was really short, was that?

I apologize if this was a short one. Some of these stories, especially these older ones, it's really hard to find information. It's like one big game of telephone. Do you think that she killed more? Do you think she was the first female serial killer? The insanity plea always confuses me, because it's like sometimes these killers that we've talked about here on my channel,

I feel like you have to have something a little off in your brain in order to go on a killing spree. Am I right? Maybe I'm not. But I personally feel like if you're able to kill people and kind of like carry on with your life, I feel like that to me would qualify for an insanity plea. Like, right?

Or is that just me? What do you call that? Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I have a list of people that you guys are always recommending that I keep in my little notes all organized. So I do appreciate you guys for always recommending stories for me.

And I don't want you to think I don't see them because I do. I hope you have a wonderful day today. You make good choices and I'll be seeing you guys later. Bye. Do you think Jane had help? Oh my God. I just thought of that. Do you think Jane had help? Oh my God, I just thought of that. Do you think somebody knew?

Somebody had to know because she would be going through these drugs like crazy, right? Hey nurses out there from the 1880s, if you're here watching, do you have to like make a log of, do you think they had to make a log of like, today I used this much morphine and do you think more people knew? I'm now thinking my brain is kind of like, wait a had to make a log of like, today I used this much morphine and do you think more people knew? I'm now thinking my brain is kind of like,

wait a minute, wait a minute. Okay, bye. Teksting av Nicolai Winther Thank you. Thank you.