True Crime All The Time - Charles Cullen

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

Charles Cullen was a nurse who murdered a large number of patients over 16 years in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He confessed to murdering between 30 and 40 patients, but many people believe the true number of his victims could be in the hundreds. Unlike many serial killers, Cullen didn't feel compelled to keep souvenirs from his victims and he didn't even keep a list. So, for that reason, he has had a lot of trouble remembering just exactly who he murdered.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the life and crimes of Charles Cullen. This is a man who has labeled himself as an "Angel of Death" and has tried to pass his murders off as ending the suffering of his patients. But, we know this is simply not the case. It is well known that Charles Cullen murdered people who were not suffering or dying. He simply killed because he wanted to and he may have reveled in the power to take the life of another human being.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise and donation informationAn Emash Digital ProductionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 174 of the true crime all the time podcast i'm mike ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime mike gibson gibby how are you you smooth talking son of a gun you man that was good that intro you liked it yeah i'm trying to think of something new i was just trying to be smooth man it was very smooth yeah i'm good how about you like a late night dj late night dj or that club i used to work at yeah that other club yeah i'm doing good man you and i just just did our weekly Patreon video and we talked a little bit about the coronavirus. We did. The panic and kind of everything that's going on here in the U.S.

Yeah. So we'll just put it out there. You know, we want everybody to be safe. Hope everybody is being as safe as they can. I mean, what can you do other than, you know, just washing up and trying not to get into a big crowd. I don't know what else you can do. Just take care of yourself. Yeah.

Take care of your elderly. But you and I just had a big steak for dinner? Yeah, man. I showed up here and there was a nice steak sitting on a plate with my name on it. With some asparagus, it was good. Yeah, still don't know how you got my name on it with a Sharpie. It was weird. But I ate it anyway.

Yeah, I have my culinary skills. Yeah. All right. So before we get in, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. Okay. We had Jennifer Mattisich. Hey, Jennifer. Tammy.

What's going on, Tammy? Nicole Lewis jumped out at our highest level. Hey, Nicole. Roxanna Smith. What's going on, Rock Zena? Tracy Brown. Hey, Tracy. Amy.

Thanks, Amy. We had Ashley Hill. Hey, Ashley. And Jordan Bates. It's a combo. Their boyfriend and girlfriend. Well, thanks, Jordan, too. Jumped out of their highest level.

Rahim Henry. Hey, Rahim. Kimberly Crowder. What's going on, Crowder? Trisha Mulvaney. Hey, Malvaney. Angela Williams. What's up, Angela?

Merrick Liss. Hey, Merrick. Lakeisha Bradley. Hey, thanks, Lakeisha. Kelly Mack jumped out of their highest Kelly back. Rachel Vaughan. Hey, Rachel.

Phineas Foley. What's going on, Phineas? Funny Flynn. Hey, funny. Eilet, Yona. Islet. That's an interesting name. It is.

It is. And it's not spelled like the islet of a shoe or anything like that. It's got a really cool spelling. We had Riannon. Hey, Riannon. Tolitha Taryn. What's going on, Tolitha? Tammy Kate, Stacey.

Well, hey, Tammy and Kate and Stacy. All three of you. Yeah. And then last but not least. What's going on, Ann? So we appreciate all that new Patreon support. And then if we go back into the Vault Gibbs, this week we selected Kathy Lutz. Hey, Kathy.

So very much appreciated it. The long-term support that we get from our Patreon folks. Amazing. We had some great PayPal support as well, Kathleen Martin. Hey, Kathleen. Angie Stevenson. What's going on, Angie? Jennifer Wormood.

Hey, thanks, Jennifer. And Jake Arlo. Hey, look at Jake, man. What's up? Much appreciated. We had a Patreon winner for February Gibbs, and that was Sharon Betts. Really? Mm-hmm.

Awesome. So congratulations to Sharon. For those of you that don't know if you're not on Patreon, basically every month, we pick a Patreon winner and that person gets to pick whatever they want from the T-Cat merch store. Yeah. It's kind of a good deal. Yeah. It's kind of cool. Just something to give back.

All right, buddy, we have some good episodes out this week. Now, on True Crime All the Time Unsolved, there's an episode out right now on the Richardson family. Yeah. That I think people are really going to be intrigued by. You know, there's some mystery here to this one. You have a large number of kids from one family. Right. Who die somewhat mysteriously.

Within 24 hours, they're all dead. Of course, they're going to look at the parents. Always. Now, keep in mind, this is 1967. in the south. So there's going to be a little bit of racism. Yeah. Yeah. Involved in this case. So, but we're going to take some turns and look at a couple of rabbit holes. Like we always do. Yeah. But I think people will really be intrigued by this case. So definitely check it out. All right, Gibbs. Are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time?

I'm really excited about this one. We are talking about Charles Cullen, a nurse who murdered a large number of, people in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Cullen was a prolific serial killer. I mean, the number of victims that he has admitted to is astonishing. But there are some people that believe the real number of his murders. They could be in the hundreds. I've seen some speculation that the number could be as high as three, four hundred. Wow.

Which obviously would make him. Yeah. Probably the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. This is one of those cases where, you know, yeah, you have a guy that admits to X. And obviously we'll get into all the details of that. Right. But because he operated for such a long time and operated in really what was a very high number of different nursing homes and hospitals, were there just a lot of people that he killed that he didn't feel like admitting to?

It's possible. Always makes me a little nerve thinking about that while you're in the hospital, something like this could happen to you, you know? I mean, it's where you want to feel like safe and that you're going to get better and not be killed. Yeah. And we've talked about nurses who have killed before, namely Donald Harvey. And what a scary thought that is.

Yeah. You know, kind of piggybacking on. on what you said, you're vulnerable when you're in the hospital, sometimes because of your condition, sometimes because of your age, I mean, for a lot of different reasons. Right. But to me, you're somewhat vulnerable always when you're in the hospital because you don't know what everybody is coming in and doing, right? They're putting things in your IV.

Yeah. They're giving you pills. Well, hell, you don't know what all that stuff is. No, you're just assuming they're doing what they're supposed to to keep you alive. Yeah, as a lay person, it's not like you're familiar with all the drugs or know what this or that is. My mom's a nurse. I've talked about it before. She's retired, but still works a few days a week.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for nurses. Now, not this one, obviously. And not Donald Harvey. But at the same time, you say that you can have bad people. in any occupation in any walk of life. Yep. We know that. I think that much has been proven.

We definitely love our nurses. Yeah, no doubt about it. And we have a lot of fans that are nurses and they're going to be really ticked off as we get into this case. Right. What really stood out to me about the case of Charles Cullen in addition to the extremely high number of murders for which he was responsible, was the way that he was allowed to move from hospital to hospital, even after some very disturbing things came out. In Gibbs, this is not one of those cases where the truth comes out and everyone around this guy

is floored that he's a killer. We have a lot of cases like that. Sure. Serial killers where people are like, no way this guy was a serial killer. Could have been him. There's no way because we barbecued together. He took my kids whitewater rafting. Yeah.

He was there for me when I needed him. Yeah. That's not Charles Cullen at all. People around Cullen thought he was strange. Pretty much most of his life. Many people thought he was suspicious, even dangerous. And it turned out they were right. Gives there's so many victims in the case of Charles Cullen that we won't.

won't be able to talk about them all, which is said, you and I like to focus on victims when we can, but the numbers here are just staggering. It would take three episodes, probably to detail out each and every victim and get into their past and their background and who they really were. Charles Edmund Cullen was born on February 22nd, 1960 in West Orange, New Jersey. to Edmund and Florence Cullen. The couple already had seven children. So Charles was number eight, the youngest and last child for the Cullins. Makes it rough getting scraps around the table.

Man, you better be quick. Yeah. When the food is put down because being the youngest, you're going to be fighting for what you can get. Probably just happy to lick the plates of everybody else's. I imagined he probably wore a bunch of hand-me-downs as well. Oh, I'm sure, yeah. And he didn't have all brothers.

So we don't know, you know, what he was wearing for sure. He had two older brothers, but he also had five older sisters. And the age difference is pretty stark. There was a 15-year age difference between Charles and his oldest sibling. His father, Edmund, was a bus driver. And his mother, Florence, stayed at home to. raise the children. I don't know what else you could do.

When you have eight, you're not getting a babysitter. No, I don't think you can afford a babysitter if you got that many kids. Now, if you're the CEO of a company, maybe. Yeah. But if you've got a regular job like most of us, you've pretty much eaten every bit of that up. You might be going negative in trying to hire somebody to watch your eight kids. She don't have time. She's got to be there to sew outfits for him.

Yeah. And change his sister's clothes into little boy clothes. Yeah, exactly. The family lived on Kling Street in West Orange. Neighbors later recalled that this was a very respectable family. The kids all attended Catholic school and the family went to church every Sunday. Oh, well, kind of like you. Yeah, very much like me, very respectable.

Yeah. Always in church. Every Sunday, once a year. I think what's interesting about this is, Gibbs, I didn't see anything about violence, abuse, alcoholic parents, nothing like that. And that's something we normally see, right? In the background of most serial killers, now maybe it was there and I missed it. Right. I just didn't see anything about it. Well, we've seen that a few times, but we just don't have that type of information. Yeah. I mean, I think it proves the point that

there is no one set of conditions that make a serial killer. Because we've, we've run the gamut with killers. We've had a lot of people that have had really messed up childhoods, traumatic experiences in childhood, head injuries, things like that. But we've also had our share of killers that, hey, their families were good. Their mom and dad treated them well. They gave them what they needed.

they just later in life developed a urge or something that made them kill. I think we want to believe or hope that there was something that made them turn out that way. More so than just one day they woke up and said, hey, today's the day, I'm going to go do all this. I think it makes it easier. Yeah. Don't you? For people to find something that says, oh, that was it. That was what made this person to kill.

are pretty scary when somebody goes through a childhood similar to what maybe many of us had. Yeah. And then all of a sudden later in life, they say, you know what? I think I want to start killing people. That's hard for a lot of us to wrap our minds around. Because you can say, you know what? Could that be me? Could that happen one day to me?

Yeah. Could I just one day wake up and say, you know what, today's the day? Now, not to you because I think you're at an advanced. age that probably if you would have had those thoughts, you'd have had them by now. I was trying to find a euphemistic way to say advanced age works fine. You're a little bit older than most burgeoning serial killers. I'm glad you got burgeoning. You're glad I got that in?

Yeah. I'm glad you tried it and it didn't work. That's it. Yeah. But I could say the same for myself, right? I'm just a little bit younger than you. I just can't imagine myself at this age all of a sudden saying, you know what, I've got the hankering to do something really bad. First of all, I'm tired, man.

You know, life wears you down over time and the bones start to ache a little bit more as you get older. And you might be a little bit older than me because you're saying hankering. Yeah. Mentally, I might be older than you. Yeah. Probably. That's probably a given. you and your hankering.

But I'm just tired. I think I'm too lazy at this point to go out and do what it takes. I can't be a Dexter, right? Think back to Dexter. Do you realize what that guy had to go through to set up the room, to set up everything to get ready to kill someone? That is a boatload of work that I don't need in my life. His Apple Watch was like, you got more than enough steps.

You know, you burned all these calories. 37,000 calories. Yeah. But Charles Cullen later said that his childhood was far from ideal. His father died of an illness when he was only seven months old. So, you know, he really didn't know his dad at all. His mom was left to try to raise eight kids on her own, which you know would have been a very difficult situation.

Sure. She was a homemaker. She didn't have a job at the time that her husband died. So big change in her life and a lot of responsibility. Cullen said that he was constantly teased and bullied as a child. So, you know, I think this is where we start to get in to some of the things that we have seen with other serial killers. Now, it didn't happen in the home.

This was an outside of the home type of influence. Right. There are reports, Gibbs, that he first tried to end. his life at the age of nine. Wow. Early. That's very young. And it means that in your mind, things are not going well for you at all.

Now, this is a guy that is going to have a long history of trying to take his own life. The teasing and the bullying was something that continued for Cullen into high school. In 1977, Charles was 17 years old. when his mother died in a car accident, he dropped out of high school and joined the Navy. This death of his mother was said to be devastating for him, as it is for most of us, to lose any parent. In the Navy, he was ultimately placed on a submarine called the Woodrow Wilson. It'd be cool to be on a submarine.

Would it, for me, it would not be. Well, it depends on the length of the time, right? First of all, I am pretty claustrophobic. And, you know, I get it. Submarines are however big and you have room to walk around. I don't like anything that I can't walk off of whenever I want. It's why I don't ride Ferris wheels. I don't really care to ride roller coasters or anything like that because I'm not in control.

I can't just stop open the door and get out. Right. And obviously with a submarine, that's not something you can do. Plus it's in the water and you hate the water, you know, the ocean. I don't hate the water. The ocean I do. Yeah. Well, that's what submarines will be found.

That is where they're found. Things did not go smoothly at all for Charles Cullen in the Navy. I think gives his shipmates noticed very quickly that this guy just didn't fit in. You know, there's a normal amount of hazing. Sure. That I think comes in that sort of scenario when you're the newbie. Oh, yeah, they're going to tease you and harass you and partly to see how you handle it. Yeah.

You know, and I was never in the armed forces, but in some of the research, it said that's pretty normal. And people that have been in the armed forces will reach out and tell us. But what I got was that, okay, fairly normal for the new guy. And once they see that you can take it, you can handle it, they stop. and maybe they move on to the next new guy that comes in or whatever. Yeah. The problem is he couldn't handle it. So it never stopped.

You're just inviting it more and more when you do it that way. So, you know, they haze, they teased. They mocked him pretty much the whole time. The New York Times reported Gibbs that Cullen was once found at the control panel for the subs nuclear missiles. He was wearing a green. surgical gown, a mask, and some gloves that he had taken from a medical cabinet. And he's just sitting there at the controls for the ballistic missiles.

When a superior asked him what he was doing, why was he wearing this outfit? He couldn't give an answer. He didn't know, huh? Scary. Just something he felt like he needed to do. Now, it was stressed in the article that in no way would he have had the ability to launch any of these missiles, but still. Still, it's a good story, right?

Sitting there. It's a good story and it's also, I guess, giving you some type of window, some insight into what's going on in this guy's head because there's something going on. Something right. Nobody else in the sub is dressing up in outfits and sitting at the control panel for the missiles. and there were reports that, you know, this guy tried to end his life multiple times while he was in the Navy. And it ultimately led to a discharge in 1984. Well, I'm sure they said, we got to get this guy off our submarine, get him off our boats and out of the Navy altogether because he's got some issues.

So he got discharged and he returned to New Jersey. And he enrolled at the Mountainside Hospital School of Nursing. in Montclair, New Jersey. Now, 1987 was a big year for Charles Cullen. He graduated from nursing school. He got married to a woman named Adrian Tob. And he landed his first nursing job at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey. He really was busy.

Yeah, it was a busy year. Yeah. Should be happy. He should be. I have the feeling that he was not. I just don't believe Charles. Cullen was a happy guy. I didn't read a single report, Gibbs, from anyone that really ever knew this guy that said, oh, he was the life of the party. He joked around. Such a joy to be around.

No, there was none of that. Most of it was, you know, this was a guy that kept to himself. He was a loner. He didn't give you much. He kind of stayed away from everybody else. Now, that in and of itself doesn't mean anything, right? You know me. In a lot of situations, I prefer to be in a small crowd or no crowd. No crowd whatsoever. But I can be very sociable. Yeah, I think at a crime con or a place like that, I can be the life of the party. It's just not me all the time. Right. It's a very small percentage of your personality. Yeah. Now, it used to be a much larger percentage, like when I was in college and drinking heavily and doing Frank the Tank and all that. And you are different at CrimeCon after you've had a couple of pops.

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Download Best Feens free on the Apple App Store or Google Play. That's Friends Without the R. Best Fiends. Cullen and his wife had a daughter in 1988. And it was sometime after this that, he committed what is known to be his first murder. And Gibbs, I think this is something we've seen where serial killers start a little bit later. I can remember a number of episodes where killers, you know, either had their first murder or kind of ramped up after a big life event. Now, having your first child is a big life event. Yeah, I mean, you look at his past year, you know, getting his first job, getting married, and now having a child. That's a pretty busy 12 months.

Did it have something to do with it? I don't know. But he did murder 72-year-old John Yingo. John Yingo was a Jersey City municipal court judge, and Cullen killed him at St. Barnabas by giving him a large dose of Lidecane. Cullen worked at St. Barnabas for four years until 1992 when he was fired. But the reasons for the firing, they're a little murky. And really, it's going to be the start of problems for other institutions down the road

that make the fateful decision to hire Charles Cullen. We'll get into it. Yeah. Why did nobody know through what it is going to turn out to be. a long number of years that, hey, this guy had a past. He was suspected of this, this and this, but yet kept getting jobs. Now, Charles would later say that he killed five to six people at St. Barnabas, but he would only ever be charged with the death of Yingo as it relates to his time at St.

Barnabas. And I will say, the four years that he spent there by far, the longest, I think, that he spent at any one institution. Really, it was his longest tenure. Yeah. I mean, this is going to span about 16 years. And in that time,

he's going to be at at least, I think, 10 different places. So, I mean, you can do that math. It's like an average of 1.6. Wow.

And it's going to be part of the problem, right? Hopping from one place to another by February, 1992. Cullen had landed a new gig at Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg that same year. He and his wife had their second daughter, but really the marriage was starting to fall apart. His wife later said he started acting very strangely. He wouldn't talk to her. They didn't sleep together. And Gibbs, these are young people. Yeah. Relatively early on in a marriage, it's not a good sign when the communication's gone.

You know, you're not sharing a bed. You're not being intimate. Now, obviously, they were at least a couple times. Sure. Because they got two kids. But no, that's not good for any relationship. So he's, he's isolating himself. For whatever reason.

Yeah. And then add on top of that some very disturbing things that his wife said about him, he began abusing the family's dogs. She said she'd wake up in the middle of the night. and hear the dogs whimpering because he was messing with them. That's weird. He would put them into like a bowling ball bag and zip the bag up. I don't know if he ever actually killed any of the dogs,

but it was like he was torturing them to some degree. Like he got a kick out of it. Yes. It's not a good song. No. You know, any type of animal torture or anything like that, it doesn't mean that you're heading down a good path. No, because clearly you're getting enjoyment out of this.

So you... Which is sick. Yeah, it's very sick. You know, I just finished that don't F with cats. Yeah. Did you ever watch that one? I did watch some of it. I put it off.

I put it off because I knew the story. Yeah. But what I found interesting about it was the focus on these people trying to crack this guy's identity. Right. I knew more about the murder than I did about the backstores. The backstory of them trying to track him over the years. But to your point, anybody that receives enjoyment out of seeing the suffering of animals, there's something wrong with them.

Big problem with those people. And you want to know the fastest way to make a group of people angry mess with animals. Absolutely. We have found that out from really the very beginning of TCAT. Yeah. And you know what? You deserve whatever you get when you mess with. animals. Some of it may be doled out by you. Good change. I know we can't go into specifics, but...

Right. We're not allowed to talk about certain things anymore. I always hate that about settlement agreements. Yeah. Yeah. You're not allowed to disclose certain things. And like, but I really want to. But you can't. Cullen's wife filed for divorce and took their two children in 1993. So all of a sudden, Charles Cullen is all alone. You know, he's forced to rent apart. And apart. And he's forced to rent an apart. but he has plenty of time on his hands. And, you know, he's at this Warren Hospital. He reportedly killed three elderly women at the hospital, Mary Natoli, Lucy Mugavaro, and Helen Dean. So he was busy? He was busy. Yeah, he was. Around October of 1993, Cullen and some of his fellow nurses, they were investigated over the death of 91-year-old Helen Dean.

because before she died, Helen had complained to her son that a male nurse that wasn't assigned to her, right? You know when you're in the hospital, they usually write it on a little chart. Yeah. You know, this is your nurse. This is your doctor. So she knew this guy was not assigned to her, but he had come into her room and given her an injection.

She later died of heart failure. They did an autopsy, but the autopsy did not look for the drug that killed her because Charles Cullen had injected her with a drug called de Joxone. Now, he used many drugs over the years, but by far this drug DeJoxon was his favorite. That was his go-to. It was his go-to, but, you know, he did branch out. He used a number of other things. So as part of this investigation, a number of the nurses were given polygraphs. And I've seen varying accounts on the results of Cullen's tests. I've seen where he passed. I've also seen where the results were inconclusive. Now, I think later on, the hospital is going to say, oh yeah, for sure he passed because they're looking to limit their

liability. Absolutely. But he ended up quitting this job in December. So a couple of months after this investigation. He wasn't caught. But what I found amazing Gibbs is that he continued to work while this investigation was going on. And this is something that we'll see again, right? This guy is suspected of possibly doing something very heinous. But yet, let's let him keep working. Keep working in when we investigate this. Nice. We'll pull him out if we find out that he actually did something. Right. Otherwise, just keep on doing what you're. doing. And, you know, it's those suspicions, they're not going to follow him to his next jobs because of some of the reasons we've already mentioned. And we'll talk about him in more detail.

It also would come out later that while Cullen was at this Warren hospital, he tried to kill himself on multiple occasions. I don't know how many times in total this man tried to take his life, but it was at least four or five times. And some of these different hospitals knew about. He was admitted to hospitals when some of these things happened. Again, it's just another one of those things that kind of adds to what did they know? How worried were they? And what did they do about it? What did they do about it? And why didn't they pass it on after this guy quit to the next hospital that called to check up on him, this guy was also arrested for breaking into a female nurse's home. And I think he even, he pled guilty for it.

But again, none of this was ever addressed by the hospital where he worked and none of it would ever follow him on to his next jobs. Just amazes me. Yeah. I think a lot of people were amazed. From April 1994 to October 1996, Cullen worked at the Hunterden Medical Center in Flemington, New Jersey. He killed at least five people at Hunterden. But, you know, it was like this pretty much everywhere he went.

If they even started sniffing around, he would just quit. You say, I'm out of here and he moved on. Yeah. I mean, if they hadn't already fired him, because he did get fired a number of times, But if he thought there was the slightest chance that somebody was even getting close to being on to him, he would just leave because he knew there would be no problem finding another job. And he probably also realized they would just shut the case down. They weren't going to pursue it if he was no longer there.

Yeah. The very next month, he got a job at Morristown Memorial Hospital in Morristown, New Jersey. Now, they said they later fired Cullen for poor performance in August 1997, but according to Cullen, he didn't kill anyone there. If you believe that, I think that's where a lot of people are like, you know, what was this guy's true number? You're telling me he went to this hospital, was there and didn't kill a single person, but killed multiple people at all these other places. I don't know. Seems unbelievable. A little bit.

Yeah. In October of that year, Cullen was hospitalized for depression, but just several months later, he got his Pennsylvania nursing license and he hopped over to Pennsylvania and got a job at Liberty Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Allentown, PA. New Jersey's happy. For a while. Yeah. He's coming back. But yeah, for now they're happy. A little bit.

But this guy didn't even make it through the year. He was fired in October after staff realized he was giving drugs to patients at unscheduled times. I don't think they thought he was killing people, but... Sure wasn't helping him. No, he just wasn't a good nurse, I think is what they thought. What's interesting about this stent, though, is that a female nurse was forced to quit after the death of a patient. And she later filed a lawsuit. And in the lawsuit, she claimed it was Charles Cullen, who gave the injection to the patient,

who then later died. The patient was a man that died after he was given insulin. Well, he wasn't supposed to be given insulin. That was, you know, obviously on his chart. His nurse on the night this happened was a woman named Kimberly Pepe. This is the woman, the female nurse that was forced to quit. But Charles Cullen was assigned to this man's roommate. So he was in and out of the room that night as well.

Not too hard to figure out, Gives. Now, right, later, knowing what this guy has admitted to. Right. Who the real culprit was that night. But the hospital fired this Pepe woman and Cullen was allowed to stay for a while longer. I guess because she. She was the nurse assigned to this man that died, and they probably either couldn't prove that it was someone else, or they didn't believe her. Well, it could have been exactly that.

I do know the hospital later settled a lawsuit with Kimberly Pepe. I'm sure it was for a sizable amount, but I think it was one of those sealed settlements, so I don't know how much it was for. See, those settlements come up again. There's always a settlement. Yours are getting pretty darn expensive, too, by the way. Yeah, I know. They're eating into our budget. Yeah.

All these settlements. It was an attorney that you got for us, you know. He's not cheap. Between 1998 and 2002, Cullen bounced around several different hospitals. Some he worked at through a temp agency. Some hired him full time, but he murdered at least seven people during this time frame at several hospitals, all by injecting them with this drug de Joxone. He killed five patients at St. Luke's Hospital, many of them using the de Jaxon.

He was suspended at one point and then ultimately quit under a cloud of suspicion that he had hidden some of this heart medication in a needle disposal bent. And I think Gibbs, it was nurses that started asking questions about, you know, why would anyone want to steal these types? of drugs. Right. These weren't recreational drugs. Nobody was getting high, right? I think they were mostly for heart patients. It's not like they had some big street value. We're not talking heroin or cocaine or anything like that. No big payday. No. So they couldn't figure out why someone was stealing this heart medication and hiding it. The other thing that nurses started to question. And I think it was pretty obvious to some was why more people seem to die on Cullen's watch than anyone else's. Now, people are going to die when, you know, you're in the hospital, especially in some of the more

intensive care type units, people are going to die. It happens. But I think it was pretty clear. And an inordinate amount of people were dying when he was on duty. You almost wish he had a little counter attached to him that clicked up on who died on his watch. So like, you know, people could say, hey, it's getting kind of high there. You know, just traveled with him from hospital to hospital. Well, I like the idea. I think it would be kind of alarming to some of the patients. It definitely be like, you know what? I'm good. I'll go ahead and

not take the next injection. Just send me home. I'm really okay with whatever happens. I'm going to wait until the next shift comes on. I believe her number was much lower. I like your ideas, though. Well, I'm with the clicker to do all the work. Oh, okay. So it's an automated clicker. Yeah. You can't fiddle with it. No, I don't want people to make adjustments. I got you.

Yeah. No rolling back the number. So I can't do with, like what I do with my scale. I can't set it to negative five. No, or that car you sold me. Oh, with the odometer. That car had very low miles on it. Obviously, it was amazing for 1988 to have hardly any miles on it.

Yeah. But yet as soon as I got it, I had to take it in and get a bunch of stuff done. Well, it wasn't 1988 you go. I don't know what you thought you were getting. It didn't go. that's the problem. But here's the problem. All of these nurses are asking the right questions, right?

They're suspicious and they should have been. There was something going on with Charles Cullen. The problem was he was gone. He was in the wind. And again, as with every place he had been, none of what he had done or none of what he was suspected of doing would follow him when he went for his next job. And Gibbs, I do think that is a very scary part of this case, that someone could do what Charles Cullen did. And then when things got even a little bit warm, right? Yeah. Any type of focus started to

be put onto him. He just left. And he went to find his next opportunity. Because he knew he could. He knew he could walk into just about any hospital, and there was nothing going to be said about this guy by any previous employer that would make the new hospital think twice about hiring him. Yeah, they're not looking into that kind of stuff. No. They just need to get that position filled. And here he comes along with the experience to do whatever they need, especially at nursing homes. The turnover rate so high at nursing homes. It is very high. And we'll talk about some of the hospitals too and why this guy was so in demand. Yeah.

In July 2002, Cullen got a job at Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Gibbs, he was only there for a matter of weeks. He was still in his orientation period when he was fired for what the hospital turned interpersonal problems. Oh. And I'm using my fingers as air quotes. Yeah, you really are. Now, that could mean a lot of different things.

Sure. You didn't get along well with staff. You didn't get along with doctors, management, whatever. But we know he was not bright and cheery. No, he was not. Now, many people have reported that interpersonal problems was really a euphemism for the fact that there were a lot of strange rumors circulating around the hospital in a very short amount of time about this guy's conduct.

Well, that's a good time to get rid of somebody while you're still in that early In that orientation period, hey, things just aren't working out. Right. We gave it our best shot. I just don't think that we're a good fit. It's me. It's not you. That's what you gave to me after episode one.

It was. It didn't take, but. No, but it was. I was like, oh, man. You just didn't understand that it's me. It's not you. You were like, all right, I'll be back. Yeah.

I show back up. You're like, well, I already did episode two. On September 8th, 2002. This is. You know, what? Two months later. Cullen got a job as a nurse at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, New Jersey. So he's back on the other side.

He's worn out his welcome in Pennsylvania. So he decided to try his luck again back in New Jersey. In 2003 alone, Gibbs, he killed 13 patients at Somerset Medical Center using a variety of drugs, quite a few of which were de Joxone. Right. The beginning of the end for Charles Cullen started in June when one of his patients almost died from what was called a lethal dose of heart medication because we really haven't talked about it, right?

What is de Joxin? How is he killing all of these people? Right. Most of it was some type of heart medication that maybe the person would have in their system. but in a large enough dose, it would be lethal. And that's how he did it. He also was pretty smart in the fact that he used a lot of things that he knew nobody would look for. Right.

Weren't traceable. If they happened to do an autopsy. And granted, a lot of autopsies weren't done because many of these people were elderly. They were in their 80s, 90s in some cases. So it was easy to explain. Yes. They're in there already. in the hospital for heart issues.

Sure. And they died. So they had cardiac arrest. We expected that. So there's no reason to do an autopsy. Then on June 28, Cullen murdered a reverend named Florian Gall by injecting him with the Jackson. So Gibbs, people are dying all over the place.

And what really was a short amount of time at this one hospital. And there was one person who always seemed to be working during those times. times Charles Cullen. Should be a red flag, or at least a flag. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, granted, the position he was in, the unit that he worked in, there were a lot of deaths.

I mentioned it. People die. I mean, these people weren't coming in for routine maintenance. Right. They were in there for some pretty serious illnesses, a lot of them. But over the next several months, Cullen killed four more people. And he tried to kill a fifth before the hospital reported their suspicions to authorities. So this happened in the beginning of October 2003, but Cullen was still working.

And he killed once more towards the end of October while he was being investigated. Which is nuts. It is. The hospital finally feels like this guy's up to something. And enough to the point where they're going to. to go to authorities and say, hey, we think this guy's doing something. But you know what? Let's let him go. Let's let him finish out his shifts every night. Yeah, because we need the staff. I'm guessing it's the only reason they kept him working. I don't know. I mean,

you talk about liability. This guy killed someone after it was known that he was doing some things he shouldn't have been doing. But it wasn't until the end of October that Reverend Gall's body was exhumed. They performed an autopsy. And it showed that he had died from a lethal overdose. So that's when the hospital finally fired Cullen. The question is, did they fire him and say, go now? Or do they wait until the end of the day at 4 o'clock and say, thanks for your work today. And by the way, you're fired. Yeah, I might have a little clip of Cullen where he talks about that. We'll hear from him. him in a little bit. I do think it's sad when you think about the fact that this guy was able to continue killing with so much suspicion surrounding him. And I don't have the figures of lawsuits and

all that, but you have to believe that this hospital really opened themselves up to a lot of liability. Well, and they opened up every hospital before them too, because once this gets out, family members should be lining up to take on any hospital that he was at where they lost a loved one. Yeah, they, they will. I think this one's a little different, though, because this is the only hospital that got to the point where they had either enough evidence or suspicion to actually go to authorities. Nobody had ever done that before. Right. But yet, you're not going to put this guy on administrative leave.

Help him if you want to. Yeah. But don't. don't let him continue to work with patients day in and day out for what was really the rest of the month. And he killed somebody. Well, they deserve the payout for that. They obviously made a mistake. Yeah.

Cullen was arrested on December 12, 2003. And then on the 14th, during a six-hour interrogation, Gibbs, he admitted to murdering 30 to 40 patients over a 16-year period. while he worked at 10 different nursing homes and hospitals. But at first, he was only charged with one murder, that of Reverend Gall, because they had done the autopsy. They could tie him to that murder.

He was also charged with attempted murder of a female patient. You know, both of these happened at Somerset Hospital. Yeah, I get it. He's telling people that he murdered 30 or 40, but at this point, they don't know. They've got no.

evidence other than the fact that he said he did it to charge him. Now, these revelations by Charles Cullen, they led to a number of things. And you just mentioned one, right? First, you had the family members of individuals that had died at these hospitals wanting the deaths of their loved ones to be investigated. Many of them were suspicious over the years. We talked about some of them. You had the medical malpractice attorney circling, waiting for all the details to come out. Oh, I'm sure. Class action lawsuits. You had people who had been cared for in the hospitals by Cullen coming out and saying

that they were shocked to find out later that they could have very easily been one of this guy's victims. And honestly, as we've talked about, these people did not paint a very flat. flattering picture of Charles Cullen. Many said that he didn't have a very good personality. It's not normally a great trait for a good nurse, right? Yeah, normally you need some type of bedside manner. Yeah, I mean, to me, when you think of a nurse, you think of someone that pops in and really no matter how tough the day has been, tries to put on a good face for everyone. You know, they're there to take care of the patients. But I think a big part of

is to keep people in good spirits. A lot of nurses are great at coming in saying something witty, joking around, just being nice to people. It's a big part of the job. Sure. Yeah. Sometimes they have a little warped sense of humor. They do. They do. Which I get a kick out of, but maybe not everybody does. Yeah. Now, let's face it, some days are tougher than others. For everyone in every profession, it's impossible for even the best nurse to be in good spirits all the time. But I think when you're talking about a guy like Charles Cullen, I don't think he was in good spirits anytime. And I don't even think he tried to put on the face, right?

To make his patients comfortable to try to put them at ease. He just didn't seem to be a guy that could act like a happy camper. Yeah. But yet he had no trouble getting a job. And I think that's the other thing that came out, right? We've teased about it a little bit. The question started popping up. How was this man able to bebop his way from hospital to hospital in light of what was some

disturbing suspicions around him at some of these hospitals? So very quickly, you had officials at all of these hospitals. coming out to talk about how they had followed the standard hiring procedures. They checked into his background. They called his former employers and they checked out his personal references. They made sure his license was valid. Okay, it all sounds good. The problem was the state board of nurses only disclosed disciplinary actions that had been taken

against a nurse. This is when a hospital was looking at hiring a nurse and they reached out. There was no protocol in place at that time to disclose complaints that had been made against the nurse, which he had a bunch of those. But no way for them to know that type of information. No. No, because I'm not really sure what disciplinary action was taken by any of the hospitals against Cullen in either state. Now, he was fired from some places, but I don't know if that was considered disciplinary action or not and something that had to be reported. Obviously, it wasn't. It just wasn't made known to these hospitals when they called his, his former employers. And really, we talked about it up front. This guy did not stay at any one hospital very long.

Now, you and I both know when you're looking at somebody's resume, a lot of times that's a red flag when somebody's jumping around from job to job. Sure. Stability is something that you would like to see on a resume. It is. Apparently at this point in time, it really wasn't a red flag in the nursing field. Nurses were in such high demand that it was not uncommon at all for them to move very quickly on to better opportunities because there was a lot out there.

Which makes sense. If the opportunity is there, you're going to take it. You're going to move up, move around. We're going to try to make more money. Sure. And when you're in a job that's in very high demand where the supply is low, people are going to make you some really good offers, probably to move even to a hospital in the same town or the next town over.

Why wouldn't you take that? Yeah. And because they probably need you. Are they really going to look that deep? until your past? You would say ethically they should, but I'm not 100% convinced they would. Yeah, I don't know that part if they would. What I got the sense of is that it really didn't matter how deep they looked. They were not going to get the answers that would have put them off hiring this guy. Because it's not being reported. It's not being reported. And, you know, if all you're

getting is, yeah, he was a blank, blank type of nurse here from this. date to this date. That's not much to go on. That's true. That's the problem. Another factor was that, you know, he was an intensive care nurse for a lot of his time. He was also very willing to work nights and actually preferred it. And you can imagine why he preferred it. Sure. With supervision. Less supervision. Much easier for him to get away with some of the things that he wanted to do. the thing is that made him in even more demand. Well, sure, because he's willing to work the shifts. Nobody else wants to do.

Yeah. How can we not hire this guy? Yeah. He's exactly what we need. In 2004, Cullen pleaded guilty to 13 counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. Now, part of his plea deal involved him working with law enforcement to figure out exactly who his victims were. And in exchange for that, prosecutors agreed to take the death penalty off the table. Okay. Fair trade, right? Well, I'm pretty sure he knew at that point that he was sunk.

Yeah. He wasn't looking to fight the charges. It sounds like he was looking for a way to get out of being put to death by lethal injection. Both sides agree. But Cullen had a problem. Gibbs, he didn't No, exactly everyone that he had murdered. He just went into rooms and injected it and got out and done. This was not a guy who kept souvenirs and he didn't keep a record of the people he had killed, unlike a lot of killers that we talk about. He just wasn't into that. For him, it wasn't a sexual thing.

And we often talk about that with a lot of killers that derive sexual pleasure from their murders. They want to relive that. Yeah. Right. So to relive it, they need something, a souvenir, even a list of people's names and maybe what they did to them out to the side. And they use that to do what they got to do. Sick. Yeah, I know, but it happens.

This wasn't that type of killer. I don't think he got any sexual thrill that I could find from committing these murders. It just mean. Yeah, I think he just liked to kill. It might have been a power thing, right? He had the power in his hands of life and death. He's essentially playing God with these people's lives. I could go home right now and microwave up a TV dinner and watch Jeopardy.

Or I could inject you with this drug and end your life. It's a lot of power. It is a lot of power. And he did it very well. And he got away with it for a very long time. So all of this information is coming out, right? About the confessions of Charles Cullen, what it did gives was really give the profession of nursing a black eye. You know, it's going to every time, you know, one of these nurses turns out to be, you know, serial killer.

Sure. Nurses all over, they were ticked that their profession was being cast in a bad light because of what this. this man had done, there were internet chat rooms, right? This is not a case that goes back to the 60s. Right. We're talking about a time when internet chat rooms were around. They were full of nurses talking about this case. They could not believe what this man had done. Some of the conversations dealt with how nurses dealt with the pain of their patients. Right. Because I haven't talked about it. But of course, that was. Cullen's contention, right? That he killed these people to end their suffering. Oh, of course. Yeah, he didn't want to see them suffer anymore. And that's normally what comes out when one of these

nurses is found to have killed a bunch of people. It was better for the victim was better for the victim's family. They'd have to see him suffer or her suffer anymore. Yeah, I did a good thing. Yeah, did you guys a favor? Nurses were appalled when he started making these types of claims. I mean, Granted, no one, especially a compassionate nurse, wants to see patients suffering. Right. But there are protocols to be followed. Yeah. And Moe said that Cullen's claims were ridiculous because the meds he gave them, they

weren't designed to ease their suffering. He knew what he was doing. He knew that by administering these medications, he was intentionally killing these people. Now, he could make the argument that that was the way I was ending their suffering by killing them. In 2005, New Jersey legislators passed what many called the Cullen Act. And it revolved around how nursing homes and hospitals disclosed disciplinary actions against their employees. The other thing it did gives is it protected them from legal action as a result of disclosing this type of information. information. And this was huge because it really came out that the reason that many of the institutions

didn't report Cullen or they didn't take disciplinary action against him was because they were afraid that they would be sued, plain and simple. Well, yeah. And they probably would have been sued in some cases. Or could have been. The problem is it's a huge reason why this guy was able to jump from hospital to hospital and continue to kill for as long as he did. But if your doctors take the medical oath. To do no harm? Yeah. Why wouldn't the hospitals have that same oath, right?

They should look out for the betterment of all. And they should have said, what happened here was wrong, but we can't allow to carry on somewhere else. Oh, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think the way they looked at it was, and I'm guessing here, but we're looking out for our patients. So we got rid of this guy. Yeah.

Because we think he was no good. we can't look out for every patient at every other hospital. That's the only thing I can think of. They were just, they were concerned about their patients, but really, I think above all, they were concerned about possible litigation.

If they were to cast these suspicions, these doubts that they had on someone as they were trying to get another job. It could bankrupt some of them. If you thought about the ones that had double-digit deaths, if you could even prove one, the cases against them would just stampede in. Yeah, I'm sure there was something to that as well. You know, there was some part of maybe these hospitals that they didn't want to open up

that Pandora's box, right? To admit that they had suspicions about somebody would put them at a different type of risk for litigation. This would be family members coming forward and saying, hey, you let this guy, work. Now, that's all going to come out, right? And that's all going to happen after Cullen makes all these admissions gives it a certain point. Charles Cullen, through his attorney, he started to play some games with the prosecution. He threatened that he wasn't going to show up to his sentencing hearings to face the families of his victims. And he threatened to stop helping the police in identifying his

victims. At one point, he wanted to donate, I think it was a kidney to one of his relatives. So all this culminated with prosecutors threatening him with the death penalty if he kept it up. And eventually that kind of stopped most of the shenanigans, which a lot of times it will. You know, we've got this plea deal. But if you're going to monkey around and not hold up your end of the bargain, because remember, the guy's not been sentenced yet, it would be years before he was. Before he was. He was. He was going to monkey around. He would get to that point, we'll just reinstate the death penalty and take away the plea deal and we'll go to trial. Yeah. And a judge later did rule that he would have to attend his sentencing and face the families of his victims. I also think later that it was ruled that he was able to donate this

kidney and I think he did. But I did find this interesting. You know, I've always wondered about this. And I don't know, to be honest with you, if it varies from state to state, I never thought that there was any choice on whether or not you attended your sentencing hearing because that's when the victims or the families of the victims get their chance to tell you what a piece of shit you are and, you know, say all these things to you. but I guess in this case, a judge had to compel him to do it. There was actually a ruling that the judge had to make. It's one of the things that concerns me about the Golden State Killer case. Right. Joseph J. DeAngelo, you know, he's working on this possible plea deal. Sure.

And Morph and I talked about it on criminology. I have concerns. I want to make sure that whatever deal he strikes does not let him get out of having to face his victims and the families of his victims because these people, they want to face him. Sure. They've got things to say. They do. We've talked to a bunch of them at CrimeCon. We've met a bunch of them. Morph and I have talked to a large number of them. They are looking forward to the day where they can tell this man exactly what he did to them and how it changed their lives forever. Well, they need to be heard. They do. And they deserve it. So,

2006 rolled around. Charles Cullen's still working with law enforcement. He's been in jail for like two years. And he spent those two years going through files, looking at pictures to try to piece it altogether, right? All of his victims. It just tells you how many victims he has to have out there, that the fact is that he just couldn't go to each hospital and say, okay, this is what happened here. Okay, this is what happened here. He couldn't. Yeah, he couldn't. And the reason why it took so long is they had to pull all the files of the people that had died. They had to look at, you know, the reports of what they were given. The cause of death. They had to hire forensic nurses to go through these files. And then he would look at them too and try to figure out based on the drugs that they were given or this or that, whether or not he did it.

Yeah. Wow. And it was a very long process. And I think part of the problem was the files it from St. Barnabas, the first hospital he was at, some of them either got destroyed or they were archived in a way that made them very tough to examine. Well, that would benefit the hospital, to be honest. Well. Right? Because if they determined that an employee killed a patient, they're liable for that action.

There's some, yeah, there's obviously liability. They would figure out that he killed, I think it was Yingo. Yeah. He was the only one that was killed at St. Barnabas. But it wasn't easy. I mean, you're talking about two years worth of work to get to the point where he could finally be sentenced. And it was March 2006 when Cullen pleaded guilty in New Jersey to murdering 22 people in attempting to kill three others.

You wish to plead guilty this morning? Yes, Your Honor. And are you pleading guilty because you aren't? Yes, Your Honor. Mr. Mask, would you be kind enough to elicit a factual basis for the jury? Did you inject Ms. Stoker with any medication? Yes. And was it your intent to cause her to expire?

Yes. And what agent did you use to accomplish that intent? Dijoxone. Okay. You had access to that patient at Somerset Medical. Yes. And you injected that patient. Yes.

Without authorization. Yes. With the intent to cause death. Yes. And in fact, that patient died. Yes. And the agent employed by you was. To Johnson.

So I cut that down. But it was basically they had to go through each one. Right. You know, you kind of get a sense of the attorney is saying, okay, this person. Did you do this? Yes. Right. And of course, he's going to comply at this point.

Yeah. as part of his plea deal. I don't know what else he could have done. Gipsy was sentenced to 11 consecutive life terms. 11. Long time. Kind of hard to get out of that. Kind of stuck there. Apparently, he wore a bulletproof vest under his sweater when the family members gave their impact statement. So you had family member after family member, many of them berating him from whatever 10, 15 feet away. They called him a monster. They called him vermin, garbage, anything you can think of. Sure. And the guy was.

Yeah. I mean, there's no two ways about it. Yeah, he definitely was a piece of shit. But they were so angry. They just could not figure out why this man had made the decision to take away their loved ones. They just could not figure it out. Yeah. He was playing a role.

He wasn't supposed to be playing. You know, he was not that higher authority to make that call. Yeah. And he couldn't give him an. answer. Not that he would have probably if he could. I think he just like doing it because he could. But I do think that's an extremely important part of the process, right? The part where victims and their family members are allowed to talk about, you know, how this killer has changed their lives forever. I'm so glad that he was not able to get out of that portion of the sentencing hearing.

later that same month, he received seven more life sentences. He was sentenced separately for a 1998 murder in Hampton County, Pennsylvania. And then he received six life sentences in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. And apparently this sentencing in Lehigh, it was a circus. Cullen was upset at the judge for some comments that the judge had made in the press. So for like 30 minutes straight, Cullen kept yelling at the judge that he should recuse himself from the case for these comments that he made. And he repeated the same line over and over.

Your honor, you need to step down. It was said it was like 30 minutes and he said it hundreds and hundreds of times. So eventually they had to gag him. Yeah. They put some cloth in his mouth and then they put some duct tape over him. And then they just kept on going with the sentence. I'm sure the family members there love that. Yeah, they probably did get a kick out of that.

Yeah, probably maybe applause went out on that one. Now, I was kind of shocked that it went on for 30 minutes. You would think, okay, that type of repetitive talking would get old in about a minute and 30 seconds for me. You know, you say that eight, nine, ten times in a row. Yeah. I'm going to start to get upset. Yeah. And you would think the judge wouldn't have.

let it go on as long as he did, but we should switch rolls. Hey, we should switch rolls. Hey, don't make me gag you. Yeah. I will silence of the lambs you. I will strap you to a dolly. Yeah. I'll face mask you because you are a spitter. We know that. Well, you know. So in the end, Gibbs, Charles Cullen was convicted of 29 murders in two states. He received a total of of 18 life sentences. Nobody has 18 lifetime. It's like two cats. Nine lives. Yeah. Times two. Yeah. I love the math you're doing in this episode. I dropped those little math. And I didn't even have to go, beep-bo, beep-bo, beep-bo, bo. You just really just came out with it. Just case any kids are listening, they just got a little education on them. Gibbs, this is a horrible

case. You know, this man preyed on the sick, the vulnerable. Now, like I said, he claimed he was an angel of death, as have many nurses that turned out to be killers, but we know that's not the case. Because a lot of the people he killed, they weren't dying. Right. Some were. Some were up there in age in their 90s even. Yeah. But that's not his role.

No, it's definitely not his role. But it definitely goes against the angel of death theory, right? many of these people, well, I would say none of these people needed Charles Cullen to put them out of their misery. Gibbs, one of his victims was a 21-year-old college student who didn't even have a life-threatening illness. So you're telling me you're the angel of death for killing a 21-year-old college student? I'm not buying it. No, he's in it for the thrill. He was a strange guy.

I mean, I think everybody said that, but he wasn't a dumb guy. You know, this is a man that wanted to kill pure and simple. He did some intelligent things over the years to try to cover his tracks. He figured out how to trick the machines that dispensed medications so that he wouldn't be caught. But to me, the biggest reason why he wasn't caught and was able to kill so many people is what we've already talked about, right? his previous employers, they were too scared to pass on any negative information about him. Almost every institution he was at said their policy was to give dates of employment. And that was about it.

Yeah. And that was really bad news for the next hospital looking to hire a nurse. Sure. They had no idea. Well, only thing you got confirmation was is, yep, he was here. And maybe this is what he was. he was an ICU nurse he was this type of nurse whatever it was as we're wrapping up i want to play a clip from a 60 minutes interview that they did with charles cullen you're under suspicion at

st luke's yet you went off to somerset and kept doing exactly the same things and it looks like to me that you wanted to get caught i don't know you don't know because you know you're right I mean I continued but I was also I was also careful I was also deny any time anybody would have asked me did you get the sense that at Somerset for example that any of your colleagues any of the nurses any of the doctors knew what was going on no I mean until you know the day I was fired I mean nobody gave me any indication that anybody was suspicious.

I mean, the weird thing about Somerset Hospital was, is that they were planning on firing me the night before. So they let me work one more shift, knowing that they were going to fire me the next day. So they let me work an additional shift with the suspicion that I had harmed patients, which I, you know, is kind of bizarre thing to do. Yeah, if true, that's a very bizarre thing to do. And I think it harkens back to something that you had said earlier. in the episode, why in the hell would you take that chance?

Yeah, why let someone finish a shift out, finish a week out if you knew what you knew? Finish a minute. I don't even want you checking on one more patient if it's believed you could be responsible for the death of another patient. But that's it, Gibbs. That's the case of Charles Cullen. You can really get his magnetic personality. Sure.

from that interview. Man, exciting. But such a bad guy. Yeah, he really was. We got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, let's hear him. Hey, how's it going?

Mike, Mr. Gidster. There's Henry from Connecticut. Just wanted to, you know, give you guys a shout. I've been listening to you for about three or four weeks now. I drive trucks. He's getting me through many a night's driving for hours and hours. Listen to your podcast. I just listened to Randy Kraft.

Now that's a sick, sick man. I listen to almost all your podcasts. I need to set up for Patreon, which I'm going to be doing tonight. And I just want to thank you for your podcast. You got to all. You're all awesome. These five together. So good.

And, you know, thanks a lot. And like you guys always say, keep your own time ticking. Well, that's cool, man. Yeah, we sure appreciate that. Give you some entertainment while you're hitting the road. And Randy Kraft was a really bad guy. Yeah. But yet, there's a lot of really bad guys and gals that we talk about.

We don't talk about any Mother Teresa's on this show. No, no. Sadly, everybody is pretty nasty. That would have to be a completely different podcast. Maybe we need to do that just to clean our souls, man. Maybe. Hey, Mike and Gabi. My name is Ash Dayn, and I am from Yucat.

I love your guys' podcast so much. You guys remind me of my best friend and I. I don't know. It's weird kids. dudes in their 40s. Yeah, it's the whole thing. But I have a case that you guys should look up. It happened in August of 2019, so it's pretty recent.

And it happened right near where I live. It's the case of McKenzie Lewick, the murdered University of Utah students. The guy that murdered her, kidnapped her from a park that I've been to many, many, many times. He was an involving agency with one of my good friends, and he lived by me. And it is one of the most bizarre cases you will ever research. I mean, it's crazy. So, yeah, just look that up and keep doing what you're doing. And yeah.

Another case we're going to have to look into. Yeah. Sounds fascinating. Utah. Utah. We love Utah. Fry sauce. Can't put it all the world.

I'm still using the Utah salt that Mary Beth keeps sending. That's the best. That's that best salt, man. It's good stuff. I'm Mike and Gibby. It's Brandon from Pittsburgh calling again. I'm just, I'm so in love with your show always as normal. But I was just reading an interesting article today, and I can't pronounce the name. So I leave it up to you and Gibby to figure out. But it's about France's last public execution by guillotine. The guy was a serial killer. I just can't pronounce his name. It would be really interesting to hear that as a episode. I've never even heard of a story until yesterday. Again, I love the show. Keep up the great work and keep her own time ticking. Hey, was he, you getting a little nebby there? A little nebby? A little nebby from Pittsburgh.

I don't remember what nebby was, but. Yeah, I forget what it means now, too. So that would be an interesting case. Yeah. And not hard to find. All you'd have to do is look up last person executed by guillotine. Right. Legally you mean.

What? Legally. Oh, well, yeah. Because there's some people who use guillotines, you know. That's true. Yeah. That's true. I think if he's having a hard time pronouncing it,

oh, yeah. Chances of you and I nailing it are not great. That's good for either one of us. We'll give it a shot. Sure. Hi, this is Carrie from Toronto, Gabby's friend. I just want to call and let you guys know. I just listened to Travis Baumgartner one.

You were talking about him being an idiot, not having his passport, trying to get from Canada to the U.S. You actually used to be able to go into the U.S. with just your license, any sort of ID. Even if you're younger, they just, they really didn't care. Before, like, 9-11, they'd just let you in. They really didn't care as long as they were going to be able to kick you back out of the country pretty soon, kick you back to Canada. So, also, I did see a video where some money did fall off a truck or something like that. I will find it for you and post it for you. And the guy actually returned it.

It got like nothing for a reward. But it did happen. Anyway, love the podcast. Love you guys. Later. And that's what you get for being a good person. Yeah. I would have to think about return that money.

But I don't know. Well, thanks, Kerry. So when I lived in Detroit, you used to go to Canada all the time. We went over to Windsor, didn't need anything. This is in the 90s. But the case we did was in 2012, Travis. Yes. I think the theory or the thought was, you know, at that point he knew.

He knew to get into the United States, he was going to need a passport. Right. So to not bring it, it just seemed like nobody could figure out, okay, what's your plan? It's like you don't have a plan. I would just went over a little bit to the left or right. Maybe they got on the water and just kind of canoed over. Maybe that was his plan. Maybe he was going to canoe.

Yeah. Because I know you're very familiar with the border there. Yeah. Of all the different places to canoe. Yeah. From Canoe on over, man. Canada to United States. Come on over.

All right, Giz. We had mailbag. Yeah. Roxanne Sieber sent us some confections with convictions. Really? Yeah. That's awesome. Apparently, this company makes chocolate, but they give out jobs to people with convictions

to help them, you know, start their life again and get on the right track. Yeah, I got the one that said they didn't do it. These are good. They're really good. Yeah. Chocolate. Yeah, that's cool. She also sent some fridge magnets as well.

You love those. And then Aela Nichols sent us some bags of beef jerky, which you know we love. Oh, yeah. And some Harley chips. So we very much appreciate it. All right, buddy, that's it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gabby, stay safe, everyone, and keep your own time ticking.