Where Is Charles Cullen From Netflix's The Good Nurse Now?
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True crime is reigning supreme on Netflix. Views of the streaming giant are still reeling from the unreal but so real accounts of DAHMER—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and The Watcher. Both series were inspired by true accounts of people who experienced tragic and grim encounters and sent viewers on a quest to discover the truth about the victims and the suspects involved. The Good Nurse is Netflix's latest venture into the harrowing world of true crime. Released on October 26, the new film shares the perspective of the woman responsible for getting Charles Cullen, a nurse who admitted to killing between 30 to 40 patients while working in various medical facilities over 16 years, arrested for his crimes. According to NJ.com, investigators close to Cullen's case believe he could've actually killed up to 400, "which would make him the most prolific serial killer in history."
Based on Charles Graeber's The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder, the Netflix offering tells the perspective of Amy Loughren. A nurse at Somerset Medical Center and single mother struggling with a life-threatening heart condition, Loughren formed a close relationship with Cullen and even introduced him to her children. Investigators approached Loughren to help collect evidence against Cullen after several suspicious deaths occurred at their hospital. Cullen later admitted to his crimes and was issued 17 life sentences.
Who is Charles Cullen?
Charles Cullen was born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1960. His father reportedly died not long after his birth, and his mother died while Cullen was a teen. According to The Independent, he dropped out of high school in 1978 and enlisted in the Navy, where he became a petty officer second class. He was later discharged after he attempted suicide, The Washington Times reports. Cullen worked as a nurse in New Jersey and Pennsylvania hospitals and nursing homes for 16 years, despite being fired from or forced out of at least six facilities.
He was arrested in December 2003, where he admitted to investigators that he killed patients by injecting lethal cocktails of heart and insulin medicines into iv fluid bags, turning off ventilators, and medicating patients without a doctor's permission, NJ.com reports.
When Cullen was faced with the death penalty, he decided to accept a plea deal to avoid it and confessed to killing 29 people, 22 in New Jersey and seven in Pennsylvania.
Seven years after he was sentenced, Cullen appeared in his first televised interview in 2013 as the first serial killer to air on 60 Minutes in 45 years. During his interview, Cullen said that the killings were "mercy killings" despite some of his victims not being terminally ill. He also revealed that he previously attempted suicide. "I tried to kill myself throughout my life because I never really liked being who I was," he said. "I didn't feel I was worthy of anything."
In the same interview, Chris Graeber, who investigated Cullen for his book, believed Cullen killed more people than he admitted to. "I would be very surprised, as would pretty much everyone I've spoken to with any knowledge of this case, if it was not in the hundreds, multiple hundreds."
Where is Charles Cullen now?
Cullen is an inmate in protective custody at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, where he will serve 11 consecutive life sentences for killing patients in New Jersey, the New York Post reports. According to the Department of Corrections, his earliest parole date in the state of New Jersey is June 10, 2388.
The Good Nurse is now streaming on Netflix. Check out the trailer below.
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