The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder (51 page)

2
Joseph P. Lehman and McKinley Crews were the two Somerset patients whose lab values were not as suspicious.

3
The manner and cause of death would be determined later by toxicologist George F. Jackson, PhD.

1
According to documented court proceedings and police investigation documents, Laughlin hadn’t provided specifics in his call to Easton, but had told them, in regards to reconsidering hiring Charles Cullen, “Don’t”—this word, in quotes, was handwritten in quotes on the back of a page in Charlie’s Easton personnel file, which was obtained during the police investigation.

1
Coincidentally, from the standpoint of minimizing Somerset Medical Center’s liability, this was the best possible situation.

SMC couldn’t fire Cullen without a reason. If the reason was a suspicion of murder, Somerset might then be liable for those murders. But following directions from the prosecutor’s office was not an admission of their own suspicions. It was reasonable compliance with the legal authorities based on the prosecutor’s suspicions.

Instead, Cullen was gone—the detectives had investigated a crime, discovered Cullen’s history, and advised SMC to fire Cullen. But if it couldn’t be definitively proven that Cullen was actually the one responsible for the specific patient deaths, then SMC was not liable to civil suits.

2
From Detective Baldwin’s interviews and SCPO records.

1
From Tim Braun’s notes.

2
This had been the pattern at many of the hospitals they’d looked into, a confusing thing to the detectives. During Detective Baldwin’s November 14, 2003, interview with Betty Gillian, the vice president of the Saint Barnabas Hospital corporate office (and Cullen’s former supervisor, the woman who had fired Cullen for “nurse practice issues” and remembered Cullen being the focal point of an internal investigation concerning IV bags that were contaminated with insulin), she recalled the Saint Barnabas staff had been upset when Cullen was accused of tainting the IVs, because “they liked him because he was very helpful.”

3
Police investigation documents and interviews with detectives.

1
On November 21, 2003.

2
Police investigation documents and interviews with Amy Loughren and Detective Baldwin.

3
This incredible detail is from a direct recounting in one of the author’s interviews with Amy.

1
Police investigation documents and interviews with Loughren, Baldwin, and Braun.

2
Amy had suspected something was off before, when she’d been asked to sign her name to the insulin levels without having any means to actually check them.

1
The information in this passage is taken from author interviews with Amy and from her journals.

1
Following Cullen’s arrest, Pyxis bolstered the security of their dispensing system.

1
After the exposure of what Charles Cullen had done, this loophole in Pyxis was fixed by the manufacturer.

2
Code status indicates whether or not a patient is to be resuscitated if they code, and what measures are and are not permitted for them—a decision made by the patient or the patient’s family.

1
Even Lucille Gall, the Reverend Gall’s sister, had recalled a conspicuous argument about Tylenol she’d had with the male nurse; it was clearly a drug he favored, even when it was not clinically prudent. Charles Cullen could easily claim the rest of the Tylenol orders were valid as well; certainly nothing the SCPO investigation had turned up could prove otherwise. Whether by design or accident, Cullen had made Lucille Gall his alibi.

1
This was SCPO captain Andy Hissim.

1
Benadryl and ibuprofen—though Benadryl is a sedative that Cullen’s ex-wife Adrianne had accused him of using on his children, a charge Cullen adamantly denies.

1
This material and all quoted matter here is taken and abridged from Detective Braun’s notes, made during these calls.

2
Tim had faxed the completed questionnaire to them, but there hadn’t been enough time to actually get the consultation before they kidnapped him.

3
After Cullen’s arrest, the detectives would have the opportunity to speak with famed forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee about the difficulties in bringing a case against Cullen. Dr. Lee’s opinion regarding medical serial killers was captured in an April 29, 2002, interview in the
Los Angeles Times
:

“You have to figure out who the victims were long after they were buried,” he said. “You have to dig up [bodies]. You are going to have a difficult time finding true trace drug or elements in there. The next issue is how to link to the suspect. Why him? What’s the proof? Prepare to fail.”

4
This was despite Charlie’s having been investigated for suspicious deaths by all three hospitals. It’s not clear whether Montgomery ever had the opportunity to call any of his references.

5
From a police investigation report.

1
Cullen couldn’t read without his glasses, either. Whether or not Charlie Cullen was wearing his glasses on a given night might have determined what he could read, and which patient got the deadly cocktail.

2
Cullen misstates the name of the paper; it was the Newark
Star-Ledger
, Rick Hepp reporting.

3
Amy remembers Charlie Cullen telling her that the first person he killed at Saint Barnabas was a young woman.

4
Cullen has never been tried for this patient’s death.

5
It’s more likely that Cullen was simply bought out of his contract and paid for the months of sick-leave time he accrued while in various mental institutions during his tenure there, and that added up to less than $18,000. Charles Cullen filed for bankruptcy the following year, claiming over $68,000 in debt; it is possible, but unlikely, that the settlement from Warren Hospital was an addition to his base salary.

6
In fact, with all the stories flying around and the police visit, Cathy believed that Charlie was going to run away with Amy to Mexico.

1
Baldwin’s report lists this as six hours; however, Cullen had been processed by 6 p.m., and the interview didn’t wrap up until 3 a.m.

2
The SMC board included a former state senator. The chief of police was his son-in-law.

1
Captain Nick Magos’s office.

POST SCRIPT

1
The hospital suits each alleged that the fault lay with whatever hospital had previously hired Charles Cullen and then allowed him to move on; all of the suits named Saint Barnabas as being the birthing ground of the serial killer. One of the larger battles occurred between Saint Luke’s Hospital and Somerset Medical Center. Somerset Medical Center’s lawyers argued that Saint Luke’s should be responsible for any lawsuits brought by the families of victims at Somerset. Judge Garruto of the New Jersey Superior Court sided with Somerset without weighing in on the specific merits of the actual cases. The fact that Saint Luke’s administrators had called other hospitals was one of the main contributors to his decision as to their responsibility for those suits. By making those calls, advising some hospitals against hiring Cullen but not alerting others, they had, in Judge Garruto’s opinion, effectively “decided who would live and who would die.”

2
An adverse event is one that results in death, loss of a body part, disability, or loss of bodily function lasting more than seven days or still present at the time of discharge, where the event could have been anticipated or prepared against, but occurs because of an error or other system failure [NJSA 26:2H-12.25(a)].

Contents

Welcome

Author’s Note

PART I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

PART II

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Post Script

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Newsletters

Notes

Copyright

Copyright

Copyright © 2013 by Charles Graeber

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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ISBN 978-1-4555-0612-5