Women Serial Killers in Health Care
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SINCE 1970, more than ninety serial murderers around the world have been convicted after operating in hospitals, long-term care homes, and private residences with elderly charges. Between them, these nurses (mainly) and doctors (a few) have killed or injured over 600 people; an additional 2,600 deaths are connected to them but unproven. The caregiver killer deploys a subtle arsenal of insulin and opiates and pillows over faces. They hasten a person’s demise by doping them with already-prescribed drugs at higher doses, or they induce heart attacks or strokes. Another forty health care workers in this time period evaded conviction for lack of evidence beyond reasonable doubt. In the Gosport War Memorial Hospital, in England, for instance, a female physician presided over 456 deaths due to inappropriate prescribing of opioids between 1987 and 2001, with another 200 patients considered to be her possible victims. Although she was censured for “professional misconduct,” her licence wasn’t even suspended, much less was she prosecuted for manslaughter or murder.
What this means is that we could be talking about 130 suspected serial killers in North America and Europe—dozens of John Wayne Gacys and Jeffrey Dahmers—in the last half century. And these are only the ones known or suspected. There have been other care homes and hospitals with highly suspicious death rates that have never been fully explained. Like the red-light district and the lonely highway, institutional care settings are prime hunting grounds for the modern serial killer.
