The Good Nurse might sound like a television show you watch with your parents (you know, like The Good Doctor, The Good Wife, The Good Fight, The Good Place, etc.) but the new Netflix movie is actually a pretty scary true crime story. Here’s the real story behind Charles Cullen and Amy Loughren of The Good Nurse, which stars Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain respectively.
Who was this guy? Was Charles Cullen a real person?
Yep. Charles Edmund Cullen—BTW, if you don’t mind, I’ll be spiraling about Stephanie Meyer’s choice to name her characters Edward and Dr. Carlisle Cullen in Twilight… just a bit too close for comfort—was one of the most productive serial killers in history. The real Cullen, who was born in 1960 and operated between the years 1988 and 2003, killed 29 people that we know of and may have been at least partially responsible for the deaths of up to 400 people. Cullen had a history of mental illness and attempted to die by suicide. After serving in the Navy, he enrolled in nursing school, graduated as president of his class, got married, and had three kids. All good, right? Wrong!
Two years later, Cullen began administering lethal doses of various medications to dozens of patients at Saint Barnabas Hospital in New Jersey. He left and got hired at Warren Hospital when officials at Saint Barnabas became suspicious, and there he killed at least three more patients, this time all elderly women. He got divorced, moved into a basement apartment, and later claimed he would’ve quit nursing if it weren’t for child support payments. (If you say so, bub.) About a month after one of his victims managed to alert someone that she had been injected by a male nurse before she died, he left.
Between 1994 and 2003, Cullen worked at eight different hospitals in New Jersey (and one in Pennsylvania), steadily killing people as he went. His preferred “mixers” for the lethal drug cocktails he administered were digoxin, insulin, and epinephrine. Cullen dodged accusations of treating patients at unscheduled times, stealing drugs, and accessing hospital records he shouldn’t have. He was also in and out of treatment centers for his own depression and continued suicide attempts.
How was Cullen finally caught?
Finally, suspicions at Somerset Medical Center regarding Cullen’s behavior coincided with suspicions at the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System about a string of overdoses that indicated a hospital employee was injecting patients unethically.
The next time a patient died of an insulin overdose, the hospital called the police. Another nurse named Amy Loughren—played by Chastain in the movie—agreed to wear a wire and gathered enough evidence to convict him.
According to the New York Times, Cullen admitted to murdering 29 patients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and was ultimately sentenced to 11 consecutive life terms with no hope of parole for 397 years. He is still serving his sentence today.
So… who’s the “Good Nurse” anyway?
That’s up to you to decide. Is the title sarcastic, or is it referring to Loughren? Charles Graeber wrote the book about Loughren and Cullen’s work relationship and the serial killer’s eventual downfall, which became the basis for the movie. Not only was Loughren key to uncovering that Cullen was responsible for so many murders, but she also discovered the method by which he chose his victims and the system he developed so he wasn’t always the one delivering the tainted IV bag. Really makes you question that person you’ve designated as your work spouse, doesn’t it? Before she realized what a monster he was, they were friends. Eek!
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