The nurses who have killed vulnerable patients have taken despicable advantage of their positions of trust and their ethical duty to do no harm. Also, some nurses have murdered people in settings outside the workplace. In some cases the victims are family members.
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Some people would say that the very mention of murderous nurses is unbecoming on a professional nursing forum. In fact, others would say that that this subject is downright distasteful and generates negative attention. However, since I feel that the topic is somewhat interesting, I have decided to write about it.
The reality is that a handful of nurses have purposely taken the lives of other human beings. Some have killed at the workplace, whereas others have murdered people during their free time. A few of these cases have drummed up massive publicity while others have remained obscure. I have compiled a list of former nurses below, along with a brief description of the crimes that they have committed. By no means is this list all-inclusive.
Yolanda Saldivar
Saldivar, the fan club president of the popular singer Selena, was also a nurse in the San Antonio area of Texas. Saldivar shot and killed Selena on March 31, 1995.
Andrea Yates
Yates, a Houston-area housewife and stay-at-home mother with a history of mental health problems, became a registered nurse in 1986 and stopped working outside the home after giving birth to her eldest child in 1994. She drowned her five young children in the bathtub of the family home on June 20, 2001.
Charles Cullen
Cullen killed patients while on duty during his 16-year career as a registered nurse and is known as the most prolific serial murderer in the history of New Jersey. He was arrested in 2003. 29 victims are confirmed, while several hundred more are suspected.
Dana Sue Gray
Gray, a registered nurse who lived a lifestyle well beyond her means, killed three elderly women inside their southern California homes and stole their money in early 1994. She attempted to murder a fourth victim before she was caught.
Kristin Gilbert
Gilbert, a registered nurse, was convicted in 2001 of killing four patients at a VA hospital in Massachusetts by overdosing them with epinephrine.
Daniel Conahan
Conahan, a licensed practical nurse, came to be known as the Hog Trail Murderer in the 1990s after authorities connected him to the abductions and murders of multiple homosexual men in the woods of Charlotte County, Florida.
Kimberly Saenz
Saenz, a licensed vocational nurse, was convicted in 2012 of killing five hemodialysis patients in Texas by injecting bleach into them. More victims are suspected.
Vickie Dawn Jackson
Jackson was convicted in 2006 of killing 10 patients at the Texas hospital where she was employed as a licensed vocational nurse. Her third husband's grandfather was one of the victims. She purposely overdosed them with mivacurium chloride.
Genene Jones
Jones was a pediatric nurse who killed multiple young patients while on duty at the Texas healthcare facilities where she had been employed.
