Charles Cullen's Accidential Killer

Although Charles Cullen was the serial killer, the hospitals where Cullen worked were also at fault. In 60 minutes, the interviewer stated that Charles Cullen was a suspect long before his arrest. “Charles Cullen was the main suspect for poisoning random bags of saline…if you talk to the investigators there they’ll tell you Cullen was our man, we knew he was dirty. They couldn’t prove anything. It’s all circumstantial” (60 minutes, 4:30). The hospital suspected Cullen but didn’t try to have Cullen’s nursing license removed. After all, if the deaths were in their hospital, they could be liable for millions of dollars. Consequently, Cullen moved on to another hospital before they could fire him. Instead of acting on their suspicions and marking the end of Charles Cullen’s nursing career, it marked the

Cullen would continue to work at 8 other hospitals where he killed most of his patients with digoxin, a powerful heart medication that causes a complete heart block when overdosed (60 minutes).

Charles Cullen became killer and was not born one. Growing up without a father affected him negatively because it increased his risk for alcohol abuse, mental illness, criminality, and suicide (Photius, p.1) Cullen grew up poor in a large family raised by a single mother. He was suicidal from the age of nine. Cullen couldn’t control his anger, and lacked a conscience which he demonstrated when he tried to fight against bullying by spiking drinks at a party with rat poison (Jennifer Hash, 2006, p.1). Charles believed that being victim of bullying justifies killing people. He justified killing people because he thought of himself as a victim. He was the target of bullying in school and in the Navy. Then, both his mother and brother died young. He got divorced, and his wife got of custody of his children. He wanted to quit being a nurse, but had to continue to work to pay for child