Jane Toppan went down in history as a ruthless nurse who first administered lethal doses of morphine and atropine to patients, then lay in bed with them and waited for death. Every day she seemed gentle and cordial, at night she turned into a murderer.
- At first no one suspected that the kind and affectionate nurse had a dark secret
- It turned out, however, that Jane Toppan murdered 31 people, including patients of the hospital where she worked for years
- Not infrequently, she would lie on the bed with the patient being killed and touch him, waiting for him to die
- Jane revealed after her arrest that she was driven by the desire to experience sexual arousal while killing people
- More information can be found on the TvoiLokony home page
Mr. Dunham, 77, the owner of a vast estate in Cambridge, 80 kilometers northeast of London, decided to rent a room to a local hospital nurse, Miss Jane Toppan. The year was 1895, and Dunham and his wife had deteriorated significantly. Kind people told the host that Miss Toppan was doing a great job in her nursing position, and renting her room would be an opportunity not only to obtain small money, but also provide professional care. Jane Toppan moved into a small attic room which she had arranged in a strict but comfortable style. The Dunhams were delighted, and Jane gave them whatever. By the time.
«Happy Jane»
Jane Toppan was an excellent nurse. In 1885, the woman started nursing school and immediately after graduating, she got a job at the Cambridge Hospital. Patients loved her. Jane cared for them, hugged them when they wanted to, she was attentive and patient. Suffice it to say that both the staff and patients have nicknamed Toppan: Jolly Jane, which means “Happy Jane”. Years later, however, it turned out that Toppan was hiding a brutal secret that, when it was revealed, made everyone’s blood run cold.
Jane already at school proved to be a passionate student, exceptionally fascinated with information about painkillers and sedatives, the administration of which was associated with the death of the patient. Thanks to her smile and dedication to nursing matters, no one would take the words she uttered during one of the classes very seriously. Toppan then exclaimed that “there is no point in keeping old people alive”.
This is how Mr. Dunham, 77, died. Jane injected the senior with a lethal dose of morphine, after which the man died. According to the findings of the then police, Toppan, after administering morphine, lay down next to Mr. Dunham, touched him and waited for his death.
Perhaps no one would have heard of the case had it not been for Miss Toppan’s audacity. When more terrifying facts of her life finally came to light, Mr. and Mrs. Dunham turned out to be only two of the dozens of other people murdered by the nurse.
Bringing up with violence
Jane Toppan’s childhood was not easy. Her mother died of tuberculosis when the girl was several years old. The father, a shoemaker, addicted to alcohol, could not raise two daughters, Delia Josephine and just Jane. As a result of the violence he used against the girls, his daughters were taken from him and sent to foster families.
Jane was adopted in 1862 by Ann C. Toppan of Lowell, a woman as impetuous as Jane’s biological father. The surrogate mother treated her foster daughter like a servant, raising her with a firm hand and often using violence.
Jane, at the age of 18, was able to free herself from the abusive guardians. She enrolled in a nursing school, which she graduated with honors, and engaged in a guaranteed job at a Cambridge hospital.
Experiments on vulnerable patients
Jane Toppan started working at the hospital. Instead of saving patients, she started murdering them. In most cases, the patients were already elderly. Toppan, as it turned out later, believed that old men should not be kept alive. But before the nurse mastered the perfection of killing patients, she first subjected them to numerous experiments.
Police found that Toppan chose a patient who was injected with single doses of morphine or atropine. And she watched their behavior. With each subsequent hour, she increased the doses so that the patient was on the brink of life. Later, she restored his vital functions to start her terrifying experiment again. Finally, give enough morphine for the patient to die.
In addition, Toppan had many perverse fantasies. It turned out that she often lay down on the bed with the patient being killed and touched him, waiting for him to die. Jane, after her arrest, told psychiatrists that she was driven by a desire to experience sexual arousal while killing people.
Why was she killing?
Nobody paid any attention to the fact that it was during her shifts that the patients were dying all the time. The nurse looked cheerful and cheerful for a long time. She even concluded that she would be released from the hospital and begin private practice.
She dropped in only after the murder of the Davis family she cared for. Both died in quick succession, and investigators linked the facts to Jane’s employment. The woman was finally captured and confessed to 31 murders.
What was the motive? Jane has revealed to psychiatrists that, in the first place, she got a lot of sexual satisfaction from murdering her patients. Second – she robbed them.
Investigators and specialists found her insane due to the traumas she had experienced as a child. Incidents in early adolescence: loss of a mother, paternal violence, disdain on the part of a surrogate mother, all had a devastating effect on Jane.
A woman, placed in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, was to tell the nurses who were caring for her: “Take morphine and let’s go to the rest of the patients. We will kill them and have fun ».
Toppan died on October 29, 1938 at the Tauton State Hospital.
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