Serial Killer: Jane Toppan

Jane Toppan, born 1857, was a serial killer in Massachusetts. She was born Honora Kelley. Toppan’s life goal was to “have killed more people – helpless people – than any other man or woman who ever lived.” Indeed, she killed at least thirty-one patients, although confessed to having killed more than one hundred. Toppan was a nurse who worked as a type of female serial killer known as an “angel of death.” She injected patients with morphine, and killed them via these injections. Toppan’s murderous career was discovered in 1901 when a family whose mother was friends with Jane – the Davis family. The mother died first while visiting Toppan. Shortly after, one daughter died after asking for help from Toppan, who gave her injections to help. Then, the father died, followed by the other daughter, all of whom had been medicated by Toppan. In court, Toppan was found insane – based on her many suicide attempts throughout her life – and was therefore sentenced to life in an asylum. At age 84, in 1938, she died.