Why Did Charles Cullen Kill the Patients? Netflix has released the recent film titled “The Good Nurse” which tells the story of Charles Cullen, a nurse who killed his patients by polluting the IV Bags being administered to the patients. As per reports, Charles had supposedly killed 400 people but according to him, the count is only 40.
However, if the count is really 400 it would make him the deadliest serial killer around the globe compared with the most-known serial killer’s history. Now, what is interesting is why would someone who is a nurse, takes an oath to save the very people he’s killing, why would someone do that? That is the question here, isn’t it? Well, here are our theories for you
Theory 1
Charles Cullen didn’t do any interviews or gave any answers as to why did he do what he did but after some time he appeared on 60 Minutes on CBS and gave a reason. He said “I had thought that – that people aren’t suffering anymore. So, in a sense, I thought I was helping.” So, what it feels like is another case of Mercy-killing (same as we saw in the recent AppleTV+ Miniseries 5 Days At Memorial). He didn’t want the hospitals to color-code them and dehumanize them.
Most of the patients that he killed were terminally ill which could even try to make sense but others were getting recovered like Eleanor Stoecker, who was recovering and in no pain for which we didn’t get a satisfactory answer. His response to killing the patients who were in fact recovering was that he felt overwhelmed at that time.
Theory 2
Charles Cullen, if we go about his life from his early childhood, he lost his mother when he was 17 in response to which he tried to kill himself then he joined the Navy but got bullied there and he tried to kill himself, again.
If we look at his marital life, his wife had filed for divorce and physical custody of the two daughters along with a restraining order as well. All these problems in his life, he seemed to have no control over and one thing where he mattered or had control over was the hospital.
It would make a lot of sense if he did it to feel a sense of control over the patient’s life, the control over someone’s life in his hands. It would also explain the cruel way he beat his dogs, as his wife Adrienne had said that she would wake up in the middle of the night to find beating noises from the basement and Charles would beat them in the name of “training” which could be interpreted as having control over the dogs as well.
For someone who had no control over his life, he tried to find it elsewhere.