Random Serial Killer Nurses Who Murdered Their Patients (17 items)

(#10) Orville Lynn Majors
- 62
In 1999, Orville Lynn Majors was given the unusual sentence of 360 years in prison for his three-year criminal spree that took the lives of up to 130 patients. He worked in a hospital in Clinton, IN, from 1993 to 1995, and the small-town hospital's fatality rate shot up by a staggering amount after Majors was hired.
It was estimated that 33% of all patients admitted to the hospital passed during this time period, and the odds of expiring when Majors was on the clock were much higher than usual.
Although the prosecutors were never able to put together a concrete motive, it was reported in the Journal of Forensic Sciences that Majors selected his victims based partially on which patients were whiny and the most demanding. Andy Harris, who was once Majors's roommate, testified that Majors believed the elderly "should all be gassed."
(#17) Gwendolyn Graham

Cathy Wood and Gwendolyn Graham were co-workers engaged in a romantic relationship that turned deadly. Dubbed the "Lethal Lovers" by the media, Graham and Wood killed at least five patients together in a Michigan nursing home during a two-month period in 1987.
The first murder, which was not initially deemed a suspicious death, involved an elderly Alzheimer's patient, whom Graham suffocated. The pair apparently believed having a murder pact would keep them together.
Wood later admitted to the killings, and she alleged Graham was the person who physically committed each crime. Graham ended up reneging on their pact after just a few months and began dating someone else. In 1989, the former lovers were arrested and convicted in five patient passings.
(#9) Stephan Letter
- 45
From 2003 to 2004, a German nurse named Stephan Letter used lethal injections to end at least 29 of his patients, many of whom were elderly. It's highly likely Letter took more lives, though, because approximately 80 people passed while he was on duty.
Letter did admit to some of the deaths, but he tried to portray himself as a mercy killer. The jury didn't believe this explanation, and they convicted Letter on 28 capital charges. The sheer number of killings that Letter committed during a short period of time makes him responsible for the untimeliest deaths in Germany since World War II.
(#4) Edson Izidoro Guimarães
- 66
Edson Izidoro Guimarães was convicted of four murders in 2000. However, the nurse admitted to killing five patients, and some estimates place his probable list of victims at more than 130. All of these deaths happened between January and May of 1999.
A co-worker stopped the slayings by reporting it when he witnessed Guimarães injecting a patient with potassium chloride. After he was arrested for his crimes, Guimarães stated that he had no regrets because he had helped people who were in irreversible comas.
It's unknown if that was the true motive, but investigators suspected that he was killing people to earn $60 each by reporting their deaths to nearby funeral homes. Known locally by the nickname "the Nurse of Death," he received a prison term of 76 years.
(#6) Jane Toppan
- Dec. at 81 (1857-1938)
Known by the nickname "Jolly Jane," the nurse Jane Toppan confessed to 33 murders in 1901. She would inject patients with lethal doses of morphine, then climb into bed with them and hold them until they passed. Toppan was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of her life in a mental institution instead of prison.

Toppan stated that it was sexually thrilling to take people to the brink of death, bring them back, and then kill them. Perhaps even more disturbing was Toppan's stated life's purpose: "to have killed more people - helpless people - than any other man or woman who ever lived."

She may not have reached her goal, but she was dubbed the "greatest criminal of modern times" by the Clinton Morning Age in 1902.
(#2) Amelia Dyer
- Dec. at 59 (1837-1896)
Amelia Dyer is one of the most notorious serial killers in history. Although she was only convicted of 12 deaths, evidence suggests her true body count was at least 400. Her crimes took place over a 20-year time span in the late 1800s, and all of her victims were babies.
Dyer was a trained nurse who turned to baby farming to make money. She would offer to adopt or nurse a child in return for a fee but would typically terminate the babies within days by drugging them with opium-based substances or smothering them. She actually served six months in prison for negligence in 1879.
But Dyer wasn't arrested for her crimes until 1896. Her reign of terror finally ended permanently on June 10, 1896, when she was executed by hanging for the murder of 12 infants.