THE GOOD NURSE-Charles Graeber

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nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver, implicated in the deaths of as many as three hundred patients, He was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history. Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals cross New Jersey and Psylvania.

When in March of two thousand and six, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania courthouse into a waiting police van, it seems certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career and capture would disappear with him.

confidential informant who helped bring him down. The Good Nurse weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal were it not for the hard boiled, unrelenting work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen's professional past, and a fellow nurse will to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, There's no telling how many more

lives could have been lost. The book that we're featuring this evening is The Good Nurse, a true story of medicine, madness and murder, with my special guest journalist and author, Charles Graber. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for Greenedness interview. Charles Graber.

crime items, obviously and especially freaky ones. And I believe the headline, if it didn't say this exactly, it certainly it was something like it was a you know, angel of death serial killer attempts to donate kidney from jail. And I'd never seen that combination of words anywhere obviously before.

And it was it was a small small piece. It was, you know, maybe a two inch column, and uh, it was a star about a guy they were calling the Angel of Death who was attempting to donate a kidney, as I said, from Jalen's being stopped from doing so because as as one might imagine, he that didn't fit well. It was something he wanted to do, and and him doing what he wanted to do from at that point

jail because he hadn't been sentenced. It really didn't fit many people's idea of punishment, So he was being stopped from doing that, even though there was somebody that was actually going to most probably die without that that guinea. So this is a hugely ironic and kind of crazy situation. And I just thought it was it was it caught my eye and I put it in my in my wallet, uh,

for whatever reason. And and then I was having a lunch with a magazine editor that uh, that I just finished a piece with about about something else, and he said, isn't there anything else you want to do for us? And I really didn't want to do anything else for them, but I but he said, isn't there anything you're keeping you up nights? Sort of? And I said, well, I've got this thing. And I pulled out my wallet and I had this, you know, this, this one cutout, cut

out piece and the thing about it. At that point, Charlie Colin had been arrested. He was arrested in December on December twelfth, two thousand and three, when he was leaving a restaurant in New Jersey and a. At that point, it was accused of of one one murder and one attempted murder. He'd already been fired from his last nursing position. And he at that point had he really refused to speak.

And then eventually he did speak, and and it turns out that what they were, you know, what they were accusing him of was really on the tip of the iceberg. But and he sang a song that included some forty people would know that to be probably wrong by factor of ten at this point. But but what what we'd heard as of a of a story Charlie Collen was was about a maybe maybe a mercy killer. The only a guy who wasn't going to say anything else. He'd spoken to the cops. Once he spoken to the detectives,

he wasn't going to address anyone else. He never addressed the press, he never addressed the families of the victims. He wouldn't speak in court except to say, uh, you know, yes, yes, your honor and he and he planned to go away like that.

kidney was was a good thing. And I told him, you know, there's stuff he did good and bad, and and I'm I'm just I'm just here to try and talk about, you know, what happened, not to judge you. I'm not your you know, your your ethical accountant. So just you know, if you want to talk to me, you'll talk to me, and you'll get maybe get that thing done. And if you don't, you know, good luck

to you. And he got back. And once I started talking to him, I started meeting with him, and you know, his own his lawyer couldn't believe that he was talking to me because he wasn't talking to anybody. And I started meeting with him in in the Somerville Jail in Somerset County in New Jersey, where it's being held. And once I started speaking with with him, I was also speaking with his priest and his lawyer and and and

in those conversations a very different picture emerged. It was very different from this angel of death, angel of mercy kind of character. It's very different from a picture of a of a guy who had operated for sixteen years different hospitals and nursing home without being detected at all, and then suddenly the system that was designed to catch him caught him, you know, and justice was served in

a monstrous put away. What I discovered was something much more complicated, christ I discovered that the the serial killer himself, Charlie Cohen, was more charming than you might think, but not charming in a bundane sense, just sort of someone that he didn't automatically dismiss, you know. He actually had a lot of complexity. He was a smart guy, and he wasn't smug, He didn't come off that way. And I also learned that, as you know from from reading

the book, that the big surprise wasn't you know? The question I get asked all the time is you know, why why wasn't you know? Why wasn't Charlie Cohen caught sooner? And the shocking answer turned out to be he was over and over again, and somehow we kept on getting let go passed on what you know, however you might want to put it, And he had a remarkable perspective on that he found it. I guess you'd say funny. And when I realized that, I realized, there there's a

story here that needs telling. And it was a complicated story. It involved drug drug names and and the you know, the chemistry of the human body, and and a lot of psychology and and some character. There are no explosions, there are no knives, there's no blood, not in that sense, and yet it's the most grizzly story I could imagine. It was going to take some subtle telling. Luckily, you know, happily I got the you know, once I was talking to to Colin, and I was the one guy, uh

that could maybe carry that weight. Even though I had to keep it secret for a long time, it became known to other people, including the detectives who caught him and some confidential informants, and gradually people came out of the woodwork. But the more people that came out, the more comp okay it got, which is why ultimately this story took. It took eight years to tell it, to tell it fully. So that's how that's how that whole

thing got. But if i'd known, I mean, I'm really glad to have been able to tell the story and be able to write it out like I like I did, and I've been pleased with the reaction to it, and it was good to get it out of my system, if you will, and get into the world. But I never would have guessed in that moment when that first letter came sliding underneath my door with it. I've spent eight years later, they'll be a you know, neck deep in it. If not deeper.

some of these horrible deaths. So we're not talking about an angel of mercy, an angel of death, stort of sounds like that, like some benevolence somewhere involved here, and we're talking about ill people. But we're not talking about that at all. So let's go back to again. A lot of people want to know how on earth some of these people are shaped and what could have contributed, not really to blame, but contributed to how they end

up and in these particular situations. So tell us about the background of Charles Cullen, where he grew up and uh and how he got to be a nurse. And we're talking about quite a few years ago where a male nurse was not something very common.

just I'll describe the background. I'll describe how it all came to be. And you can see in the book as you read it, you can sort of understand see the pieces lining up. You can you can understand the pathology come together, you can see patterns forming in the guy's head and how they and they start to perhaps manifest in his crimes and his murders. But but it's not a completan equation. It's not like this plus this

plus this equals automatically a silk serial killers. It's a there's there's there's a real, a real mystery to it. So I'll just describe, I describe what we know. Uh, you know. Charlie Combs born in East Orange, New Jersey. He was born in nineteen sixty. He was a late life baby for his parents, who was I guess you call him a mistake. Really, They hadn't plan on having a kid. Everyone else was older by decades. He had the other nine children, it was you know, they were

a family that worked and got by. Except his father died when he was just a few months old, and so that became harder and harder. Some of those older kids were into some rough stuff, and they were, it seems, dealing out of the house, drugs, out of the house, bringing people around. And that was an old wooden house that I think was filled with a lot of hurt and a lot of strangeness For Charlie, Coleen, that's a hard, hard thing for him to talk about. Our interviews were

anything but a confessional. I got what I could get, and I had to investigate the rest. And he shuts down on certain stuff. And this is the part where absolutely it's it's as dark going through his memories as it would through an unlit through story house. So there are some dark quarters in there that even he can't walk into anymore. But when his mother died in a car accident when he was seventeen years old, it was in nineteen seventy seven, it was he learned about it.

He used to play sick, pleased to call in sick to school quite a bit, and he was very very much attached to his mother, and he enjoyed that time that he got to spend with her, especially, and she protected him from the chaos of those rooms upstairs and the older boys and the people that came around to see the older daughters and took them away sometimes and then brought them back the black eyes. And he depended on his mother in that way and enjoyed being sick,

I suppose in that way. And one of his sisters took his mom out to get some Marin's done and uh and never came back. And the police came around to tell him that there had been an accident. They didn't tell him that his sister hadn't taken her medication and had an appleptic seizure at the wheel. And they didn't tell until Charlie that his mother was dead. And he went to that hospital and discovered that not only was his mother dead, but they told him is her

body was gone. He never saw her again, and he was very bitter about that. That's something he cannot speak about at all, and he he he held that forever. Now just to you know, I'm going to break the chronology here, but a fascinating thing for me. I you know, I spoke to Charlie Collen dozens of times and in jail during his sentencing and and later when he was in a maximum security walk up and Trent as a non com you know, and with the guys that are going to get killed by by everybody else if they

if they come out of their cell. And he wouldn't ever speak about this part of part of things. But but one thing that did come out during our discussions was a different version of the events I'm about about to tell you at all. And and and so I just want to highlight that as we as we go through because when when his mother, when his mother died, he was it was one of the first times he attempted suicide. It was actually the second first being when he was eight years old, at least what he said.

So when he he he dragged the contents of a of a chemistry set that he'd gotten for Christmas. It was part of the you know, the church charity box because the columns at that point were getting by on on a lot of the kinds of strangers and fellow church members. Uh. After his father died, and but that was self reported, so it's impossible to say for sure. But he but SUSI didn't work. But instead he chose the Navy. And I think that the Navy appeared to him at first but was really a bad fit. He

was a smart guy. He got along very well in school, but and and applied and and trying to be a missile technician. But once he got into the subs themselves, it was like the locker room for hell from hell, you know. He uh, he was just trapped in with a bunch of guys. He's a guy that really liked hanging out with his sisters and being protected by women, and here he was with exactly the opposite. And he, you know, he didn't want to pee in front of

other guys. He didn't want to be It was just it was a situation that that that didn't didn't work for him at all, And and he developed a drinking habit at that point. He demonstrated a clear issue with authority at that point, and he tried to get himself out of that thing, a situation repeatedly by different types of suicide, idiations and and and the like. He finally got out. Now here's the here's the part where the

story is diverge. You know, this is a this is a true story, so and it's a I needed this this you know, I wanted to tell it like a thriller. I wanted to I wanted to be able to rip through it and understand the details and really feel them and smell them, use every tool that uh that a novelist gets to use and h but I wanted to be rooted absolutely in the greatest journalism that we that we you know, just irrefutable as truth is as I

was able to access. So I had to be very careful because there's some things that you know, you'd like to paint in these stories and and you and you can't because you can't really confirm them properly. So and I solved that partially by sometimes explaining what Charlie said and what Charlie thought, because I knew what he thought, because he you know, it came it come from him. And then I had to make a little differentiation between

what I knew the absolute truth to be. Charlie Colin told me how he got into nursing, and he told me it was because during these times of trouble in the submarine, when he really didn't have another friend, he spent a lot of time in two places in the in the sick bay where he liked to help out, giving injections and being useful and and uh and seen as valuable. And also with the chaplain. Uh, you know, he was a He spent a lot of time with

the Catholic Catholic chaplain there. He he had a Catholic background, and the chaplain told him, you know that he thought he would do well in it, maybe taking some some courses on I didn't properly a real well.

that's Helter Skelter audiobook. Vincent Bulagosi the prosecutor in that case, and you can go to Audible podcast dot com slash true Murder. Here we will reconnect with Charles Graber. Good evening, Good.

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careful of of of reflecting the verifiable truth. What Charlie told me was that he when he got out of the Navy, when it was finally when I was finally discharged from the Navy, he discovered that that last correspondence course that he'd sent away for turns out it wasn't actually another course, it was an application and he'd been accepted to nursing school. And this was you know, this was a sign from God. This was just this is

fate showing him the path forward. And in a way it's a it's very similar to a lot of his thinking, which is to say it wasn't it's it's ultimately not his responsibility that he did what he did, That he that he was involved with what he was involved with, you know, a priest and and happenstance, and that what might might equal fine providence actually put him on the

path to frankly becoming a serial killer. Interestingly enough, what he didn't tell me, which conflicts with this somewhat, is that those I discovered that that that that hospital that I had spoken about earlier, where they'd taken his mother away and where he'd never seen her again, and where he decided you could never trust hospitals again, and that he had developed a certain attitude towards uh, you know what part of the world owed him one that hospital

was exactly where he went to nursing school. That was Mountainside, and and that wasn't coincidence, that wasn't providence, and that wasn't a place that actually had even had a correspondence course at that point. So so so that was I thought a remarkable thing that Charlie Cohen went to the place where his mother's body disappeared, a place where he held hospitals responsible for taking away the thing that was protecting him from the world and that he held most dear.

And that's where he trained to be actually rather good nurse and ultimately a really proficient serial killer. But at that point, as you say, there weren't many male nurses. He was, as a result, a natural choice to be the president of his class, and was the president of his class, much celebrated, and he loved the attention that they gave him. It was a that was a highlight

moment for him. He worked his way through a nursing school with a series of odd jobs, you know, at sort of quickie marts and cow doors and Roy Rogers and and the like. Met a met a young woman and they married and put sent down some money on a house, and he got an offer for a position in the Saint Barnabas Burn Service in in Doingston, New Jersey,

and uh with a good hourly rate. And he graduated and they cut their hontingmoon short to make sure that they could they could start start on time on Saint Barnabas Day. And it's looked like they had a wife together, and certainly his wife seemed happy, but he started killing people almost right away.

or any nurse has access to the drugs and how that all works.

of shift and all manner of words. He had all sorts of all the right qualifications to work pretty much anywhere, and he was in fact of valued veteran experienced nurse that you know, that earned good money and could in theory do good work. His job differed from really from ward to ward, whether it was the intensive carry unit or the or the burn unit or any or the

carniac carr unit or any of the others. But to describe it in the most general terms, there there were certain rituals of care that need to be given run from the beginning of shift and then through throughout in terms of uh, you know, checking on a patient, checking charts, bathing them and the like. There's a schedule of drugs that they're supposed to receive UH, and there's a whole ritual around that. And then there's sort of your worst

case scenario, which happens with greater frequency. Greater frequency on the wars where people are the most fragile UH burn units, there's particularly fragile CCU units. UH somewhat, I see you intensive care by just by virtue of the name, you know it's it isn't intent and that is the code if you're ever in a hospital, and I hope you know in fact, and we all are. Most of us are born there, many of us will probably die there, and we have a lot of moments there in between.

It's a really important, important places watershed moment. Places they have announcements over the last speak of the here, and they rarely say, everyone quickly runs a room two thirteen, there's something terrible happening. What you hear instead is something a lot more calm, something like you know, you know, doctor quick, doctor quick, please report to room two thirteen.

Or a doctor blue or these are various codes, and code bluis essentially means that a patient is has arrested and measures need to be taken to bring that patient and the heart stopped, the life process has stopped, and measures need to be taken fairly quick uh to bring that patient back. Now, people that really enjoy those codes, and those codes are these codes are many things. But uh, and you know, and and and in working in this book, I hope you'll excuse what may come across as as

a gallows sensibility. But one of the things that they can be is if you're working there is exciting. Doesn't mean it's good. It's like the way a fire is exciting to a firefighter, right, It's kind of what you're there for. It's the moment of action. And people that seem to live too much for that excitement, they sometimes call them code freaks. The nurses that worked with him didn't consider Charlie to be quote a code freak, but at the same time he was particularly good at the codes.

He would go in with a what's called a crash cart, which was the card of all the of all sorts of medications that might be used to stimulate the heart or or you know, razor or blood pressure or the way kepnifferent nor perdifferent and things of this nature, and so that they were in ready access and he seemed to know even before the residents did or anyone else that was responding with these codes what the patient might

need uh in order to be quickly brought back. In many cases, now it was in most cases because he himself had brought about that code. So Charlie Cullen, who worked through poisons, he killed people by delivering overdoses of of therapeutic drugs that are usually used therapeutically, like did j oxon or dig right, which is a heart medication

that usually regulates blood pressure. He would take these these drugs and use them in excess, sometimes for that weren't prescribed them at all, or excess for people that were prescribed them, and sometimes in concert with other drugs as a sort of cocktail or sort of symphony, so that the whole range of effects would be going on through the body. Would be very difficult for someone else to decode.

But as Charlie Collen came in the room and responded vigorously to this code, he could in that moment well perhaps revive the patient, but also seemed very smart indeed, but that wasn't his only m was he went, you know, I mean those are the patients he saved. We have a record of many more he didn't, but that was his basic story of how he what he did with some of the patients. Now, those are people he also wanted to see and wanted to be involved with. There's

another range of people that for whom he acted. He delivered a dose of medication and then left his shift and left someone else essentially to take responsibility for it. It was the way of covering his tracks. There's a whole other group. And this really dispels, as you said, any any sensibility that this that Charlie Colin was a mercy killer, whatever one might think of what mercy killer means, and any merit to that. That's really the first thing I always hear about this, Oh that guy who's a

mercy here. Then they mentioned Kavorkian. They had nothing to do with the will of patience. Nobody asked him to do this. It was all about Charlie Colin, not about anyone else. You know, we're all terminal, frankly, uh and the people in hospitals are are far more fragile. Some of them may be on a faster track that terminator than others, but that's not really the way he operated. If you like killing people and you don't want to and you'd like to continue doing in hospital. The hospital

is a wonderful place to work. And that's the way Charlie Collen treated it. And that's clear really right from the onset in his first job mentioned the seventies in the burn unit for for it's at Saint Barnabas for five years, and during that time, he's spiking bags of saline in the storm, which is to say, the ivy bags. They're just basically salt water to increase your blood pressure.

So the best way to think of it, he's taking those bags that are supposed to be completely benign, you know, and you can add something to them, but most just to keep your blood pressure going, and he's secretly injecting them with insulin. He's creating a diabetic situation for people that think that they're just getting, you know, a benign bag of saline, and he doesn't know where they're going to go out. So so right from the beginning, you

know he's not a he's not a mercy killer. Right from the beginning, he's he's killing people essentially a random and demonstrating, uh, demonstrating his control, so that I'd say that was his his basic mo, I mean it changed. What was one of the most interesting things about this is I really got into the nuance of of of what he did. And as we speak, by the way,

I'm looking at a massive spreadsheet that I've created. I mean, it's like a hand drawn thing that goes through all the years, and it's covered with eight years worth of worth of notes and arrows and so forth. And as as I learned more and more about this, I you know, as as I'm sure your your your listeners might imagine, as you might you might imagine you you see patterns where you haven't seen patterns before. You realize you you

you recognize that things start to connect up. You sort of put yourself more and more in the mind of of the of of the killer. Frankly, and and as that happened, you it actually the crime multiplies. It becomes less of a you know, a statistical thing or a number a numbers thing that he just realized exactly how

how insidious it is. At the same time, you can also appreciate perhaps some of what the killer himself appreciated, which is to say that there is a mountain complexity to what he did, that that it just in terms of a game was actually quite clever. So the exact m of how he went about getting his drugs, exactly how he went about delivering them, and the and the effect upon the people, I mean, the ultimate effect, of course for everyone was terminal. But but but the but

the but the means to that end. Uh is so more complicated, so much more complicated by the end of his murderous career than it was at the beginning. It's almost as if he started off, you know, sort of a garage band playing bass and he ends up as a you know, creating full symphonies by the very end. And I don't mean to suggest any beauty in any

of that, but only only complexity. So it's it's it's I don't want to, you know, over overwhelm the answer with that complexity, but that is that is the arc for him.

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dot com slash Dan Sapansky. So, Charles, getting back to this incredible case, what I wanted you to express to the audience is really what I found the most shocking, and I think we alluded to this as well, is that the system, and again I talked about it, the culture of the administration, and we're going to get to that because there is this resistance, and maybe you can explain how on earth there could have been people that suspected Charles Cullen of actually killing people or spiking them,

that it was no accident that these things racked up that these things made sense and fingers were pointed towards him, and yet he continually was able to get jobs despite those suspicions, despite those deaths, and easily got jobs and had recommendations. You really go into in this book how that's possible. And that's I think one of the scariest aspects of this story and this book.

The hospitals at which the killer had worked were issuing some press statements, but you know, they weren't really talking much, and mostly it was self congratulatory We caught him great. Uh. The families of the victims were locked up in lawsuits and then ultimately uh, you know, locked up in in in the terms of those suits, which is to say, you want the money, you don't talk and the ultimate witnesses. Uh, you know, of course they're silent because those they're because

they're dead. And the detectives who caught this guy in the end, I mean the ones that were successful in bringing this thing through and stopping him. Uh, they were silenced by a series of forces as well, and they were also very frustrated, frankly so that you weren't hearing from any of those guys. And I waited into the mill this thinking, Wow, this is a this is a loser. I mean, this is gonna be hard to How do

I how do I begin to tell this story? But as I, as I started to accumulate the pieces and started to realize the truth and speak truth to the people that knew it already and knew it bed and I at that point I found, I found, I found eager you know, eager listeners and eager participants, and gradually and gradually they they joined me and trying to trying to uh oh and in giving me access to stuff I'm sure I shouldn't have access to uh And and

that was really really thrilling. And the picture that emerged, uh, the story that I wouldn't have guessed at uh, going into This wasn't the story of one bad guy with bad ideas in his head that got put away and this you know, everything's fine and the bad guy's gone. It was the story of all this. It was a story of of of of the system that we depend upon.

And I say a system, but I mean a system of people, a series of people that we depend upon to take care of our most vulnerable people, our mothers and daughters and grandmothers and children and every and everybody else, the hospital administration as a whole. And it really this really touches obviously upon it's very sensitive time for this whole topic. There's a business of medicine, which the fact that there is that the medicine is a business isn't in and of itself h less noble than than than

medicine itself. It was already vilified. But but but this was a particularly ugly aspect of it. That what I found was in many cases, those same those folks had taken a very narrow definition of their of their job, which was, you know, if they're supposed to be, say a risk manager or a lawyer for a hospital, and their job is to protect their institution from from harm from fiscal ruin to prepare it for potential lawsuits and the like. All jobs I understand and respect, and and

you know, this is what modern society requires. But they'd taken this definition to such an extent that actually almost seemingly willfully and I have to be careful with my

words here. As I was, it was my writing ignored the fact that they had a serial killer working amongst amongst their staff, intentionally harming their patients, and rather than ever acknowledge that fact and therefore, uh, you know, lose any sort of litigation, you know, to say, I'm sorry, we have a serial killer in our midst We must

remove this person. We have a nurse who is uh you know, at at at best incompetence, but at worst and most probably uh uh you know, associath uh and and serial murderer.

sort of a brat. You have to picture picture him as a as a bratty, uh, frustrated guy. He's still mad at the hospitals, uh, you know, twenty something years on and he's so he's he's sort of throwing away some of their medicines just to waste of money and and be rude, and he's having a bad time, you know, with with in his life at that point. So he thinks he's justified that he's also killing patients at the same time, which is a version to to him of

the of the same thing. And it's discovered that that you know, that they're they're trash cans basically full of this stuff, including empty bottles of something called vaccuronium bromider what they call vect, which is a paaragook.

they knew it was suspicious. He's discovered outside council has brought in uh, Charlie colin is is is marched out of the unit, uh with with the you know, the with the nurses staring. After being offered an option, he's he's offered the possibility of quitting or being fired. If he's fired, he doesn't get neutral references. He's got an employment problem if he if he's if he allows himself to quit or retire from that position. Really the references are his call, and he can do do what we will,

what he will. He does that. He moves down the street to another hospital and starts killing patients. Send me another eighteen patients right right down the street. The president of that hospital calls his colleagues and asks about this guy and passes on the information that this guy is that do not rehire. It hit his hospital. But he doesn't call well, he doesn't call your hospital. He doesn't call your mother's hospital. He doesn't call your wife or

daughter's hospital. He doesn't call anyone else but the people he knows. He warrants some and not others. He makes it unofficial. And that and Charlie Collen moves on, and that happens over and over and over again. And that story, which is not a story of a monster, you know, sort of a pre made monster doing monstrous things and getting stopped. This isn't a this isn't a you know, a wolfman story or you know, a God's Hillo type story.

It's a it's a it's a human story. And those people, by the way, in my book, whom I name my

name in The Good Nurse, I name everyone. That's the reason it took eight years is to make sure I actually got it right, and that you know that there was there's no way to go back on it, you know, unlike Charlie Collen, who's going to be in jail for the rest of his natural life, and if not in New Jersey then in Pennsylvania, where though they'll kill them after, you know, after he serves a couple hundred years in in New Jersey, they're they're waiting for him there. Those

folks actually got promoted, their vice presidents. Now they actually have an extra zero in the back of their salary, and they're still waiting the detectives who finally caught these guys, and I know, well, you know you touched on that, but the detectives were incredibly frustrated. The detectives were saying, these guys are accessories the murder. They're they're they they they actively interrupted our investigation in order to make sure that we wouldn't we couldn't put it together in this

exact way. And they asked for a grand jury, and and that grand jury.

ultimate ultimate answer. Because I think I think there's a monster, there are monsters in all of this, or you know, perhaps I'm telling too much about myself. There's certainly one in me, and I'm not going to do that. But it's a matter of choices, you know, It's not a matter of just being good or bad. It's a matter of choosing to do that. And that story was much more interesting and much more important, I thought to tell.

to try to look at this case. And at first and you really get into this and one of the books I really enjoyed, well, I really enjoyed the whole book, but I really enjoyed this because the humanization of these two guys, these too tough, skeptical cops been involved in murders and now they're involved and some sleepy little somerset here and they're not sure if it's a murder, and and so they go in very very skeptical, thinking that

this is going to be nothing. And and then finally a fire is lit in both these guys, and but briefly tell us about the Again, the thing that really cracked this case was the phone call and that file that was there, and then the second part of that file where they talk about the digy Oxen, So tell us about that whole incident, because I think it's.

book was them, you know. And it took me a while to reach recalibrate that because they were seen so much and they knew so much, but what they'd never seen, uh you know, what they were used to was Newark, the Toesch Streets in Newark, where which is the murder capital of the world. While they were there where everything started with drugs and with a gun, and it was basically, there's a hole in somebody and they have to figure

out who put the whole hole in the guy. And so it was a physical thing they put the hole in the guy, and who was holding the thing, the physical thing that put the hole in the guy. It's I mean that sounds a little reductive, but that's actually what it is. You know, That's why I put the lines, you know, the string. So and it's not it's not stupid, it's it's it's just that it's there's a basic element

to that. This was chemical you're talking about poisoning, you're talking about it was shifts, you're talking about all the chemistry and all that. And so these guys were lost. One of them told me, he said, you know, get you know, uh, you know all that all this Latin is Greek to us. Is how they put it. One of the ways they put they put it. So having said that, you know, they assume that, okay, so as the hospital's got having a problem. Hospital doesn't say it's murder.

They don't know exactly why they're there. They just know there's a problem. They assume the hospital's gonna be their friend and tell them about this because it's it's filled with you know, people with degrees and so and so forth. So they're looking for a handhold on this because we sha our field of expertise, and that's theirs. What they found was the opposite that they if they didn't get way to ask for it, and they didn't know what to ask for uh, they weren't. They weren't being given

given any help. They didn't think they could catch this thing. And they had a sense and not too long after they started that this is probably this is a ticking bomb that there's because they were right there that syrakill was still working and still killing people the entire time they're investigating. So so what are they going to do? And they catch a break. They they figure out that from the from the paperwork that somebody called in that there was actually a call to New Jersey Poison Control.

And you know, they they're they're really getting fed up with the with the with with not getting straight talk. They don't really know how to talk to anybody about any of the stuff. They don't they don't get it. There's a call in New Jersey Poison Control. They they they call into New Jersey Poison Control. They gets to the same sort of line. They actually go visit the guy finally who funds New Jersey Poison Control, and what

they find is a kind of a surprising scene. A cranky guy at his desk, underfunded, who's been waiting for the cops to show up for six months because he got the call and knew that they that that some muchI Medical center had a problem. He knew right away that that the pattern that they were not trying to describe, but that somebody was required to call in and ask for help with the math. He knew that that meant something.

And when they showed up, he gave them finally, you know that the lawyers gave them said they had no paperwork. There's a six months of work and the lawyers they don't have a single piece of paper. Were the hospital saying a very similar thing. They've got three pieces of paper. Doctor Stephen Marcus and New Jersey Poison Control and doctor Bruce Ruck New Jersey Poison Control are saying, we've got

these calls. And by the way, we recorded them, and that's the only reason you got called is because we announced that we recorded them. And what those calls show is that there was a pattern and that the hospitals knew and were trying to control this thing. And once they have that, you know, you just see Tim Brown slapping his desk and saying, you know, we can't. First of all, the people that we thought we were on the same side of those are the guys we're against.

Now we have to unfortunate. We have to treat everybody like an animey except maybe this guy. And I got those tapes. If we had more time, I play him for you, and they are unbelievable. You hear right away how frightened the pharmacy assistant and has to call in and she knows just what's happening. And this, by the way, is well Charles Colin is still he's still got another we I would estimate probably fifteen people that he kills after these calls are made. She knows there's something going on,

she knows she's not supposed to say anything. She's under a lot of pressure. So this is a I mean, you know, this is a story of This is the story of office politics as much as it is about serial murder. And it's amazing when those two things collided, So you know what it was beyond my imagination.

because he worked security. Again, one of the coincidences of this was that the same hospital that he did his security that he started off as a security guy, is exactly the same hospital that Charles Collins started at. And so I also knew how to go. He also knew how to go to security and say, listen, I know I'm not supposed to get this information, but could you give me some information?

geting arrested. This is at a preemptive moment, when when when the detective is is so desperate that to try and take this guy down that he's just going to pick him up for for essentially nothing, and he almost ruined the whole investigation by doing that. But you can understand this past. They're talking about the school mascots, they're talking about their competing football teams at that point. Now the you know, it's really jock versus nerd in that moment,

it's it's detective versus serial killer. Uh, that dynamic in that small space, you know, that really cost or phobic but small area. Maybe the most prolific serio in American history. And I and I've the information, I've got back set up pretty solidly. But he this was this, This was entirely personal, and this was really really really small stuff. In a way, it's always personal, I think when you when you do something like this, it's it's really all

about some little hurt you've got. It's really not about the whole world. It's not it's it's it has massive effects, but it's really just about some little party that got hurt, usually as a kid, you know.

dragged out of this person. So tell us just a little bit without getting too much away, but tell us about how long this correspondence was and just how you sort of managed to get some of this out. What was if there is any technique that you employed, what did you have to employ to be able to get some information from this Charles Cullen.

but that was never. That was never never. In the cars I use his words when his words are appropriate. But I never rely on his truth.

but I never I never rely on him. He's that's that That wouldn't work for anybody, especially with something so important, because you also have people who are respected members of society, who are still respected members of society when this book comes out, and I don't want to pit his truth against theirs when I'm when I'm in the middle of things legally, and also when the reader needs to know what's really happening. Having said that, first, I just wanted

to know his truth. I just wanted to know how he felt about things, and I wanted to know his story as he as he remembered it. And I and Charlie Collins a lot of things. But aside from that one story, I I specifically laid out about about, you know, how how his his priest led him to to become a nurse or how you know how he accidentally became a nurse through through correspondence. I've never found him to

be a liar. He never outright lied, and I think that must be that's I think that's sort of an omission of memory rather than you know, which which will happen with him all the time. Of course, because in Charlie's mind, he's he's a decent guy. He's not hating himself or doing this. He is, you know, he's he's not a proud, egomaniacal character. That's you know that there wants to be boastful in any way. And he's not ashamed of his his cleverness and out smarting the system.

And and I and I know that there's a secret part of him, although he would never confess it publicly, that is very very happy to be the most prolific serial killer in American history. And interestingly enough, he started his career only days after that that record had been somehow, if you could put it that way, broken publicly by another nurse. But but having said that, I I had my own, you know, So that's Charlie Colin and he's doing his thing. Meanwhile there's there's me. And I consider

myself to be a moral person as well. And I had my own problem, which is to say, and I think I think every journalist that attempts to talk to well, attempts to talk to a source who did terrible things, has this problem, which is to say, you and how do you how do you how do you not come how do you not be false? How do you not misrepresent yourself? How do you not betray somebody? Because I don't want to betray anybody, including a serial coop. I

didn't befriend him. We were never friends. It was always very clear right from my first letter that I was not his ethical accountant. As I said, I was not here to, you know, somehow balance charmic points or the like at this. At the same time, I also made clear because he was he didn't want to talk about the bad stuff, never wanted to talk about the bad stuff. We did not talk about murder. It's it's it will surprise you to hear that, because this is a murderer.

But murderer was the one thing. You know, first of all, you'd never say the word. Second of all, you'd never he'd never talk about it. And and uh and if you did, you'd heat shut down. And I don't mean shut down like I don't feel like talking. I mean shut down like you'd watched a robot start shutting down. That wasn't a part of he was, That wasn't something he was his his his full psyche, he was equipped

to actually deal with. I don't know that he was a split personality and that in that sense, but he certainly acted like one, and he would he you you that that was the end of the of the discussion. I meanwhile, I'd be traveling seven hours at a stretch to get to him, and I'd say the wrong word and I'd watch the whole So I got flipped the switch. So I wanted to understand as much as I could and then go follow up, follow up on that. You know, so you know? So, so what is it you you

you do learn? You learn about? Uh? Well, first of all, you do a lot of listening and a lot of probing. There's some things he wants to talk about and every boring, like sitting next to someone on a bus that want that's really obsessed with some nice thing that happened to them.

That he was that guy sometimes. But sometimes he'd talk obsessively about things that you knew that you would understand were enormously important, and you'd and you'd uh, and you realize, we're actually the coda to everything, and that was that was actually children. That was children in the burn unit.

And uh, the way the children that came in when he was first starting as a nurse would come in sort of like I mean almost like i'd say, like baked potatoes, but in that they with a hard jacket of scar and that they could never grow again unless you cut them and cut them, and it was terrible to cut them, but you'd have to cut them, and you'd have to put them in these terrible sort of wet suit like garments called pressure suits, and to squeeze them.

And without any of that, they would they would be stuck in this sort of cocoon of childhood, this cocoon of of of of of of trauma. And he didn't put it in those in those terms and by any means, but it was very clear to me right away that that was that was that was Charlie Cohen, That was him. He was he was that kid. He recognized those kids. You talk about how he wanted to help them, how I wanted to treat them, how how bad sad he was.

When we we we'd be talking about anything and we might end up back at that topic at any given time, at any given year. You know when it was again when I saw him in jail, when I saw him when I had to buzz through ten layers of security and and pat downs, you know, across the the scarred plexiglass of the of the non com UH nighttime visitor center and trying to maximum security. It didn't matter when

it was that that was always on his mind. It never left him how those kids had suffered, and somehow, how those kids had suffered. Their little burns reminded him of himself. They reminded him of of how he'd been burned in in the Navy. They reminded him of little problems he'd had as a child. It was all tickling backwards, always over and over and over again. And I wanted to make sure he knew I wasn't his friend, but I was listening, and he knew that he understood that.

I think, Charlie Colin, he needs to watch I can say that's what's great certainty after eight years of dealing with him, Charlie. Charlie Collen needs to feel like a victim, or needs to certainly seem like a victim in his own mind, no matter what it is he's a victim of his mother disappearing. He's a victim of of of whatever system, he's a victim of staffing irregularities at whatever hospital, or or or a victim of his divorce or whatever might be happened. And he's certainly going to be a

victim of of this writer. I'm I'm aware of that, and I was aware of that going in. But the truth is he's very much in control of what he's he's not, he doesn't he's not fully aware of what he's saying, but he's very much aware of the fact that he's uh, that he's expressing a version of his self image that he's proud of, and that version is shy, that version is controlled, that version is contrite, that version is the good nurse, and that and that and that

guy is is real. That that guy, that guy is real, and that guy exists for Charlie Collen. But the truth at the same time is that there's another guy living inside of Charlie Colin that Charlie Cullen can't acknowledge, and that guy is the guy you've got to eventually talk to. And it doesn't just come out like some weird voice or something like that in the movies. He used to have to eventually wait for the information to percolate down to that other guy. For those and for those two

people to have a little bit of a negotiation. The uh, the the the outside shy uh self deprecating guy that lived with his mom and didn't want to get beaten up or sodomized or anything else, and the and and the and and the guy that secretly is making clippings of the of the fact that they're onto the fact that maybe there's a killer nurse in New Jersey. And when those two guys have a proper negotiation, that's when you can actually actually speak. But he but he'll he'll

never speak straight. He won't lie, He just won't. He They're just some things he won't be able to tell you. So for instance, when he tells, uh, you know, if you if you ever see his his confession, uh, you know, I've seen his full confession tapes, you know, the you and if you see those that full confession. At first he's he seems sort of defeated in some way, and then he putches up like a cat and then he,

I'll say, sings a song. He starts in the present tense, and he goes backwards for six hours with things that you would not remember off the top of your head for six hours in a manner that makes it very clear that he has you know, he had an hour commute each way every day for a long time. Makes it very clear that he'd been singing this song to himself for a very long time, that he always knew exactly what he did. And I would suspect very strongly.

In fact, I would be I would bet anything that there is a long roll of butcher paper somewhere in this world that has the name of every the victim he was ever responsible for, written out in chronological order. Uh and and uh and it was great accuracy somewhere out there. And I'll but he knows it'll it'll come out, it'll come out later. So trying to deal with Charlie, I mean, you're you're both playing a game. And that hurt me too, because I consider myself a good guy.

Uh and uh And unfortunately, one of the things that you're supposed to do sometimes as a journalist, what they want you to do is is uh, you know, trick someone to get the story. And I won't I won't do that. So luckily we had the kidney between us, you know, when he was first trying to donate that that that kidney, and and you know, and and and that's that's what we ended up, uh, I ended up focusing on. So he pretends he's mad at me. Now

he won't, he wouldn't, he won't speak to me. And I absolutely know that he's consciously upset with me, and and unconsciously probably very policed, and that bothers me a lot, frankly.

at a car wreck. He also faulted, of course, the hypocrisy of one of the hospitals he worked at, Saint Luke's Hospital, which he considered to be a Catholic hospital. Uh as he was he was raised Catholic. His takeaway where he'd killed numerous people at Saint Luke's and there were the hospital that that actually moved him on, you know, having caught him in the middle of the night. Uh and and never mentioned it, he said, the hypocrisy of that,

a Catholic hospital, of all places. It's again, he always has to find some way to uh, find find a higher ground, if you will. Uh And you know, and and and and and someone else to blame so for for this The only reason I know he's he's happy with this. And again actually this is a supposition, so I you know, I would never have put that he's happy in this in the book. For instance, is that when when he meets at the very end with a confidential informant, he happens to he's clipped out of the

out of the uh, out of the paper. Some pieces that suggest that there's somebody has been killing people at these hospitals it's not it's not certain whom yet and uh, and and and the pride that he has in that one fact, the fact that he actually collected that is one of the few indicators that I have of exactly you know who he is in that regard. But he is he is, he's uh, he's furious of me, and he's certainly not happy at all the way I painted him.

and all that information from his perspective? And how important do you think that was in his murderous spree?

that that's that was hard to verify. I found that the Navy sources that I looked into were or could I couldn't get second party verification. The New York Times published some things. A number of places published, uh you know, published accounts. You know, there were people that uh you know, for for example, uh, the newspapers at the time were publishing accounts of Charles Collen being found at the uh

well you know. One said at the at the nuclear controls with a you know, in surgical scrubs and and a mask. Another said that he was just goofing around in the same same gear. Other other guys had other stories. I didn't find any of those to be It's not that they weren't credible, it's just that I couldn't really verify them with multiple sources. So in terms of the humiliation, what I had to do is take single source humiliation.

Uh uh you know, uh sourcing and stories, and combine that with Charlie Collins's own recollection, which doesn't amount to to double sourcing, but but turn that into his uh his recollection, because that was certainly his sensibility. I wouldn't want to present that as story history. Anyone that I found that ever served with him in the Navy said he was They called him fish belly. Uh he was uh miss you know, mistreated. He was always uh treated

like a new guy. And and his uh you know, uh sort of gym lockers sensibility about about what it

is to to live in a submarine. Now, partially I knew that when he was talking about that, he was speaking to me, because the truth is that, you know, anyone that's chosen at this point in life for you know, or to be a writer and uh uh and probably was and probably was a writer for the last thirty years, very very probably has a lot more in common with the guy that's going to speak like that than someone that right away knew that they were going to go

into being, say a beat cop or something like that. It's really rare and interesting when you find that combination. I love crime and true crime because I love that combination. I really want to you know, that's that's that's where I live. But I know that's what Charlie was trying to play, is that middle ground and his his memory of cruelty I had to tone down, uh massively, because of course, remember every every in every story, he's he's a victim in the last one of the last hospitals

he was in. His great memory was of of of how the other nurses they were male nurses at this point, because remember where we started with female nurses. We started in in a world where where nursing was almost entirely female. And then largely because the salary shifted and that it largely became, it started to get an increasingly male component. He became increasingly uncomfortable and he he didn't enjoy that dynamic, and his his ability to uh to wield power really

really changed. And when that when that happened, he felt like he felt like he was being victimized. I think even when when he wasn't frankly, uh, you know, he was the patients were perhaps being treated with a gallous humor he didn't respect. But but again that was a you know, an aspect of perspective that he brought, he brought to this uniquely, so so you know, that's that's that's that's something that I had to treat very very carefully.

wanting to represent themselves. So it's always these people. Everybody, their wives, their family have have treated them badly, and so I don't find that so unusual. I would say that in how affected were you from this entire experience? Was it? Were you in it? Was there any depression or was there any real uh serious outcome from having lived through this pretty tragic tale.

was true, and I I didn't like him. I knew what he'd done, but I felt like I could I could talk to the guy. Uh I UH. A later interaction came when I started going to court and the victims' families who had been dealing with this for a lot longer and had a very very different reality and and frankly, I think a more realistic take on this. They were they were angry, and they were and it was ugly. It was really ugly. Then I found it

really unpleasant and I got deeper and deeper. These are just the first few months.

wasn't writting from his voice, it wasn't. I did decided that, But at the same time, I wanted to uh to give a sense of who he was without being, you know, overly dramatic about it, but at least to allow people to understand what it is, at least to be a nurse. Let's start there. So you know you're you're a nurse in a burn unit. You have a something called the rule of nines where you know that someone burned over x percentage of their body times nine, that's the percentage

of that there plus the age. That's the percentage that they're going to die. So that the majority of people that come into your unit in these terrible situations, you're doing everything you can, They're in terrible pain, you're you're taking extraordinary measures, and they're going to die. So I wanted I want most people will never have to face that. I lived for a very short time in that reality. For for this, I actually started sadowing night nurses and

burn units. And it was heart it was heartbreaking and and very difficult but I wanted I wanted that sort of first person perspective and that choice making what you do. But then ultimately, if you're going to be a serikiller, there's a very different uh choice pattern that happens every time you meet someone. There's a different drop down menu.

Let's just you know, take it from a sort of a computer perspective, and the and the drop down menu isn't sort of you know, uh, you know, greet them, shun them, ignore them, uh you know, court them and the like. It also includes kill them. Because it was very casual. For for Charlie, it didn't really mean to him what it what it meant maybe to a lot of people. And interestingly enough, I think that's what we ask of our soldiers as well. It's so and and the fact is it's not a casual drop down menu.

So to suggest it is a casual drop down menu and then treat it like it's not, which we might do with soldiers returning home, is to really miss it. So I I took it upon myself to put that drop down menu in my own in my own head, and and that actually that actually actually did screw me up for a while. So I had bail posted pretty pretty regularly on a distant case, just just so I knew that at any given moment, I could I could

go over any line. And I walked around for a while with that, with that sensibility and and just to see what that was like. And I say it for a while, I mean for a couple of years probably actually now that I look back on it, and it actually it actually truths to me told I think it messed me up. It was it was. It was hard. I mean, I'm glad I went through it. And a lot of people and you know, anyone listening to this that uh you know actually you know went to war,

did any of that stuff? I did not, you know, so you know, screw me. So you're absolutely right. But that was I did. I did my best with that and and that and and it was that was that was that was tough. I mean for me and I think for uh and for my relationships and for and

for all that. But it was I think very for my understanding of that because it was because it's really about honestly, it's think about I mean, think about what what's how crazy that is to have to have uh, you know, shakes hands killed this person as being one of the options. I mean, it's it's sort of a it's a it's a it's a a video game option,

you know, for every interaction. And yet this is exactly the the the reality for for this guy to make that casual and to sort of treat that as a casual thing for the book was it was good, and I'm and I'm glad, but I'm I'm hoping, I've I've gotten none of that, I guesse, I say, but yeah, I think I'll put to you this way at the very end, when I was really when I knew too much, and really I just needed to make the book happen, you know, because because ultimately what happens to a lot

of people that know that this that research something this long, is you want to make a book that's ten thousand words or two millions words wrong. You want you know that it's it's a life, it's it's lives, it's all,

it's the victims lives, it's everything. You want to do everything for this thing, and you realize, you know, ultimately it needs to fit between two covers, and it needs to fit into a pocket, and you just need to get out at the door and needs to be got, you know, uh at some you know, at some point, so you know, you know, right about when when when that when that was happening, and I was thinking, you

know what, what to choose? Everybody is important, every every all these all these thoughts are important, all these victims aren't How do you? Uh? The Japanese tsunami happened and tens of thousands of people died, and it was terrific.

And uh, I went as a journalist and went right into the middle of it and lived, you know, with with with with my camping gear, blew my back out carrying all my stuff, and moved in the middle of it with with some remarkable people, and just completely wiped out almost all those thoughts I just described to you in a way, I mean just you know, it was

the same sort of thing like it was. It was a survival mentality, but it was I got I got this sort of small cyclical evil part of it out of my head, and I came and I, you know, I quickly wrote that story. And and then I came back and and just like took the book and and and and and finished it. And that was really really important. It was really really vital that I had that aspect

of it. So yeah, this is I found it devastating, but ideally it's therapeutic and and I have a hope for it in the end, you know, which is actually still happening, because it looks like it's a it's a movie now, which is not. Yeah, which is not, by the way, what I'm I was going for. But you know, to the extent that there's a there's this, there's a

social message and social social right. The social message, by the way, isn't isn't don't killing us and people the the the social message is uh, you know, uh uh

is more like is more Nuremberg frank than that. It's uh, you know, don't don't you know, don't don't think you can you know, you know, make make a salary, right well, you know, don't think you can make a salary, uh, you know, guarding the concentration camp and not get called on it and h and and that's and that's where there are a lot of people that have done that,

and that that I think might still come out. I'm hoping my my great hope now is that it is is that there will be that grand jury and those the technics are still waiting for it, and and right now, uh Lionskate and uh and there's a director. I'm hoping they were gonna announce it soon. Well, but you'll you'll know who I'm talking about are actually taking this honest

as social cause, and I'm helping they. Uh, frankly, screw you know, screw screw those admins the way they at least as badly as Charlie got done.

given to them, And that's the way they're looking at it completely, And it really does turn into a cover up when you have a lawyer, not even as bron said, the guy didn't even take any notes. He says, I wanted to punch the guy in the face. I want to thank you very much Charles for coming on and talking about The Good Nurse, A true story of medicine,

madness and murder. For those that might want to contact you, continue this conversation or Facebook, give us how people might contact you if they are so inclined.

care of. Every each and every day. So I want to thank you very much Charles for coming on and talking about the good nurse and you have yourself a great evening and hope to talk to you again in the near future.