In The Good Nurse, there are various reasons why Charles Cullen might have killed his patients, including mercy killings, to take control, and more.
The Good Nurse has received positive reviews from audiences. This is likely due to its unique take on a well-known story.
The Good Nurse explores the investigation and arrest of Charles Cullen, and although it still does not provide much clarity on why exactly Cullen killed his patients, some of the possible reasons include that they were acts of mercy or a bid for control.
Is The Good Nurse any good?
The Good Nurse is one of Netflix’s newest additions and it premiered on the streaming platform on 26 October 2022, shortly after the film’s first release at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Although the main story that the film is based on is well-known, The Good Nurse has an interesting point of view on the murders of Charles Cullen, by focusing on the relationship between Cullen and Amy Loughren, his friend and colleague who discovers his dark secret.
The two actors who star in the film, Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne, take a subdued approach to their roles, which helps to reinforce the overall doomed and creepy tone of the film.
The film has received positive reviews overall, with an audience score of 79 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Good Nurse: Why did Cullen kill patients?
The Good Nurse is an adaptation of a book that came out in 2013 called The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder and it was written by the journalist, Charles Graeber.
This book follows the real-life investigations, capture, and arrest of Charles Cullen. In real life, Cullen has not really given investigators or the press an answer as to why he killed so many people.
The closest answer to this question was given by Cullen in a 2013 interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, where he discussed why he thinks he killed so many of his victims.
During this interview, Cullen maintains that he killed his victims to spare them from pain and from becoming dehumanised, however, when he was pressed further about the fact that he killed victims that were recovering just fine and that were not in pain, he said that he was not sure why he did it.
This is why many people disagree that Cullen is a “mercy killer” and give other reasons like years of mental distress, a need for control, and too much power.
This is also why experts theorise that although Cullen was convicted of 29 murders, the real number may be as many as 400, due to a culmination of factors from Cullen’s mental illness to the willingness of the medical field to look away from his crimes to avoid the bad press.
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Where to buy The Good Nurse: A Story of Medicine Madness and Murder by Charles Graeber |
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Other reasons why people think Cullen killed his patients
Although Cullen has tried to claim that he was driven to kill as an act of mercy, there are many people who do not think this is true.
Amy, who contributed significantly to Cullen’s eventual arrest does not believe that he is a “mercy killer”, even though she does not understand why he would have done it for other reasons.
Many experts have also speculated that Cullen’s mental health issues after his mother’s death and short military career could have contributed to his vile acts.
The detectives who worked on Cullen’s case, Tim Braun and Daniel Baldwin, have stated that they believe that Cullen murdered to maintain a sense of control.
Fortunately, with Cullen incarcerated, possible victims will be spared, regardless of what drove Cullen to kill in the first place.
How many people did Cullen kill?
Cullen was ultimately convicted for murdering 28 people between the years of 1988 and 2003 and he is currently serving 18 consecutive life sentences as penance for these murders. However, Cullen has admitted to killing 40 of his patients over the years.
Experts who have followed his case closely believe that the actual number of murders that Cullen committed over the span of his 16-year career may be closer to 400.
How did Cullen get away with killing for so long?
Cullen himself has been very outspoken in the past that he had not exactly gotten away with the murders at all of the hospitals that he worked at before his eventual arrest, but said that he was often offered a neutral letter of recommendation in return for not making a fuss and he could easily move on to another hospital.
This means that hospital administrators looking the other way to avoid a scandal, at least in part, contributed to the fact that Cullen got away with murdering so many people.