Medical Murders

Over the ages, arsenic has had many lives — beauty fad, household product, medical prescription… and weapon of choice wielded by killers everywhere from Alabama to ancient Rome. Brine your turkey, knead your dough, and listen to our Thanksgiving Special on the regime-changing, assassination-aiding King of Poisons. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1848, Dr. J. Marion Sims had gone from just experimenting on enslaved women, to becoming an enslaver himself. His quest for fame while finding a cure for vesico-vaginal fistulas meant performing inhumane surgeries on the women he held captive. Women whose plight would remain unknown for over a century. Women who would ultimately take down Sims’ legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a failed start to his medical career, Dr. J. Marion Sims settled in Alabama to continue his training. There he found success and started his own practice — specializing in the treatment of enslaved women and their children. But as Sims’ business grew, so did his ego. His desire to experiment on patients meant many of them didn’t make it out of his operating room alive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the wild frontier days of turn-of-the-century South Africa, women were expected to settle down young and produce a legion of children. Daisy de Melker dared to pursue a nursing career first. When she finally did find herself in the constraints of a marriage, she just as quickly set herself free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jack the Ripper’s crimes have gone unsolved for nearly 150 years, stirring up controversy even today. While many possible theories have been presented, new technologies bring unexpected leads — including a suspect with no medical training at all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During the autumn of 1888, an infamous serial killer terrorized civilians across London, brutally slaying at least five women. While many call him “Jack the Ripper,” little else is known of his identity. However, his murders may offer one major clue about who he may have been: a doctor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After murdering his pharmacist wife, French con artist Jean-Claude Romand began a baffling murder spree. By the end of his crimes in 1993, even the liar himself couldn’t be sure what was true. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For years, everyone believed Jean-Claude Romand was a prestigious international doctor, not an unemployed con man living off stolen money. But once someone asked for their money back, people ended up paying... with their lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fresh out of school, Ben Geen became an emergency nurse at a hospital in Oxfordshire, England. But his growing arrogance spiraled into a quest to prove himself. One by one, Ben’s patients fell victim to unexplained respiratory attacks while in his care. It would take months for his colleagues to realize: it was no coincidence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Prestige, profit, and private practice were the three things that Dr. Anthony Pignataro wanted most. When he couldn't obtain it on his own merit, he forged documents to help achieve his dreams. But not even a patient's death or a jail sentence was enough to reform this con man. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He wanted a life of opulence and success as a doctor, but failed his way through three different residency programs. So Anthony Pignataro did the next best thing. He took on plastic surgery as an unqualified surgeon... and the results would be deadly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

She was a first-generation Colombian immigrant who paid her own way through dental school. After graduation, she married a handsome orthodontist from a good Christian family. Clara Harris thought she had everything. But when she discovered her husband was having an affair, she knew somebody would pay the price. And she didn't care who it was. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In October 1909, two members of the Swope family suspiciously fell dead, leaving a one million dollar inheritance on the line. Months later, a typhoid outbreak swept through the household – leaving everyone questioning whether the culprit was diseased water or a greedy in-law. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When one of Missouri's most prominent real estate tycoons fell sick in 1909, his family members awaited their plum inheritance. But a fair split wasn't enough for Dr. Bennett Clark Hyde. While he was just an in-law, he wanted the entire fortune, even if it meant using his medical expertise for murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After the death of his son Sean, Dr. John Dale Cavaness was forced to go head-to-head with detectives. It quickly became apparent that even though he was a beloved member of the community, it didn't mean he could get away with murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. John Dale Cavaness was a godsend for patients strapped for cash in Eldorado, Illinois. But fueled by alcohol, unbridled rage, and mountains of debt, he was a cruel abusive father, especially to his son Mark, who died mysteriously in 1977. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Scottish travel agent Colin Norris took up a career as a nursing student, he seemed to think it would give him authority and power. What he found instead was burnout and resentment. Rather than find a healthy outlet, Collin weaponized insulin — lethally injecting his elderly patients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When May Greineder dies in a public park, it looks like the work of a serial killer. But intrepid detectives believe May’s allergist husband may be behind the crime. With the family taking sides, law enforcement races to determine whether the doctor really did murder his wife. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Dirk Greineder had everything. An Ivy League education. A thriving career as an allergist. And a beautiful family. But beneath this facade, he hid dark secrets. Secrets that wouldn't come to light until his wife’s murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During a six week span in the summer of 1975, dozens of patients at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital suddenly stopped breathing. Two Filipina nurses went on trial for five counts of murder, ten counts of poisoning, and one count of conspiracy. The only problem was that they didn't do it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Vickie Dawn Jackson was still a teenager, she looked up to Florence Nightingale and even modeled her career after the pioneering nurse. But as problems at home mounted, Vickie began taking her frustrations out on her patients. In two months, she killed at least ten people at a Texas hospital.  Parcasters, we have exciting news! Our first book hits bookshelves July 12th. Don’t miss this chilling summer read that takes you deep into the darkest sides of human nature. Learn more at www.parcast.com/cults! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Enabled by his wife, Tommie, Dr. John Kappler continued to hide his mental illness instead of getting the help he needed. Then one day in April 1990, he altered the lives of three people forever. Countdown to the CULTS book release! Parcast’s first book hits shelves July 12th. It’s an unflinching exploration of shame, secrecy, power, exploitation, and destruction. Learn more at www.parcast.com/cults!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He had a difficult childhood filled with death and traumas. But instead of seeking treatment for his grief, Dr. John Kappler suffered silently, never showing the pain he truly felt. His wife, Tommie, told him he was sick. But the voices in his head told him otherwise. Parcasters, we have exciting news! Our first book hits bookshelves July 12th. Don’t miss this chilling summer read that takes you deep into the darkest sides of human nature. Learn more and grab your copy at www.parcast.com/cults! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the end of 1914 dozens of residents at the Archer Home had died suddenly and suspiciously. It would take local reporters, community members, and police working together to bring “Sister Amy” down, and end the wickedness of her “Murder Factory” once and for all.  Parcasters, we have exciting news! Our first book hits bookshelves July 12th. Don’t miss this chilling summer read that takes you deep into the darkest sides of human nature. Learn more and grab your copy at www.parcast.com/cults! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just two years after the Archers opened their elder care facility in Windsor, Connecticut, rumors began spreading around town that “Sister Amy” was abusive and cruel. The reality would prove even worse: she was a serial killer who preyed on the vulnerable in order to turn a profit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Forced out of Callan Park, Harry Bailey began practicing at a private hospital. Without much oversight, he experimented with risky treatments involving barbiturate cocktails, electric shocks, and “holidays” for his patients’ brains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the 1950s, Australia’s rising star in psychiatry was the young, charismatic Harry Bailey. He would go on to champion the deeply controversial and dangerous Deep Sleep Therapy, where patients were put into drug-induced comas for days and weeks. Some never woke up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1991, a court had blocked Dr. Kevorkian from helping patients end their lives. So he started meeting them in secret. Nearly a decade later, he took it a step further. Assisting suicides led to the more radical — and more legally dubious — medical euthanasia. The doctor directly killed a patient. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the 1980s and ‘90s, Dr. Jack Kevorkian pushed the ethical limits of healthcare with his controversial ideas around death and suffering. What he believed in most was a patient’s right to die with the help of a physician. And for a decade, he assisted in the deaths of over 130 terminally ill patients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In New York, a wealthy medical student prescribed his young wife morphine to help with her chronic headaches. Only, the pills contained a lethal dose. When 19-year-old Helen Potts died, her husband’s secrets and scandals were finally exposed.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A South African doctor living in New Zealand meticulously poisoned his wife until she died. Colin Bouwer had money, freedom, and several mistresses. So why did he resort to murder? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the days count down to Hale-Bopp’s arrival, 39 people prepare for ascension. They’d abandoned their old lives, embraced a new ideology, weathered the death of a beloved leader… and finally, made themselves worthy of the Next Level. Now, the comet was coming. And with it, the spaceship that would ferry them onward. In March of 1997, they left everything behind.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The group’s belief system had never been infallible. There had been adjustments along the way; revisions meant to keep the wheels turning whenever prophecies didn’t manifest. But then, in 1985, Bonnie Lu Nettles died. And her passing threw Heaven’s Gate’s whole world askew. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1976 was a turning point for Heaven’s Gate. The spaceship that was promised had not arrived. Members were defecting. Nettles and Applewhite gathered their truest believers in Wyoming and made it clear: Things were going to be different from here on out. Much different.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Bonnie Lu Nettles and Marshall Applewhite meet in Houston in 1972, it’s not for the first time — at least, not according to their birth charts. They’ve known each other in a past life. And in this lifetime, they have a joint mission. They set out, amid a wave of social and political upheaval, to find it.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apprehending Mary Mallon was not a one-time affair. After she was forced to quarantine, she was allowed to reenter society under one condition: she would never cook for anyone again. But “Typhoid Mary” refused to play by anyone’s rules. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In what became one of history’s most infamous accounts of contagion, a domestic cook spread typhoid to dozens of people in New York through her trademark dessert: homemade peach ice cream.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scotland Yard built its case against Dr. John Bodkin Adams, who was believed to have killed over a hundred of his elderly patients between 1935 and 1956. The impending trial would lead to notable changes in the medical and legal systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He rose to prominence in the 1930s treating the wealthy as a General Practitioner in the town of Eastbourne, England. But Dr. John Bodkin Adams didn't want to just treat the wealthy. He wanted to be IN with them. And he would do it by any means necessary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

28-year-old Hans Peterson had spent four long years nursing rage against Dr. David Cornbleet, the dermatologist who prescribed a drug that's side effects turned Peterson's life upside down. And in October 2006, Peterson rented a car and drove it to Chicago for a final confrontation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A hospital murder unfolded at the intersection of grief and illness in January 2015. Stephen Pasceri, mourning the death of his mother, met with one of America’s top heart surgeons, Dr. Michael Davidson — not to seek treatment, but revenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In June 1992, Dr. John Kemink was fatally shot by a former patient, retired car salesman Chester Leo Posby. Posby blamed the doctor for an injury that had upended his entire life. But he also believed that Dr. Kemink was conspiring to kill him. In Posby’s delusion, the only way to save his own life was to take the doctor’s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In January of 2013, Dr. Ron Gilbert was shot and killed in his office by a new patient who said his name was Allen Gold. Only he wasn't a new patient and his name was actually Stanwood Elkus. It had been 20 years since Dr. Gilbert originally diagnosed him, and Elkus was back for revenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the aftermath of Marilyn Sheppard’s murder, media speculation drove the narrative against her husband Sam. He was convicted and imprisoned for a decade before getting a second chance at freedom. Sam Sheppard finally had a new lease on life — but his reinvention would come at a cost. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Sam Sheppard and his wife Marilyn fell asleep at home watching a movie with friends on the evening of July 3rd, 1954. Early the next morning, Sam awoke to a horrific scene. Marilyn and her unborn baby were dead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1938, Philadelphia’s Arsenic Ring had collected an estimated $100,000 in insurance payouts. But like many criminals on a lucky streak, they got sloppy. As investigators unravelled the threads of the ring’s vast conspiracy, the “Rabbi” decides to put on one last show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A con man preys on Philadelphia’s Italian immigrant community in the 1930s, providing fake cures before masterminding a murder-for-hire poison ring that, by some estimates, killed more than 50 people.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As we look ahead to the new year, we want to take one last chance to say thank you for the year that was — and present our "Best of 2021"! Please enjoy this episode from our fan-favorite podcast, Solved Murders. In August 1969, actress Sharon Tate was living the Hollywood dream. Until it turned into the bloodiest kind of Hollywood nightmare.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the better part of two decades, Charles Cullen homed in on a pattern that allowed him to continue his killing spree nearly uninterrupted. But in 2003, a nurse friend of his became an informant — piecing together exactly how he was able to outsmart hospital administrators and detectives alike.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Between 1987 and 2003, Charles Cullen worked at ten different medical centers across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In that time, some suspect the lethal nurse claimed over 300 lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When a boneless torso is found in the cellar of a London home, police embark on a trans-Atlantic manhunt to find the suspected killer. But nearly a hundred years later, some people are still wondering whether they caught the right person. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After poisoning his wife and his mistress’s husband in 1991, Colin Howell tried and failed to outrun his guilt. Finally, years later, he did as his religion taught him to do: he confessed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Throughout his life, Colin Howell did everything he could to appear godly and upright. But in the early ‘90s, the staunchly religious dentist committed two murders in Northern Ireland — and got away with it for nearly two decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It takes a certain type of evil to poison a person, but a far greater kind to do it repeatedly, and to one's own wife nonetheless. It wasn't that Dr. Pritchard loathed the woman he married. She simply stood in the way of the inheritance he was after… and the maid he'd taken as his consort. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In May 1863, a young woman's charred remains were found resting in the surgical chair of a surgeon's home office. Whispers flew about town, claiming that Dr. William Pritchard had torched his own practice. As it happened, unsavory deeds were far from beneath Dr. William Pritchard, a man who married and meddled all for the sake of a shiny reputation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fatigue, nausea, and cramping are all symptoms that dialysis patients regularly face, as they rely on their medical professionals to do the work that their kidneys once did. But in 2008, at a clinic in Lufkin, Texas, these ailing convalescents dealt with far worse. One of the nurses among them was administering bleach, in lieu of care. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When malpractice occurs, justice often lies with the hospitals who hired the malicious professional in the first place. But it was all too easy for Texas institutions to turn a blind eye to Dr. Christopher Duntsch's medical indiscretions in 2012. Duntsch, in turn, hopped from one facility to the next, falling deeper into a deluded rampage, until his egregious oversights caught the attention of two sleuthing doctors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Dr. Christopher Duntsch was ousted from the biotech startup he co-founded, he pursued a new career in medicine as a spinal surgeon. He was inexperienced, inept, and arrogant — but his charm secured glowing reviews and second chances everywhere he went. By the time alarm bells started ringing, his hospital employer was in too deep to let their investment walk away. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1986, Donald Harvey began a new job at a hospital in Ohio, where he moved from suffocating patients to poisoning them in lethal experiments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Harvey was a hospital orderly in Kentucky and Ohio who killed dozens of patients in the 1970s. He was also a neo-Nazi who learned witchcraft, and would regularly summon a spirit he called Duncan to choose his next victim. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the late 1980s and early ‘90s, a young respiratory therapist made medicine his whole life. But the extra shifts and multiple jobs started taking a toll — and it wasn’t long before rumors began circulating that Efren Saldivar’s “magic syringe” was putting patients in body bags. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Even though he helped produce life-saving vaccines and water purification practices, Dr. Shiro Ishii’s biowarfare facilities and epidemics launched by his team are likely responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming out of the influenza pandemic of 1918, Dr. Shiro Ishii wondered if disease could be used as a weapon. After invading Manchuria in the early 1930s, Japan authorized him to conduct horrific experiments on Chinese locals to determine the effectiveness of biological warfare. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After getting away with two murders in 2008, Anthony Garcia tried returning to medicine — but repeated rejections left him spiraling. Once again, he focused his revenge on Creighton University doctors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wanting to make his parents proud, Anthony Garcia tried to complete his residency to become a doctor. Four failed attempts at four different institutions later, Garcia knew a path in medicine wasn’t for him — so he set out on a quest to enact revenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hoping for a miracle cure, British heiresses Claire and Dora Williamson traveled to Linda Hazzard’s sanatorium in Washington in 1911. But when their childhood nurse becomes concerned for their welfare, it’s a race against time — and Hazzard — to free them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the early 1900s, Dr. Linda Hazzard claimed that her special starvation regimens could cure any ailment. What her patients didn’t realize was that she wasn’t even a real doctor — and they were more likely to die under her care than recover. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In June 2001, San Diego toxicologist Kristin Rossum was arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband, 26-year-old Greg de Villers. While her family defended her in the media, investigators discovered one piece of evidence that would clinch their case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Greg de Villers died of an apparent suicide in 2000, his wife Kristin was distraught. But an investigation revealed he had been murdered with a lethal dose of fentanyl — and Kristin had the knowledge, the means, and the motive to do it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A two-year murder spree at an Indiana hospital ended in 1995, after a nursing supervisor began investigating their high number of patient fatalities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With his wife Michele’s death ruled as natural, Martin was free to devote himself to a new life. He began by introducing his mistress as the family’s new nanny, stealing one daughter’s identity, and sexually assaulting another. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2007, a Utah physician murdered his wife of nearly 30 years and tried to make it look like an accident. Martin MacNeill had been a master manipulator all his life, forging his way into medical school and masquerading as a good Mormon husband. This would be his most ambitious con yet — but there’s one thing he didn’t account for: his daughter’s suspicions, and the lengths they’d go to pursue justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After Joseph Michael Swango was caught poisoning colleagues, he was arrested and sentenced to two years. Once free, he returned to the medical world, securing various gigs across America before fleeing the country when his past caught up to him. Once abroad, he claimed even more lives — eventually becoming wanted for murder in two countries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Between 1981 and 1997, Dr. Michael Swango targeted both helpless patients and unsuspecting colleagues in his quest for mayhem. But before he carried out his murderous practice, he was a medical school student with an unhealthy obsession for calamity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1987, their sick game began to lose its appeal — and Cathy began to lose her grip on Gwen. Their relationship became more volatile than ever. As both women began confiding in others about their murders, one person finally took their story to the police.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Michigan in 1986, a heated love affair between two nurse's aides was strengthened by pranks and a devil-may-care attitude toward authority. But their games turned deadly when they began targeting patients who couldn’t fight back.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A German nurse claimed at least 87 — and possibly up to 300 — lives in the 2000s. Niels Högel is thought to be Germany’s most prolific serial killer since World War II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Despite court battles that stretched on for years, Jeffrey MacDonald stuck to his narrative about what happened the night his wife and daughters were murdered. During that time, a new suspect emerged, evidence was reanalyzed, and an FBI analyst determined a more likely story — one that didn’t involve killer hippies high on acid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Six months after the infamous Manson murders, an Army surgeon at Fort Bragg alleged that a hippie cult brutally murdered his pregnant wife and two young daughters. Authorities weren’t convinced by Jeffrey MacDonald’s story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1996, the nurses who worked with Kristen Gilbert suspected she was lethally injecting patients with epinephrine. Circumstantial evidence piled up against her, but it wasn't until she made a bomb threat that her fate took a turn for the worst. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kristen Gilbert showed neurotic tendencies and a penchant for lying as young as adolescence, but it wasn't until she became a nurse that these habits grew dangerous. In 1989, after joining the staff at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Massachusetts, her colleagues began to notice a rise in cardiac arrest deaths. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Despite his promising career as a dentist, Dr. Arthur Warren Waite had no patience when it came to making a fortune. After marrying an heiress in 1915, he attacked her family one by one. Waite's weapon of choice? Deadly bacteria. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Over a dozen children fell mysteriously ill or died in the span of two months at Grantham Hospital, but it wasn’t until 1-year-old Claire Peck succumbed to a potassium overdose that medical staff contacted authorities. Their investigation found only one nurse was present for every emergency: Beverley Allitt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a London hospital in the 1990s, nurses tended to the patients of Ward Four unaware that there was a murderer in their midst. But a suspicious rise in fatalities revealed a harrowing truth: someone among them was killing children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Imprisoned in 1881 for poisoning a wealthy man, Cream served just ten years before he was released. He collected his share of his late father’s fortune, and set sail for England — where he earned his murderous moniker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the late 1800s, a dashing young doctor named Thomas Neill Cream used chloroform and strychnine to murder sex workers and women seeking abortions. His crimes spread across fifteen years and two continents.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In January 2012, Victorino Chua was arrested at his home in Stockport, England for murder. During the investigation, authorities uncovered a chilling portrait of the nurse who poisoned 22 patients, drafted by Chua himself in a letter to one of his mistresses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the 1940s, posing as part of the French Resistance, Dr. Petiot promised safe passage to anyone trying to escape Nazi-occupied France. Instead, he took their money, and killed them in his own secret torture chamber. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of France’s most prolific serial killers was an early 20th century doctor and statesman. Marcel Petiot grew from a troubled boy into a troublesome soldier who later obtained a medical certification. He established himself in the small town of Villeneuve-sur-Yonn — where he learned that, in the public eye, titles trump virtue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1828, Burke and Hare managed to successfully run a business selling corpses to anatomy professor Robert Knox. For nearly ten months, the duo went unnoticed — until an eye witness accused the men of murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 19th-century Edinburgh, two men on the hunt for money found a lucrative industry: grave robbing. But the infamous Burke and Hare didn’t want to dig up corpses. Instead, they delivered death to the gullible, and brought the bodies to one high-paying professor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The first target of Dr. Green’s vindictiveness was her husband, Mike. A month later, in October 1995, she set fire to their family home… with their three children still inside.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the 1990s, the perfectionism that had driven Dr. Debora Green’s once-promising medical career had turned into disillusionment. Her bedside manner deteriorated, along with her second marriage. When her husband asked for a divorce in 1995, she decided to retaliate.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After committing a gruesome double-murder, Dr. Ruxton set to work covering up his foul crime. But his efforts were no match for the groundbreaking forensic investigation that ensued.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shortly after he began practicing medicine in England, Dr. Ruxton met Isabella Kerr. The intensity between them simmered into volatility — and in 1935, after years of escalating domestic abuse, the Lancaster physician exploded in a murderous rage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Despite the evidence against him, Dr. Hodel was never convicted of Elizabeth Short’s murder — or any other crime he was accused of in the 1940s and beyond. The skilled physician remained free to hone his dark proclivities until his death in 1999. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1999, a former homicide detective flipped through a photo album belonging to his late father. One face stood out above the rest: Elizabeth Short, an aspiring actress whose gruesome murder decades earlier was still unsolved — but not, perhaps, for long.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The “witch” of Ward D in Austria’s Lainz General Hospital led a group of nurses’ aides on a murderous crusade in the 1980s, killing at least 20 — and possibly up to 300 — patients in their care.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After killing three people, Engleman was confident he could continue to outsmart the law — so he plotted a three-victim homicide that would earn him his biggest fortune yet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some killers want blood, and some want glory. But more than anything, Missouri dentist Glennon Engleman wanted the hefty life insurance payout that accompanied a well-arranged murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drowning in debt in 1855, Dr. William Palmer used his medical knowledge to get away with life insurance fraud. In the process, he became one of the U.K.’s most notorious poisoners.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By October 1847, Dr. William Palmer seemed to have it all: a new practice, a loving wife, and a substantial inheritance. But a secret addiction threatened his good fortune, and he was willing to do whatever it took to keep it all together — including killing those closest to him.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Employment at a nursing home would’ve been Elizabeth’s crowning career victory, but it proved to be a fast road to burnout. Struggling to provide medical support to so many people, she began taking her anger and exasperation out on her patients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Starting in 2007, a Canadian nurse began injecting her elderly patients with lethal insulin overdoses. The inconspicuous method allowed her to escape suspicion for nearly a decade.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Over three decades, Amelia Dyer killed upwards of four hundred infants. She conned desperate mothers while fine-tuning the details of her operation, until a bargeman’s discovery in 1896 forced the baby-farmer to have a reckoning.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After her husband died 1869, nurse Amelia Dyer turned to baby-farming to avoid financial ruin. She took out ads in newspapers, and took in unwanted infants for a fee. But for Amelia, this was a business — and she was willing to do anything to keep the money coming. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As criticisms of lobotomy mounted, Dr. Freeman continued performing his dangerous procedure — even without patient consent. Then, with his legacy and career on the line, Freeman spent the final years of his life seeking redemption from patients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Neurologist Walter Freeman was a top doctor in his field. He was on the cutting edge of brain surgery, even going so far as to develop a new procedure called the 'lobotomy'. Unfortunately, it became one of the deadliest medical techniques of the 20th century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During the summer of 1901, Nurse Jane Toppan poisoned her way to the picturesque shores of Cape Cod. When pressed for a sizable debt, she embarked on a killing spree that decimated a family. Dr. David Kipper explores how their murders went undetected, and what eventually brought the truth to light. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

She surpassed all expectations when she became the most sought after nurse in eastern Massachusetts. But instead of providing quality care, Jane Toppan preyed on the sickly and poisoned unsuspecting patients. Dr. David Kipper provides insight on Jane's arsenal of poisons as well as the rigorous demands of the modern day medical field. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Once he arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Josef Mengele wasted no time in carrying out ghastly experiments, particularly on twins. Dr. David Kipper takes a closer look at Mengele's bogus science, performed in the name of progress, and examines the early 20th century fascination with eugenics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before he was a fanatical Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele was a mediocre student studying medicine and anthropology. Dr. David Kipper offers insight into the changing face of genetics in pre-war Germany, and digs into what might have driven Mengele’s obsession with human experimentation.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He used his medical knowledge to dispatch his victims quickly—and in some cases, to make their deaths look like accidents. But eventually the authorities caught on to Dr. Holmes, and a nationwide manhunt to stop one of history's most infamous killer doctors began.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He’s often cited as America’s first serial killer. Nine of the murders committed by Dr. H.H. Holmes have been confirmed, though many suspect him of slaughtering dozens, if not hundreds, of victims between 1891 and 1894. From the beginning, he entered medicine in order to abuse the power and trust his patients placed in his hands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After starting a private practice, Dr. Shipman escalated his crimes until a slip-up alerted authorities. The subsequent inquiry into “Dr. Death” forever changed the British medical field. Dr. David Kipper examines how Shipman used his medical training to get away with murder—and why it took almost thirty years to discover what actually happened to his "heart attack" victims. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Between 1974 and 1998, Dr. Shipman killed at least 218 people—more than any other serial killer in UK history. Addiction expert Dr. David Kipper sheds light on how Dr. Shipman's addiction spiraled from pethidine abuse to cold-blooded murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last time you went to the doctor, you probably left with a prescription, some answers, and most importantly, the hope you’d recover. But some doctors betray that hope. And their only prescription... is a dosage of death. In Parcast’s newest original, Medical Murders, those who we trust to save lives—end them. Join host Alastair Murden, as he examines the formative years and motives of history’s most infamous killer doctors, dissecting their medical backgrounds with expert analysis provided by practicing M.D., Dr. David Kipper.  Medical Murders, premieres August 26th, with new episodes every Wednesday. Listen to Medical Murders free on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices