Serial Killer '60 Minutes' Interview Upsets Victims' Families (VIDEO)
Serial killer Charles Cullen issued an apology to the victims of those he killed during an appearance on CBS' "60 Minutes." Families of the victims, however, have not accepted Cullen's apology and are angered that he was not stopped before killing so many people.
Cullen worked as a nurse and went on a killing spree that lasted 16 years and affected patients at seven different hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Cullen is currently serving 17 life sentences, though he possibly killed between 30 and 40 people.
"I thought that people weren't suffering anymore. So, in a sense, I thought I was helping," Cullen said. "There is no justification … the only thing I can say is that I felt overwhelmed at the time. It felt like I needed to do something and I did, and that's not an answer to anything."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Cullen dosed patients in the critical care unit with a drug that caused heart problems. Many of the patients died immediately, though Cullen admitted that he often "dosed" patients several times as an experiment before they died. Charles Graeber helped bring Cullen's story to light with his new book "The Good Nurse," which explained how complicated it was to catch Cullen since he moved around so frequently and medical records were not coordinated among the various hospitals.
In the end, Dr. Steven Marcus, director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center, Detectives Tim Bruan and Danny Baldwin, as well as nurse Amy Ridgway, were able to work together and bring Cullen to justice.
"Okay, he apologized, but that's not going to mean anything to anyone," Kristina Toth told Lehigh Valley Live after seeing the interview. She lost her father, Ottomar Schramm, at the hands of Cullen in 1998.
"I think there was too much notoriety to Cullen," Lucille Gall added. "I felt he got his say again. He says he's sorry, but he doesn't know if he could have stopped? Do we really need to see him on TV?" Gall's brother was killed when he received four times the normal dosage of Digoxin, Cullen's signature drug.
"He was trying to kill people all the time as an act of mercy to end suffering," Attorney Mark Altemose explained. He represented the families of the victims Cullen killed. "He was a loser, a nobody, a failure in so many aspects of his life he became literally God. He chose who would live and who would die. The idea that he did this is ridiculous."
Graeber, who did a lot of research on Cullen's case and history, estimated that the true number of Cullen's victims could easily be in the hundreds.
Watch part of Cullen's interview here:
