Episode 560: “Jolly Jane” Toppan: Angel of Mercy (Part 1)
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Hey, weirdos. I'm Alina. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. No. No.

It's morbid in the morning. Again. Two in a row. Look at us. Two in a rizzo. Waking up early. You might hear a little bit of light rain, which I know some of you actually dig hard. Prefer even. Prefer. It's light.

Maybe a little tippy-tappy. Yeah, just like a little pitter-patter. Because it's rainy here and it's windy, but... I woke up and it was so fucking spooky this morning. It was. It's very spooky today. And it's spooky in the pod lab because we have very light lighting and we only have candlelight. Mm-hmm. It's

Feeling right. Very like low lights. Yeah. Yeah, fuck the big light. Fuck the big light. Yeah, we need to get some lamps in here. Yeah. It'd be gorgeous. It'd be gorgeous. It would be gorgina. It truly would. Gorgina. But yeah, I thought I had something else to say, but here I am. You don't have anything? No, just that you should buy The Butcher Game, which is coming out September 17th, and you can get it at thebutchergame.com. You can pre-order it right now. It's going to be awesome.

She had something. You get the advanced reader copies today, and I get to... Oh, I'm very excited. I get to have one and read it on the plane, because I haven't read it in its entirety, if you will. The path of totality is what you haven't read. I haven't read it in its path of totality. I'm excited. I'm excited. It's going to be wild. Curl up on the plane and read your scary-ass book. Okay.

But yeah, pre-order it. It's awesome. And you guys have been great so far pre-ordering and I appreciate you endlessly. Keep it up. You are lovely. And I see all those really kind things that you're saying and it's really nice because they get filtered over to me. I love it. And I say, look at that. I was trying to figure out a way to incorporate like

keep buying it with like keep icing your front bum. Spelling continues if you do not ice. Guys, did you ever watch that? This is a fucking left turn. But take it with us. That's my brain for you. Take it with us. Because Linz, if Linz is listening, Linz will appreciate that.

Endlessly. Did you guys watch that movie? And if you haven't, go watch it. It's one of those really nostalgic, great ones. It's so funny. Get Over It. It has Ben Foster in it. It has Kirsten Dunst. It has Shane West in it. It's got all the hot people of the time. All the hot people. That girl, I can't remember the actress's name, but she's in like Soul Survivors.

Oh, hold on. I'll just pull up the cast list. She's like the hot girl. She's Allison in this. But it's got Martin Short in it. Fucking Mila Kunis is in this. Mila Kunis is in it. So many people are in it.

Cisco. Cisco, isn't it? It's got, yeah, it's just, it's right. It's really right. I forgot that Martin Short. Yeah, that is Martin Short. Martin Short is the, he's the one who says keep icing your front bum. Yeah, swelling continues if you do not ice. Swelling continues if you do not ice. Are you thinking Melissa Sage Miller? Probably, yes. Yeah, she's Allison. Yeah, so it's a great, ridiculous, oh, and Colin, um. Hanks. Colin Hanks. And vitamin C. And vitamin C. Yeah.

Now I want to watch this. Guys, watch this. Yeah, I don't know what happened. I just started thinking, like, how do I say, like, keep ordering the butcher game? Spelling continues if you don't order the butcher game. Honestly, I think that's our marketing tactic here.

Keep pre-ordering the Butcher game. Swelling continues if you do not pre-order. So that's going to be... Let Zando know that's what we're going with. Let Zando know that's the direction we are going in. Just, yeah, swelling will continue if you do not pre-order. So please do that. Thank you. So I know we're a little chaotic, but it's morbid in the morning.

Also, when are we not chaotic? Oh, the way that you just morning showed that. I did. You did morbid in the morning and then she reached for her coffee like so wake up San Francisco. Wake up. Wow. And she has a ghost mug like ghosts on a mug. Like actual ghosts. Just to clarify. I would like a ghost mug.

That's one thing of ghost I do not have. I'm actually shocked by that. I bet Etsy has ghost ones. You've got a chalice. I have a chalice. Actually, Caleb got me a chalice. And a big old stein. Like a stein kind of thing. For your ale. But I need a coffee mug. And I think Mikey's already looking for one for me because he's a real one right now. He's the realist. They just launched loungewear.

I know. I need sweatpants. I saw that and I thought of you. I need the sweatpants. They were cute. They're like jogger style. I need to get some. I'm going to do that. This is the most chaotic intro I think we might have ever had. It really is. But you know what? This is a very chaotic case. So we're ready for the energy. It's also a Massachusetts case. It's a Boston case. It's got our local hospitals in it. What? It's got Mass General. What, what? Oh, hey. It's got...

all that stuff. And it's also terrible. And this person is a daemon. So awesome. We're going to talk about a jolly Jane Toppin. Something tells me that she's not so jolly. No, she's not. She's not like, she doesn't have like a Saint Nick vibe. Nope. She definitely doesn't. She is what is commonly referred to as an angel of mercy killer. I don't think that's

the proper name for her. She's referred to as that a lot, but that's not even slightly what she did. Yeah. Because she was a nurse. So what we're going to be talking about is there's going to be a high count here, as always with these kind of killers. Um,

She was really fucking brutal. She didn't do this for mercy killings. She did this because she liked to watch people suffer and die in front of her. That's horrible. And she liked having that power. That's not why you go into nursing. Yeah, no. And when you find out how she grew up and what happened to her very early in her life, you know...

She wasn't really going down a great path. Obviously, you make a choice. Of course. She made the wrong one. Evidently. She's on morbid, so... Yeah, so you never made a good choice if you're the actual person we're talking about. So she's actually considered among the first and definitely the most prolific American female serial killers. Yeah.

Jane Toppin's killing spree went actually unnoticed for more than 15 years. 15? Because that's the other thing. She was a master manipulator. Wow. She's one of those people that you go, how the fuck did no one realize this? Like, how was she able to convince people? I mean, 15 years, that's crazy. She would transition from one hospital to another. These very highly regarded hospitals, too, like the biggest teaching hospitals ever.

in the nation at that point and still at that point. And she left an unprecedented trail of carnage in her wake. She was finally arrested in 1901 after killing the entire family of a man who she was hired to provide for. What? Yeah. And her arrest and her trial were just sensational because at that point, especially because this is the early 1900s,

murder and cruelty for cruelty's sake was not something you associated with women. No, definitely not. Now we know better that everybody can be cruel for cruel's sake. Now we know better. But back then it was like, no way can a woman do that. But ultimately, Jane Toppin ended up confessing to 31 murders. Holy. And that's only what she confessed to. Exactly. We think there's probably many more.

She would, she was reckless. Like she would go hard. So let's go back to the beginning. Who was Jane Toppin? I don't know. So Jane Toppin was actually born a Nora Kelly.

Not Jane Topham. No relation. No relation to this one. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts on March 31st, 1854. She was the youngest of three children born to Bridget Finn and Peter Kelly. According to author Harold Schechter, who we will be referencing his work a lot during this,

And you might recognize that name because in the Ed Gein series, we used his book Deviant for a lot of that, like mentioned him a lot during that. So he knows a lot about old timey serial killers. We love an author. According to Schechter, Kelly, the father, was a chronic drunk prone to violent outbursts and so wildly eccentric that his neighborhood nickname was Kelly the Crack, as in crackpot.

It's a little iconic, but it's pretty horrible that he was a father. He's also really fucking terrible. Okay, not iconic at all. He's terrible. In fact, in the years after Jane's arrest, strange and outrageous rumors actually began circulating about her father's bizarre behavior, including one where people said that while working at a tailor shop, he sewed his own eyelids shut.

What? Yeah. Nobody knows if that was true or not. It was just a rumor. But it was like people believed it because of who he was. Right. So you know what kind of person he is if people are like, maybe he did. Like perhaps. Wow. Now on September 25th, 1859, Bridget, the mother, died from tuberculosis, leaving the children in the sole care of Peter. Of Kelly the Crackpot. Kelly the Crackpot.

who was very unequipped to be a single parent to three small children, very unequipped to be any parent to three small children. He very much struggled to provide for his three daughters for three years until he gave up finally. He just was like, you know what? No, I can't do it. And he brought eight-year-old Delilah and six-year-old Nora to the Boston Female Asylum in February of 1863 and just begged them to take her.

Oh, my God. Was it horrible, though? Yeah.

From what I don't know a lot about this place, I didn't look too hard into what was... Because honestly, this was awful anyways. And I was like, going into looking into this place might send me over the edge at this point. Whenever you look into an orphanage, it really brings you to the depths of the human behavior. Yeah.

I have a lot of trouble looking into those kind of places. I can't handle reading about those children being orphaned children being treated. It's like, I can't. I can't. It's another level. But from the moment, one thing I will say about them is, you know, it did turn into a facility that people respected. So from the moment they looked at Peter Kelly, the managers of the female asylum could tell that he was in absolutely no position to take care of these children.

They're like, hand him on over. We got this. In their initial description, Kelly was described as a man, quote, whose habits evidently rendered him an unfit protector for his little girls. And noted that the appearance of both girls, quote, indicated that they had been rescued from a very miserable home. Oh, no. The surviving documentation of the female asylum doesn't really provide a lot of details about their life before being surrendered to the asylum. It doesn't.

It also really doesn't provide any insight into how they formed these opinions that they first formed upon seeing them. Yeah. But Schechter points out, quote, modern research has conclusively shown that brutalization is always a factor in the development of adult psychopathy. Yeah. Very evident in Jane Toppin. Yeah. So Schechter suggests that both girls probably certainly suffered from significant abuse at the hands of their father and it was bad enough.

that it was easily identifiable by strangers upon first seeing them as coming from a miserable home. That's really, really, really sad. So, in fact, based on that initial assessment, the board voted unanimously to admit the girls that day. Wow. That same day. Like, right away. Yeah, that tells you everything you need to know. All of them across the board were like, bring them in. And Peter signed the papers, surrendered his children, and never saw them again.

Never spoke to them, never saw them again. Bye. Which obviously like was most likely a good thing. The fact that like the abuse, at least at his hand, stopped there. But then you think about the trauma that that creates. Like you just, you have your dad for six to eight years of your life and then you literally never see the fucker again. As horrible as he was, it's like, that's all you know. Yeah. That's a whole different kind of, that's like impounded, impacted trauma. And it's like when that's all you know,

That's all you... That's your dad. That's also all you expect out of life. When you for six years or eight years have been treated like that and then given up... You just think that's what life is. You're like, well, that's how I should be treated. That's just what you come to expect, which is what forms these...

horrific things in adulthood sometimes because you are just going being like what like the world sucks everybody's horrible everything's cruel why would I expect or why would I be anything different like that's just putting that in that kid it's true it's like when you're in a horrible relationship as an adult and

And you just come to expect that's what I should expect from a relationship. So you end up going into these cycles of being with these horrible people who treat you like shit because you're like, well, that's what a relationship is. What else could it be? Yeah. The expectation becomes like what you accept. Yeah. So nothing is known that – and this is where –

This is probably a good thing at this point because, like, I was like, I don't want to know a whole lot of details about what happened there. Really nothing is known of Delilah and Onora's time at the asylum. Like, there isn't, like, a lot of records that say, like, this is what happened during that time. That's probably good. But for Onora, that time was pretty brief. And from the looks of it, it wasn't super eventful. It's not like, you know, we have a lot of medical records happening or anything like that. It was just, you know...

In November 1863, that's when a woman named Ann Toppin of Lowell, Massachusetts, appeared before the asylum's board and expressed a desire to adopt Anora. Just Anora. Yes. Now, after filling out all the paperwork she needed to, the request was approved and custody of Anora was transferred to Ann Toppin.

She immediately renamed the girl Jane and added the surname Toppin. So she went from a Nora Kelly to Jane Toppin. And she's like at least 10 at this point, probably. She's definitely at least like eight, I would say, or like nine, you know, like she's, or maybe you're right. Like maybe somewhere around the 10. She's a young girl to be dealing with that. After all she's been through, I think. And regarding the transfer of custody, I,

It's important to note here that although Ann Toppin had expressed interest in adopting Jane, because we're going to refer to her as Jane now, because she did go through her adult life as Jane. She accepted that name. There's no documentation showing a formal adoption ever occurred. There's no documented adoption here. She adopted her, but not formally adopted.

That's interesting. Did the process change maybe like throughout the years or no? No, there should have been adoption documentation. She just formally, she just like got custody of the girl essentially. Weird. And later this was brought up in Jane's trial way later in her life by one of the psychiatrists who evaluated her.

who thought it was pretty significant that Jane was adopted, was adopted, quote unquote, but was actually apprenticed to Mrs. Toppin on indenture papers.

So she worked for her is what we're really saying. And they got that from the Lowell Historical Society. It's basically in the simplest terms, Ann Toppin didn't go to the female asylum looking for a daughter that day. She went looking for a servant. Yeah, what the fuck? A child servant. So she was essentially like sold to this woman. Essentially.

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Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and manage your money the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com slash morbid. That's rocketmoney.com slash morbid. rocketmoney.com slash morbid. Now, according to Harold Schechter, there's little documentation of what became of Delilah, her sister, after Jane left with the Toppins. Right, right. But he said as an adult, she...

It was not a good life for her. Delilah. Delilah did not have a good life afterwards. Like, they were obviously severely affected by what happened to them in childhood. Oh, God, this is so sad all around. Yeah.

She ended up living on the fringes of society. She fell into turning to alcoholism and other substances. She became a sex worker out of desperation only and died in squalid circumstances. Wow, that's really fucking awful. That's really all that's known and it's just really sad. Yeah. And it kind of shows you like,

What happened really affected them both in different ways. And it makes you wonder, like, first of all, obviously what they... We know what they went through in the beginning of their life with their dad being abusive. Like, we can only imagine. But then you wonder what... What did happen there. Yeah, like, the orphanage doesn't sound like it was the best. No, which usually they weren't. No. So...

Now, once settled in with the widow Ann Toppin and her young daughter Elizabeth, Jane began attending public school. And there she was identified very quickly as very intelligent and very quick to pick up on new skills and new ideas. She was very smart. At home, she appeared to get on pretty well with Elizabeth, her, like, quote unquote new sister. But...

There was definitely a difference in how they were treated by Anne. Elizabeth was allowed to go out, play with her friends, do the normal things. Jane had to stay in the home and she had to just help with the housework. Cinderella. She was a servant. Yeah. Literally. Also, Anne often went out of her way to remind Jane of her heritage a lot, which...

Like, and she would remind her of it, like as a way of kind of being like, this is your station in life because you're Irish. Oh. So, and she would say to her, like, and she was, this is a quote, you can't help being Irish, but that doesn't mean you have to act like a paddy.

Oh, bitch. Yeah. It's on. Square up. So she... Exactly. Square the fuck up, bitch. I was like, let's go in. We are Irish, okay? Right in the chin. Yeah, exactly. Right in the chin. But... And to tell a child this...

Like to make her think that somehow she you aren't treated like my real daughter because I you're basically my servant. And even though I saw you out like what. So in response to the poor treatment she received from Anne, who Jane was.

honestly didn't even call mother, didn't call aunt, she called her auntie. Oh, wow. Jane developed, strangely, a very cheery and gregarious personality and actually ended up going the opposite way for a little while. And she also became what everybody thought of as a very clever, very fascinating storyteller. It really is interesting how different households affect kids. Yeah.

Kids respond to trauma in so many different ways. There are kids that really go through dark, dark depression and really retreat into themselves. And then there's kids that, when they're not at home, just really flourish. Yeah. That's the thing. Even though they've gone through very similar treatments. Kids are so fucking resilient. Yeah, they are. They absolutely are. That's why when you see a child that has been broken,

You have to know that that is very difficult to do in the grand scheme of things. That takes a lot of shit on that kid for them to be broken like that. So like whenever you see that, it's not like, oh, they're just dealing with some stuff. It's like, no, that kid's been through shit we can't even imagine because for them to actually break, it takes a lot. That's really heartbreaking. Kids are very resilient. Yeah. And it shows right here that she was just...

She was broken, but man, she became a very monstrous human being, a very brutal, monstrous adult. And actually, like a lot of her childhood acquaintances would say, if Jane Toppin were there, it wasn't necessary to provide any other entertainment. Wow. She was a good time gal. And in hindsight, it's pretty clear that her very outgoing personality was definitely something

partially a way for her to kind of like...

compensate for feeling so inferior in her own home. She felt like she had to overdo it. Yeah, she got some kind of validation. And this worked for her for a little while, but eventually it actually led to the other way. It pushed her into the other side because it led to this very much a complex of self-hatred and intolerance because then she was fighting these ideas that her heritage made her less than.

And that she was treated less than all the time at home. So it's like, but you're being kind of like thought of as this gregarious, really entertaining person outside. So I think those two things fighting just led to her not understanding who she actually was. And then there was this complex that was fighting against each other. Yeah. And she just went, again, it's like two paths diverge in a wood and you choose. She took the wrong one. Yeah. Yeah.

And as she grew older, Jane and the Toppins would go out of their way to hide, ignore, or even downplay the fact that she was Irish at all around other people. That's pretty sad. Like, it was a total source of shame. It's crazy how they lived in Boston and were hiding the fact that they're Irish. And thinking of it now, I'm like, jeez.

And actually they used like a very, they relied upon a story that they would say that she lost both her parents in an accident at sea while they were traveling to the United States from Italy. Oh, okay. So they would use that as the thing. They're like, no, she's Italian. And this also is what we're going to find out is Jane is a liar. In her entire life she becomes a liar.

chronic, pathological, any kind of liar you can think of. She lies, lies, lies. She lies right out of her face. She lies like a liar all the live long day for her whole life. And it's like, because she was taught to lie. She was taught that to, in order for you to be respected as a human being and to be treated as a human being, and for us even to deal with you as a human being, lie about who you are to your very core as a child.

So it's like she was just taught this shit. Yeah. And then it turned her, like she became a monster. Yeah. Because of it. And while a lot of people around Jane when she was younger remember her as very pleasant, you know, pretty easygoing, like nothing crazy. But even at a young age, there were signs that beneath her cheery exterior, there was definitely a significant like uptick in her being more selfish. Yeah.

It seemed like there was signs of her being a deceitful person as well. And as she got older, those came out more and more. Yeah, she was lying. It was like she was pushing that down, but she just couldn't. According to Schechter, some of her schoolmates described her as an incorrigible liar, prone to wild fabrications that she doggedly stuck to, even when they were proven to be frequently false. That's the scariest kind of person. When they're lying to you and you're like, no, I literally have this proof right here. And they're like,

No, you don't. The scariest type of person. You can't argue with somebody like that. No, you can't. Because then they turn it around and make you feel crazy. It's like that's the scariest thing is when you start questioning your own integrity. Am I wrong? Am I crazy? I'm holding a movie ticket here and you're telling me that it was printed wrong. Yeah. But maybe it is. Maybe. Who knows?

But Jane regularly claimed, among other things, that her father was a world-renowned sailor who lived in China. Her brother had fought against the Confederates at Gettysburg and was awarded a medal by President Lincoln. Damn. And that her sister's unrivaled beauty had won the heart of an English lord. Aw. Which sounds—all those things— Sad. —don't, like, offend me. No. They make me think that she—

Has a fantasy life that she wished she lived. Yeah. And she lived in this miserable life and she just wanted to escape it. Probably went to that fantasy land in her mind growing up. Which would be all right. If she was just telling fantastical tales about her family. Who gives a fuck? And about herself. Who gives a fuck? Let people live in their own fucking fantasy world as long as it's not fucking with you. Let people live in their Delulu. But she takes it to a dark place. Yeah. Don't let them live in the dark place. Yeah.

Now, these lies, like we said, pretty trivial. They did serve several purposes for Jane. Not only were they further attempts to cover her Irish heritage, which she was being told was something to be shamed of, but they were also an attempt to compensate for her crippling feelings of inadequacy and to prove also her superiority over the less glamorous and more mundane around her.

As she grew older, the lies became less like a fantasy kind of thing. Like that is like, my sister is so gorgeous that an English lord fell in love with her. Like that kind of silly stuff. Less trivial and much more pointed and much more cruel. Okay. They became, they took a very sharp turn. In her teen years, Jane became known as a vicious gossip at school. Oh no. Spreading the nastiest rumors about the other girls. I mean, she turned horny.

hard as a teen. Like I said, it was like, it went from that trivial little girl fantasy world where you're like, whatever, man, like live there. Like you've had a tough life. Mean girl. Then it just turned into like, well, I want to hurt people. And she would like, and she would report like this fake bad behavior to teachers about people that didn't happen, trying to get them in trouble. Yeah.

And when she herself was caught or doing or saying something bad, she would invariably blame it on someone else and make herself out to be a victim. So she very much took on the victim role later in life, and she used that as a crutch to do despicable things. Makes sense. That's good. Now, while most of her peers and teachers eventually kind of grew tired of calling out her lies and bad behavior, they were just like, you're kind of annoying, Ann Toppin never tired of punishing Jane. Mm-hmm.

Whatever Jane did, anything she did wrong or didn't complete her chores to Anne's standards, because remember, she's just her servant at this point. Jane would be beaten with a switch and very brutally berated.

So, not surprisingly, this abuse hardened Jane, and it honestly made her fucking hate Anne. Yeah, I would think. And she would carry that for the rest of her life, that hate stuck around. You're not going to let go of something like that. But while Jane definitely had no love for her foster mother, quote unquote, she saved the darkest feelings of hatred and resentment for

To her foster sister, Elizabeth. I was wondering if it was going to get there. In Jane's mind, Elizabeth was the embodiment of everything that Jane would never have and could never be. Yeah. She was beautiful. She was popular with her peers. And it all seemed to come so effortlessly for Elizabeth. Naturally.

But what Elizabeth represented most of all was Jane's failed or unrealized romantic desires as well. When she reached her late teens, Elizabeth began, you know, she began dating a young deacon named Oramel Brigham. And their enduring relationship would stand as a constant reminder to Jane of her inferiority.

As a narcissistic psychopath, Jane was caught in an endless... And she ended up being diagnosed. Yeah. Jane was caught in an endless and endlessly frustrating cycle of desire for the adoration and validation that comes with love, but would always kind of be thwarted by her truly profound egotism and her inability to form any kind of bonds with people around her that were meaningful in any way. She just couldn't get there. It just wasn't... You know, she...

She is found to be... Like, she has a lot going on. She's diagnosed with a lot. And it's like, so these kind of things were really stopping her from ever forming a meaningful bond, which is a sad thing to look at. Yeah, just... When you look at just that. You know? Like, when you look at everything else, you're like, oh, fuck. But that, like, knowing that people have to live with that is tough. Definitely. That, like, something is just innately stopping you from being able to form those kind of bonds. But...

Basically, she desperately longed for the physical and romantic affection that she was reading about in books. Yeah. But she was completely incapable of actually feeling those things for anyone else, which made her inherently undesirable to everybody else because she just wasn't showing it to anybody. So it wasn't coming off as she wanted it. Right. You know? This is such a...

It's such a tragic tale. It is. It's sad. And as she grew older and her romantic desires took on, you know, the natural flow of becoming, you know, more adults in nature, she stifled those feelings. Yeah.

And she kind of like those romantic failures and her inability to find that, like the reality of that instead of just in a book or something she heard about or seeing her sister have that, it warped. And it ended up twisting those desires and causing themselves to like kind of manifest in –

fucked up ways. Like, it was, like, these desires she was having to feel this thing and to have this thing, she couldn't have it. It wasn't happening. She saw it wasn't happening. She saw other people having it, couldn't get it. So she took that desire and she just twisted it into, like,

Maybe I want to see people suffer. Maybe that's what I want because no one's giving me what I want. And maybe I can take that from them. Maybe I can take the most important thing from them, which is their lives. So when Jane turned 18 years old, she received a $50 stipend from Ann Toppin per her indenture contract. And as a legal adult now, she was free to leave the Toppin house.

But with nowhere else to go and very few skills beyond that of a domestic worker at the time, she chose to stay at the Toppen house for nearly a decade more. Wow. When Anne died a few years later by accident,

And ownership of the house transferred to Elizabeth and her new husband, Oram L. Brigham, the deacon. Jane stayed on acting as a domestic worker, just as she always had. So now she's living in the same house she grew up in and worked as a domestic worker in. And now she's working for the lady of the house, which is Elizabeth. Oh, man. And her husband, who Jane is very jealous of this relationship. Right. Right.

So this is just bad. This is a recipe for fucking disaster. But when Jane did finally move out in 1885, she did so at...

At a big personal risk at the time. Really? Because the only money she had was that which was given to her upon her 18th birthday, 50 bucks, which like at the time, that's a good chunk of change for the time, but like not to go out and strike out on your own. And she had no family that she could turn to for support if things didn't work out. She really only had Elizabeth and she fucking hated her.

And also in the late 19th century, jobs for women were few and far between as it was. And those who did try to seek independence really just only at the time could end up as a teacher, a seamstress, or a factory worker. Those were like your three options. And even now teachers aren't paid enough. So it's like you know back then it wasn't enough. And given that Jane is not your typical –

you know, healthy-minded woman going out into the world. She sure isn't. Her grandiose ego and inability to form any kind of meaningful bond with another human being...

It's pretty likely that those jobs weren't going to work for her. Right. You know, those weren't things that were going to work for her. I don't really see her as a school teacher. But there was one job that was open to women and had a lower barrier to entry. And it would have given Jane exactly the kind of power over others that she'd been craving her entire life. Yeah. Throughout much of the 19th century, hospital nursing was a thoroughly unglamorous job.

still is an unglamorous job i would say one would say uh but one of the hardest like truly like nurses out there snap snaps to you honestly uh this was but back then they were staffed by untrained and kind of unsavory women at the time like the low barrier was real imagine like that being the person that's taking care of you're an unsavory character and how

What? Like, why? Why was that ever a thing? I don't know. As Harold Schechter points out, quote, the wards of Bellevue were staffed by former inmates of Blackwell's Island Workhouse, women generally arrested for drunkenness or prostitution who were paroled on the condition that they serve a stint as a nurse. Real life. And this was true of hospital nursing in many other urban areas of the United States at the time, including Boston. Yeah. Until about 1950. Oh.

And that's when the state legislature recommended that an institution be established to properly educate and prepare young women for a career in nursing. Good call. Because like look at how fucking hard nursing is. Yeah, you have to like you have to be very smart to be a nurse. You're doing all the things. Yeah. All the things. You're trained in like. Literally all the things. Yeah. And it's like you need to be trained, highly trained, highly skilled, highly evaluated to do that.

In 1887, Jane applied and was accepted into the nursing school connected to Cambridge Hospital, which was one of the few teaching hospitals established after the legislature's recommendation for that.

For Jane and the other students, the two years spent in the program would have been very grueling, much like nursing school is now. Most work 12 or more hours a day, seven days a week, often with little or no time off or breaks. In her first month, Jane was a trainee, which meant she was given the most unpleasant work. Of course. Like cleaning the floors, emptying chamber pots, all that good stuff.

Despite the menial and very unpleasant work, Jane did what she had always done, and she just approached the work and her colleagues with a smile, had a cheery disposition, and her nickname was finally earned. Jolly Jane. So at this point, she, like, stopped making up nasty rumors about people? She at least stopped being... I think this was always her thing. Even when she was nasty and making up nasty rumors, she always had that, like... She's like the mayor in Nightmare Before Christmas. Yeah.

Where she could switch that face really fast to be like, it's fine, everything's okay. She could put on that pleasant, cheery exterior and then she'd go behind your back and be like this fucking hoe. Like super fucking manipulative. Exactly. Now, given her background as a domestic servant and her ability to tolerate poor treatment and back-breaking labor, Jane could have made a very good nurse at the time because that's what it was. It was back-breaking labor and pain.

Very poor treatment. What she was used to. Yeah. And especially at the time when qualified women in this field were in short supply. The problem was that Jane didn't like to work. She didn't like to work. Like, she was good at it. She didn't like to work. Yeah.

And she surely thought herself better than the other trainees around her. Because remember, she's got that ego. Yeah, the superiority thing. In fact, just like her experiences in school, Jane was well-liked by many of the instructors and administrators. But her peers found her, she could sometimes be this nice, jolly Jane that they got. But like I said, they found her to be a nasty gossip. Mm.

who often avoided consequences by blaming her mistakes and wrongdoings on everyone else. Those are like the worst kind of fucking people to work with. But you're like, that is literally your fault and you are not taking me down with you. And they're like, yes, see you at the bottom. And then everybody, they've manipulated people above them so they get out of it. According to Schechter, quote, in at least two instances, she spread slanderous rumors about fellow trainees that ultimately led to their dismissal. Wow.

Wow. She's showing her snake wave. To be okay doing that, to watch somebody lose their livelihood, especially back then where it was so hard to get a job and make a living for yourself, to just be like, yeah, LOL, I got that person fired. And especially as a woman. Yeah. She knows how hard it is. She knows the limited places that women have to go and how hard it is to be taken seriously. Yeah.

She doesn't give a fuck. She's looking at the power that this woman craved over other people because it seems like she had a life that was, she was kicked around like a, like a stray cat. And it's like, and so I think she turned and looked at it and said, well, I'm going to do it right back. Yeah. But I'm going to do it a hundred times worse.

And that's fucked up. Of course it is. And that's sick. And that's a twisted mind. That's a broken mind. That's not somebody who's sitting there saying, well, I could do that or I could decide to make this life for myself and better myself. Go this other way. Because as we know...

We've seen people go both ways. Yeah. So you can't blame it on that. But it's definitely something that kind of influenced how she looked at people around her. Right. For sure. Right. Now, if Jane's devious and duplicitous behavior wasn't bad enough, she also continued her habit of telling wildly unbelievable lies about her personal history and future endeavors. Right.

On one occasion, Jane told a group of other trainees that having heard about the advancements in medicine being made by women in American nursing, the Tsar of Russia had requested that Jane join the personal staff at an enormous salary. His personal staff at an enormous salary. Good for her. Yeah. Just like the lies she told about herself in school, these fabrications were definitely to make her seem superior, more...

the other nursing trainees feel intimidated by her and also to compensate personally for her own crushing feelings of inadequacy and inferiority that she had always felt. Imagine working with a woman who's like...

uh, the czar of Russia is going to hire me. And she, it's like one of the, have you ever worked with somebody that's like, oh, I have like much bigger, better things going on. And you're like, you're still here though. Yeah. And it's like years later, she's literally saying the czar of Russia wants me to join his personal staff for a much bigger salary. And they're like, why aren't you doing that? Why aren't you there? And she's like,

You know, because I'm so above it. Not ready yet. I'm just so above that. You know, it's not the money for me. It's like, no, it's for everyone right now. Janie girl. Now, almost from the start, Jane Spears disliked her because of her unfounded and absurd, suspicious, tailbearing, slanderous gossip and consequent mischief making, as well as her pleasure in inventing fabulous tales. Fabulous tales. Fabulous tales. In time, her instructors and administrators had become suspicious of her as well.

During this two-year period of training, she was suspected of reporting false information about patients and also sending patients to other institutions without doctor's approval and also reporting false symptoms that resulted in patients receiving the wrong treatment. Oh, that's terrible. And ultimately prolonging their illnesses because of that.

There were also reports of various items and valuables going missing without explanation, which, by the way, she was a fucking thief, too. Schechter said during her term of service at one of the hospitals, many articles were missed. Sums of money, stationery, aprons, uniforms, etc. And she was suspected of stealing all of them. Wow. Now, Jane would often be confronted with these suspicions, though there was never any real proof. So what were they going to do?

And she also seemed adept at getting out of trouble and avoiding consequences, either by charming her accusers. Manipulators are always good at that. Or just throwing the blame on someone else. But the primary reason Jane was able to avoid responsibility, and the reason many people were willing to tolerate her behavior, was that she was very popular with the patients.

Patience liked her. She flicked on that Jolly Jane switch. She sure did. That's why she was Jolly Jane. However, while there were many Patience Jane did like, there were just as many, if not more, who she fucking despised. I believe that. Was very open about it. Yeah. According to Schechter, there were more than one occasion where Jane was overheard saying, quote, there was no use in keeping old people alive. Okay, wow.

And I was like, nobody thought that was a... A red flag? The maroonest of flags. Fucking A. Right.

Despite how competent she may have seemed to her instructors and peers, when it came to actually providing treatment to patients, she was, quote, That's so bad. Years later, after her arrest, Jane actually admitted that during her residency period at Cambridge Hospital, she frequently experimented on patients.

withholding medications or administering larger doses of morphine or atropine just to see what would happen oh okay that's literally what some of the worst serial killers have said that they've done like hillside stranglers doing experiments i just wanted to see what would happen if i injected this person with this it's also it's so chilling like like spine chilling because it's

It's such a simple explanation for something so remarkably fucked up. And that's... It's honestly like...

I'm going to take it to a lighter place here. It's honestly like in Scream when Billy Loomis says it's scarier when there's no motive. Yeah. That's true in life. It's like, I just wanted to. That's the truest shit. That statement is so fucking true. Because we've said it before. I just wanted to see it. It's scary when there's a reason. Yeah. But fuck, when there's no reason to point to, it's like, oh, you just did that because you wanted to? Right. Like, that's way scarier. And this is even worse. She couldn't even say with certainty that.

But she said by her own estimation, she killed about a dozen people during her two-year training period. What? And each of those deaths was assumed to be from natural causes. And she didn't even know how many. She lost count. By her estimation, but she couldn't be sure. At least 12. That's so fucked. So this lady later when it's like 31, way higher. Yeah. She's just guesstimating. Wow.

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Now, it's important to note Jane's recklessness wasn't a matter of sloppiness or inattention at all. Each overdose or experiment, as she called it, was very methodical, very calculated. The fact that she called them experiments. She called them experiments. Like, bye. During her instruction periods, she paid very close attention to her lessons and was known to ask questions.

tons of questions about all the medications. She took detailed notes, like she was on it. She knew everything about these medications. She knew what they would do. Right.

In the present day, such curiosity about various poisons might arouse suspicions or be flagged. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. But as Schechter points out, at a time when substances from arsenic to strychnine were routinely prescribed for a range of ailments, Jane's interest didn't really seem that unusual. She was just learning about the medications. Right. But it honestly probably made her look like a really good, bright student. Yeah. You know?

It's impossible to pinpoint when she began experimenting on patients. I hate that.

Even Jane herself had actually forgotten when she had started. She's like, I don't know. I just been doing this for a while. Yeah, she didn't really point to it. You said it was like she got away with it for like 15 years. Yeah, it's been a while. My God. But by the time she was out of her two-year training period and was on a regular rotation at the hospital, she was already injecting patients with a variety of substances. Oh, I hate that. At first, she used morphine exclusively because it was regularly prescribed for a range of illnesses so she could get away with it. Right. She just put more in there and see what happens. Yeah.

She would inject the patient with varying amounts and stand beside them to watch how the drug affected each person. She never left. That's one of the changes, too, is a difference with her. She didn't do it, leave, and then be like, whoop.

It wasn't part of that. She watched. Sometimes she would like comfort them, like fake comfort them through it. Sometimes she would just, she would like touch them, caress them, hug them, whisper in their ear as this was happening. Yeah.

She was- And so she was always there when they actually did die. She liked to watch them take their last breath. That was part of it for her. It took 15 fucking years for you guys to be like, hey, Jane's always in the room where people die. Yeah. And the last person to have injected them with something-

Now, in somewhat smaller doses, the drug would cause their pupils to dilate, their breathing would get louder, and their skin would become clammy as they started to perspire very heavily. In larger doses, the patient would simply slip into a coma very quickly, and then they would eventually stop breathing and die. But Jane found one thing that was most satisfying to her.

And she said this. She said the most satisfying thing was when the patient's death would involve violent convulsions. Oh, my God. Yes. This woman is one of the scariest serial killers. Genuinely. Like, she didn't love to watch when it was a quick, silent, relatively...

you know, not terrifying death. Think about, think about just the stress that you see, like seeing something like that happen on TV. You're like, oh, wow. In a movie or a television show, you're like, oh, that's very upsetting to watch. Exactly. It's just very visceral and very jarring to watch. And,

It's, I mean, I can't even fathom that. I've never personally seen like an adult have like a full seizure in front of me like in real life. No. Like I can only like my youngest had a relatively small seizure in my arms and I can tell you.

that will stick with me until the day I die and beyond. And it's like, and that was luckily, thankfully, she's completely fine and will suffer nothing from it. But it was a very small seizure in comparison to what it could have been. Standing there and watching an adult go through convulsions in front of me while they're struggling to breathe and in pain and terrified, and you're just watching it? Like...

How I'm like, what I think part of me is like, I wish I could. I wish she was hooked up.

to all kinds of things so we could witness what her vitals did in that moment yeah because I'm like do you have the same response internally as we do like did you that would trigger my fight or flight response in a massive way I mean I would go into fucking the outer space right like my whole body would be a live wire of just fucking losing it but would hers I'm like would hers just be

Just be calm. Or would hers go off like yours because she's excited by it? That's the thing. Not a flight or flight kind of thing, just like an excitement. But excitement. It's like, would your brain be lighting up? What would be happening inside of you? I was just thinking that because I've never really thought of somebody standing there watching someone deliberately.

in such a violent way in front of them. Knowing full well that they did it. And I'm like, I would just be very curious to see. That's right. We would never be able to see, but it's like I would be very curious to see if there's just a different situation going on in there. Yeah. That's why, like, these brains are fascinating. They're fucked up. Like, they're fucked up, but I do think it's more important to study some of these brains. Yeah, because it's not the same. Like, create some kind of, like...

situation like that, obviously without killing anybody, like, duh. But just to see what happens in a psychopath's brain like that. That's the thing. Like, it's just, this is so different than anything you can conceive of that it's just, it's got to be something different here. And then to know, like,

When you find out what's happening in the brain when these things are going on, to find out, is there a cure for a serial killer, for a psychopath? That's not a totally wild thing to say. No. There's cures for so many. It's a mental illness. It's an amalgamation of mental illness. There's something. What is it? You know what I mean? Yeah. I wonder if someday there ever will be the cure for the...

The psychopath. Yeah, or like something that you can do to determine it early before it becomes a thing. You know what I mean? Like become one of those things where you can catch it and do something to...

It's not totally out of the realm of possibility. Who knows? And who knows, too? It might be something that we're already doing. Who really knows and we don't even know? Even when your kid is going through something and you take them to therapy, but a previous serial killer, their parent didn't take them to therapy because it wasn't a thing. I do wonder. There's at least that step being taken. Could we take 15 more steps and get higher on here? But it's like maybe that really is part of it. It could be.

Anyway. Yeah. There's a little detour. But in time, Jane began to experiment with other drugs instead of morphine and eventually began blending the morphine with atropine, which is a painkiller derived from belladonna. Oof. And datura plants that if not handled, are properly handled, can have significant toxic effects. Oh.

Unlike morphine, which caused a certain amount of sedation, atropine causes losers to lose control of their muscle coordination while also potentially causing hallucinations and delirium.

In many cases, patients will pick at real or imaginary things from hairs and scabs on their own skin to items on a nearby table or phantoms only they can perceive in the room. And Jane would inject victims with various doses one after the other and watch the effect.

Which satisfied her dark and sadistic desires to watch them just lose all coordination and be in pain and terror. Insane. And it also helped her because it would create such a perplexing set of symptoms that no one could figure out what these deaths were. And they certainly weren't thinking they were intentionally caused. No.

So despite her unique choice of murder weapon, Jane Toppin was like many other serial killers to come after her in that the pleasure she derived from murder was in the feeling of power she had over another person acting as, you know, the acting as God essentially and watching them die. Right. And seeing the light go.

When she was later asked how she felt when she committed these crimes, Jane would describe her murders as, quote, delirious enjoyment, voluptuous delight, and the greatest conceivable pleasure. Don't have words for how disturbing that is. Voluptuous delights. And the greatest conceivable pleasure. Watching an elder... Because I'm assuming a lot of these people are elderly. A lot of them are elderly, yeah. Just...

And people who are already like they're in the hospital to begin with, they're already going through something, you know, traumatic or something where they need attention. And it's like, and then you're just causing so much extra disruption to their system and watching them die. And when pressed further...

About this, she eventually did admit that she murdered because it gave her a sexual thrill. I had a feeling. So she's like a sexual sadist, essentially. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, gross. One of Jane's surviving victims told police after Jane had injected her with the poison, Jane, quote, climbed into bed with her as she lay dying before being interrupted by another nurse walking through.

So she would literally climb into bed with these people while they were convulsing and dying and struggling to breathe. And this is just in a hospital. In some of the best hospitals in the world, as we'll see. Mass General is one of these hospitals. Massachusetts General Hospital.

One of the top hospitals in the entire world. And you think about, like... And the reason I say that is you think about all the activity going on in a hospital. Yeah. And all the people in the hallway, like, walking back and forth, constantly going in and out of rooms and shit. And she just...

She has so much gall that she just, first of all, does this. And then second of all, hops into bed with her victims, just like not worried that anybody's going to walk in. Yeah. And not worried that that's just like fucked up in and of itself and like beyond. But no thought of being caught by anything. Because I think... That's crazy. She has such a high ego. Yes. She's so egocentric that she truly believes that she can talk her way out of anything. And to be honest...

She does. She's got every reason to think that because she does. It is scary how some people really, I think we already said it, but how they can talk themselves out of things like that. It's a power. It is. It really is. It's a power. It's inexplicable. And it's an awful power because it's like somebody who can do that is very dangerous too. The most dangerous person.

And again, this is like the late 1800s. So it's like hospitals are just such, obviously such a different situation than they are now. Right. Like, but for this to happen at Mass General, you know, like Cambridge Hospital, like these are, we know these hospitals now and they were always well-respected, always well-run, always well, like these are the top hospitals from the beginning. Yeah. And even them, even she was even able to do it to them. Like think about what she could have done somewhere with less oversight. Yeah.

But thanks to her ability to charm the right people her entire life, those with influence, apparently, in the late 18 and late 1888, Jane landed a position at Massachusetts General Hospital. No. Out of her trainee days. Yes.

This, again, was one of the most prestigious training institutes of the day and remains the top hospital, one of the top hospitals in the world. In addition to providing nursing services at the hospital, she would also be able to continue her education with some of the most well-respected doctors and surgeons in the entire country. Yeah. Whose recommendations she would rely on for future employment. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, at first, Jane's supervisor objected to her admission, actually, based mostly on the fact that she was of Irish heritage. That's fucked. But as she'd done so many times in the past, Jane managed to thoroughly impress her superiors and made it through her probation period without any trouble. So she was a

These are the same kind of people, we always say it, the people who if they use their fucking powers for good, they could go off and do great things. Yeah, climb right to the top. In fact, Jane had so impressed the hospital administrators that when the head nurse took a temporary leave of absence, Jane was named as her replacement. No. Goodbye. Despite only having recently come out of her probation period. The fuck? That's how manipulative she was. That's bonkers. And how much of a charmer she was.

Now, unfortunately, while Jane may have been, you know, may have managed to fool the higher ups, it wasn't long before she fell back into her old habits and her peers labeled her a self-promoting liar who routinely disparaged the efforts of her colleagues while taking the credit for herself. She's a true fucking snake. She really is.

There were other problems, too. Incorrect information being entered into patient charts, records being falsified, various items going missing around the hospital. Same shit following her everywhere. Most importantly, though, Jane had once again become reckless, and others began noticing that she was dispensing medications at improper dosages, putting patients at significant risk. Of course.

Now, while her behavioral problems and occasional reckless or careless injection was cause for concern, no one would have thought, much less believed, that a nurse in a world-class medical facility was actively murdering patients. Because that's just like, your brain doesn't go there naturally. No.

No. And yet there is documented evidence that many people under Jane's care at this time did indeed die unexpectedly. Of course. Yeah, clearly. With modern medicine still in its infancy, though, it's unclear how many of those deaths were actually murders.

But testimony provided during Jane's trial strongly implies she had been perfecting her method and practicing her craft while working at Mass General. I would say so. Now, in a statement provided by Amelia Finney, who was a patient admitted for treatment of abdominal cancer...

Going in for abdominal cancer. Yeah, like that's huge. The woman claimed she had been having difficulty sleeping one evening due to her pain. And laying on her cot in the dark, she came to realize someone was in the room with her. The visitor lit the lamp and because remember, we're doing this about lamplight, everybody. Remember that. The way like that's so silly that that just occurred to me. But the fact that there's not even electricity. No.

Like there's no, it's lamp light. Picturing a hospital with no electricity and lamp light. Like you picture a hospital, you picture like fluorescent lights, like shit beeping everywhere. Yes.

Oh, my God. So this person lit the lamp and revealed herself to be Jane Toppin, a nurse, and said, I'm the nurse. No. Finney explained that she was in terrible pain and asked Jane, please get a doctor for me. Yeah. But Jane replied, there's no need for that. I have something to make you feel better.

After helping Finney sit up on the cot, Jane handed the woman a glass and told her to drink, which the patient did. She is a nurse after all. And not long after she drank it, she began to feel her body going numb and her throat became uncomfortably dry. As she slipped into unconsciousness, Amelia felt the sheets and covers being pulled back and heard the cot creak as it shifted.

For years after, Finney would convince herself that this was a hallucination caused by the medication, and it was only after Jane was arrested that she realized it was real. As Amelia lay dying on the cot, Jane began caressing and stroking her hair and face gently, then started kissing her face, all while whispering that everything would be all right.

Moments after this, Finney felt the glass being pressed to her lips again as the nurse encouraged her to drink more. But she said she realized what was happening and used all her strength she had to keep her mouth shut and turn her head. Then very suddenly, the nurse jumped out of the cot as though she had been startled and fled the room. And that's when Amelia couldn't fight the effects of medication and just went unconscious.

And this was, she was literally laying next to her saying, everything's going to be all right. Stroking her fucking hair. Kissing her face. Kissing her. This is deranged. Truly deranged. Now. Ew. Yeah. This is so yucky. It's so yucky. Now, wildly, I guess, it wasn't the nefarious experiments and bizarre behavior with the patients and people dying that led her to be ousted from general, from mass general. Oh, was it?

But it was her duplicitousness and her caustic personality that ended up getting her gone. One or the other is going to do it. Something had to. Although Jane had managed to charm more than a few of the higher-ups in the hospital, their character references weren't enough to shut down the number of complaints about her unpleasant demeanor.

That her colleagues came forward to. And the growing suspicions that Jane was trying to blame people for items that had gone missing, including supplies from the storeroom, a diamond ring from a patient. Oh, my God. And money that had been stolen from a cash box. Damn. When she was confronted, Jane acted indignant and performed the role of the unfortunate victim just as she had done every time before.

But at a time when nursing was emerging as a legitimate field of study for women, there was very little room for error. And the suspicions others had of Jane could have negatively affected the hospital's reputation. Absolutely. The Mass General isn't going to put up with that shit. They said Jane Toppin, not today, baby. They said no way.

They were like, we want to be iconic. However, without any evidence that she was responsible for the thefts, her supervisors couldn't fire her without causing even more problems for themselves. Their opportunity to get rid of her finally did come in summer of 1890 when Jane left her assigned ward without permission. Ooh. That's all she did. Got her on a technicality. It was a minor infraction, but they were like...

That's what we needed. Thanks, Jane. It was a documented violation of the rules and exactly what they needed to get her the fuck out of Mass General. So they were like, bye, bitch. I said, don't let the door hit you on your way out. Yep. See you later. See you never. Although she had already completed her studies and her diploma was set to be awarded, Jane was fired from the hospital and never received her license. But she still went on to work at another hospital. Yeah.

But like good Mass General was like, bye. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, yeah, Mass General. I was like, fuck that. I love it. Now, after being dismissed from Mass General, Jane spent a year providing private nursing services for prominent local families.

collecting glowing letters of recommendations that by the end of the year allowed her to regain her employment at Cambridge Hospital. Of course, Jane being who Jane was. Jane just being Jane. Just being Jane. It didn't take long for her to fall back into those old nasty habits of hers. Believable. From gossip to theft and most importantly, murder. This time, however, she didn't confine her experiments to just the patients.

Her distaste for her co-workers started to blend with her contempt for her patients. Okay, but how does she poison them? When one of the trainees, 19-year-old Maddie Davis, fell ill during a shift, she laid down to rest in one of the beds, and she was tended to by Nurse Toppin. No. At one point, Jane gave the girl some medication that, according to the official report...

caused Maddie to, quote, be seized with a sudden and violent collapse. Fortunately for Maddie, a doctor happened to be passing by the room at the time and intervened, ultimately saving the girl's life. Wow. Like so many of the professionals around Jane at the time, the doctor who saved Maddie never suspected that she would have been intentionally poisoned by one of the fucking hospital staff.

Nor did Maddie think that. Why would anybody think that? Yeah, she just was like, what the fuck happened to me? But there was at least one doctor at Cambridge Hospital who, after noticing that several of his patients had died under Jane's watch, became very suspicious and reported Jane to the hospital administration for what he believed was a reckless use of dangerous drugs. And I was like, bitch, I have your number. That's my guy right there.

Given all the trouble that Jane was suspected of causing, you know, thefts and strife among the nursing staff. Yeah. Administrators used the doctor's suspicions as a reason to fire Jane. Bye, girl. And she was fired from Cambridge Hospital in the spring of 1891. Get the fuck out. That was a short stint.

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For her entire life, Jane's worst instincts and criminal behavior had prevented her from forming any kind of bond with others. And she spent every waking moment trying to cover up her deeply held feelings of inadequacy with overcompensation and really dark manipulation. But now, at age 32, those same instincts and behaviors had cost her not one, but two jobs at two of the most prestigious teaching hospitals on the East Coast. Mm-hmm.

Also, while she had invested four years of her life in training, she'd managed to get fired from both hospitals before receiving a license. So she wasted a shit ton of time because she's a fucking asshole. Fucking Jane. Now, under these circumstances, it seemed unlikely that Jane would find more work in another hospital, so she returned to private nursing.

Where she could, she knew she was going to make more money there and really there was not going to be a lot of oversight for her. It was kind of perfect for what she was doing. Yeah. So for Jane, the transition from hospital to private nursing wouldn't have been all that arduous or uncomfortable because she had spent her entire youth and then some tending to the needs of a wealthy foster mother and sister. Yeah. Which wasn't all that different from private nursing, to be honest. Yeah.

As a private contractor, she really would have been expected to just sit with the patients in their homes, administer medications, provide other treatments, and kind of wait on them during periods of convalescing. Yeah. For Jane, those things would have likely honestly been a cakewalk. Very easy. The easiest parts. Yeah.

Less easy would have been the constant interactions with doctors and concerned family members who would have relied on Jane at various points during this. Of course. For much of her life, she had struggled when it came to interpersonal communications, largely because she was a chronic liar who used and manipulated people to get what she wanted or to make herself look or feel superior. And this caused endless problems for Jane in a hospital setting.

Because patients came and went quickly. You know, she was interacting with a lot of people in those environments. But it was really doubly challenging in a home environment because everyone talked to one another regularly there. And there were far fewer people on whom things could be blamed when they went wrong. Yet Jane never seemed to lack employment. And while there was occasional complaints about her behavior, she managed to do quite well for herself during this period.

According to Schechter, some of her employers were taken aback by her tendency to spin elaborate lies about her life and accomplishments, though for the most part, they dismissed her fondness for extravagant storytelling as a function of her Irish ancestry.

She's really out here making the Irish look bad. I know. I'm like, damn. Like, can you not, Jane? Can you stop giving us a bad name? Seriously. Now, after her arrest, Jane would confess to 31 murders and stand trial for 12 deaths. Oh. But at various points, she was suspected of as many as 100 murders or more throughout her adult life. That's believable. She only confessed and was stood trial for that amount of deaths. They do believe it is over 100. Yeah.

Wow. Although some of those victims were almost certainly killed during this early period of private nursing, which is between 1891 and 1895, their identities and the details of their deaths remain pretty much unknown.

That's so sad. It is. What is known is that Jane's most reckless period of mass killing, the one for which she would eventually be caught and prosecuted for, began very much in earnest in the spring of 1895. And it started not with a patient under her care, but with her own landlord. What? Let's start the killing spree portion of this.

As a private nurse, Jane was often required to provide live-in, round-the-clock care for her patients, obviously, which took care of her housing needs, so that was good for her. But when she wasn't required to live with her patients, Jane found lodging with an elderly couple, Israel and Lovie Dunham. Yes. Don't even, don't you dare. Lovie. Don't you dare go near Lovie Dunham. She was living at 19 Wendell Street in Cambridge. Okay.

At a certain point, Jane began providing home care for the Dunhams, who were nearly 80 years old at the time. You live your whole fucking life just to come into contact with this bitch. On May 26, 1895, Israel Dunham died after four days of illness from what the coroner identified as a strangulated hernia. It was only after her arrest that the truth would be revealed.

Israel Dunham had been poisoned by Jane Toppin because he had become, in her words, quote, feeble and fussy. He's 80. And sick. Be as feeble and fussy as you'd like to be. I'm going to be the fussiest. I am the fussiest. I'm fussy at 38. I'm fussy as hell. It's going to get real bad when I'm 80.

Jane stayed on as a boarder with Mrs. Dunham for more than two more years. Lovey had no idea that this woman had murdered her husband. For two years she lives there. Until September 19th, 1897, when she decided that Lovey, the widow, had become, quote, old and cranky and poisoned her.

with a combination of morphine and atropine dissolved in water. What a cunt. Which, remember, atropine poisoning causes delirium and hallucinations. Right. And it's very scary. Yeah. And she did this to this 80-something-year-old widow. Who had already lost her husband two years prior because of her. Yep.

Throughout her adult life, Jane's assaults and murders were committed against those with whom she either had a casual relationship, the Dunhams, or a professional association as a healthcare provider. Right. This changed in the summer of 1899 when Jane murdered her foster sister, Elizabeth Brigham. No. Since moving out many years earlier, Jane had maintained a tenuous relationship with Elizabeth. I knew that was going to blow your mind. Oh, no.

She, here's the thing. Elizabeth was always very cordial and very welcoming to Jane. I thought you said like she was, she was pretty nice. She was not mean. She was not, she didn't treat her. But she was jealous of her. It was the jealousy. She was everything that Jane could never be. And I think even that probably pissed Jane off. That she was nice to her. That Elizabeth wasn't a cunt. Yeah. It's like that she wanted her to be this awful. What she was in her head.

Why aren't you? And honestly, Jane was probably like, why aren't you like me? I'm this angry, fucking miserable, off-putting liar, snake, manipulator, murderer, terrible person. And I don't have any of the things that you have. And like, you're this person who's like this good person on top of all the other things that you have.

You have it probably pissed her off. And so she was always very cordial, very welcoming to Jane, despite Jane's very off-putting personality. In fact, Elizabeth and her husband had always had fond feelings for Jane.

and were happy that she managed to find success in Boston as a nurse. They were happy for her. Wow. And, like, told her as such. They, like, congratulated her and celebrated her and were like, we're so glad you found this. And Elizabeth, it sounds like she was probably trying to be the family that, like, her mom was never to Jane. Jane, on the other hand, spent most of her life resenting Elizabeth, who, again, she felt was totally undeserving of all the things that Jane herself had been denied. Right.

Whether it was Anne Toppin's love and affection, Elizabeth's many close friends and acquaintances, or her romantic relationships and her very successful and loving marriage, for Jane, Elizabeth represented a constant reminder of all the ways that she believed she had been failed by everything around her. And that she didn't get that shit. That's deeply sick.

She couldn't look at it as I want to strive to be that. I need to destroy that. And I want to use her support to like lift me up in that way and know that I have this person in my corner. She looked at it and said, I have to destroy that to get it. Yeah. And there's still, there's people who think that all around, that you have to destroy the thing that's above you to get there instead of just grabbing someone's hand and standing up there with them. Let's do it together. Right. Yeah. And it's the grossest kind of thought process. And it's like,

They're the most dangerous kind of people. And it doesn't get you anywhere. Look what happened to Jane Topin. Exactly.

In August 1899, Oramel and Elizabeth planned a vacation on Cape Cod. And hoping to lift Elizabeth out of a recent bout of depression that she had been suffering from, Oramel suggested they invite Jane along to keep her company until he arrived a few days later. Oh, God. Because they loved Jane. Right. And they thought that she... He was like, oh, you love Jane. She'll make you feel better. Like, it's your sister, you know? Like, that's your sister for all intents and purposes. Right.

Jane arrived late on the evening of August 25th, and the following day, the two enjoyed a picnic at the beach, like sisters. Later that night, Elizabeth announced that she was feeling tired and went to bed early. The following morning, when she didn't wake, Jane claimed she went to check on Elizabeth and that she found her unresponsive in her bed. Yeah, because of what you did. After making her sister comfortable, Jane went next door and asked for help summoning the local doctor.

Later that afternoon, Oramel received a telegram informing him that Elizabeth, his wife, had become dangerously ill. Oh, no. And he made immediate plans to get to Cape Cod. But unfortunately, by the time he arrived the following day, Elizabeth was in a coma after having suffered from what local doctors described as, quote, a stroke of apoplexy. What is that? Which would associate with stroke symptoms. Okay. A little bit, um...

And, like, it leads to unconsciousness. Oh, okay. Elizabeth died the following day, August 29th, at age 70. Oh, my God. She was 70 at this point in time? She killed her sister at 70 years old. What the fuck? She killed her sister at 70 years old after being invited on a vacation with her and her husband. What?

To make her feel better. Because her husband thought that her sister, who she loved so much, will cheer her up. Wow. Like, wow. And again, you live your whole fucking life for your sister to kill you. Yeah. And then it's even worse. A few days later, as Oramel was packing up Elizabeth's belongings at the vacation home that they'd rented, that he was now packing up after she died there. All by himself. He was surprised to find that his wife's purse contained only $5.00.

When they planned for the trip a few days earlier, Elizabeth had said she would be taking no less than $50 for her expenses because she was like, fuck that, I'm going to spend money. Yeah, hell yeah. Go girl. And it seemed impossible that she would have spent that much money in a short period of time. Especially when she wasn't even feeling good. Exactly. So Oramel asked Jane if she knew anything about it, but Jane was like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. She did, however, tell Oramel that just before Elizabeth died, she had told her that it was her dying wish that Jane take her gold watch and chain as a keepsake.

She's such a cunt. She's a cunt. She's a cunt with a capital K. In any case of murder that isn't witnessed by others, the only information we have available is from physical evidence or obviously whatever details, if any, the killer is going to choose to disclose. Since poisoning tends not to give you a whole lot in terms of evidence or insight at all, almost all the details known about Jane's murders were provided by the killer herself.

And unfortunately, those were sometimes vague and brief and bullshit. But when it came to the murder of Elizabeth Brigham, Jane not only confessed, but elaborated on her motive, saying that Elizabeth, quote, was really the first of my victims that I actually hated.

Oh my God. That is her words. That's someone you literally, like, however old she was, like, we're thinking, like, 8 to 10 when she was adopted. She spent her whole life, like, growing up with this sister, again, for all intents and purposes. Yeah.

Who treated her well. Who treated her well, who was kind to her, who, you know, whatever. Had no control over how her mother was or how she was treated. And I'm sure probably tried to like help when she could. Yeah. I let her die slowly with gripping torture. How do you do that to someone that like, that you know, how do you do that to anybody, obviously? But how do you do that to somebody that like is your family? Yeah.

It gets worse. No, it doesn't. She told investigators that as her sister began to slip into a coma, Jane climbed into bed with her to be as close as possible when she died. And she said, quote, I held her in my arms and watched with delight as she gasped her life out. I...

There's like no words. It's like... The fact that she like hops into bed with people and holds them as they die, you can't picture in your mind somebody doing that in an evil manner. No, you picture somebody trying to hold someone to comfort them. Right, like I can't picture her doing that. And just try to be there for them as they're dying, like being like, you're not alone, I'm here with you, like you're not alone. Like somebody, I've seen people do that. Of course, I can't picture her doing that happily. But this woman, all I picture...

Is this woman with a maniacal Cheshire Cat smile on her face just delighting in all of the throes of death that is happening that close to her? My brain can't even picture that. Like, that's how just absolutely insane this idea is. She's...

She's something totally different. I've never heard of somebody who does this. She's a different beast. Yeah. She really is. To hold somebody, to hold your family as they're dying and to be happy while doing so is heinous. And your sister.

Who always treated you well. I won't do that to you. Thank you. You're welcome. Same. I got you. Now, just a few months later in December 1899, Jane killed again, although this time she went back to her preferred victim profile. Oh, God. On Christmas Day. No! 70-year-old Mary McNear traveled the short distance from her home in Watertown to her daughter's home in Cambridge. And that day, Mary caught a chill, and by the evening, she felt like she was coming down with a cold.

In the days that followed, Mary developed a cough and symptoms of a cold, but as far as the doctor could tell, it was nothing serious, just a shitty cold. You know, it was winter. Yeah. Nevertheless, her family was concerned about her health and insisted they hire a private nurse, so the family doctor recommended Jane Toppin. Ugh! To the McNear family, Jane seemed more than competent and qualified, and within a day, it seemed as though Mary was showing signs of improvement. Wow.

Pleased that things were going so well, Mary's granddaughter, Evelyn Shaw, returned home after a visit, confident that her grandmother was going to be well again in no time flat. Of course. Just a few hours later, though, Mary's coachman appeared at Shaw's door to tell her that her grandmother had taken a sudden and very serious turn, and she should return to Watertown as soon as possible. Evelyn raced back to her grandmother's house, and by the time she arrived, the doctor was already there.

He told the family Mary had, quote, suffered a stroke of apoplexy. Just like Elizabeth. Which, according to Jane, had occurred just after she took her medication. Jane immediately informed the staff of what had happened, but insisted it was nothing to be worried about and she would care for the woman. Ugh.

Despite Jane's insistence, the cook felt it appropriate to notify the family and sent the coachman to the Shaw's home in Cambridge. Wow. I'm glad these other people are like, get fucked. Like, no, I'll tell you who I want to. Unfortunately, by the time the doctor arrived, there was little he could do to help Mary and she died on December 29th.

Without ever regaining consciousness. So she just slipped into a coma and then died. In the days after the funeral, while they were packing up Mary's belongings, the family noticed many of her nicest clothes and jewelry were missing.

Yeah, like we let this new woman into our home, our grandma dies, and then all her nice stuff is gone. But the doctor was outraged by this.

By that accusation. Are you kidding me? As far as he was concerned, Jane Toppin was one of the best private nurses there was in Boston. And he would not tolerate any arguments to the contrary. The egg. That's how well she charmed them. The egg. The egg on his face. The egg. His face is an egg at this point. He became an egg. He is now an egg. Humpty Dumpty, that's that doctor. Honestly. He had a great fall. He sure did. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, just as she had always done, she had managed to manipulate exactly the right person in order to avoid any detection. Because the details of Jane's activity are based largely on self-reports, it's difficult to establish a timeline or a pattern in the frequency with which she killed, because remember, there's so many more than what we even know of.

But there is a noticeable increase in murder, beginning with another atypical victim. In mid-January 1900, just a few weeks after killing Mary McNear, Jane paid a visit to her foster sister's widow, Oramel Brigham, hoping to find him alone. No.

This is now that Elizabeth was out of the way. It seems that Jane had intended to win Brigham's affection and finally receive the romantic attention that she felt she deserved way more than Elizabeth. What? So now she's trying to fuck her murdered sister's husband. Blink, blink, blink, blink. Yep.

But she was pretty upset when she found that Oramel had hired a young woman named Florence Calkins to help with the responsibilities of the house. Again, not in a relationship with her, just hired her to help him take care of the house. He's probably depressed now. She later told investigators, Jane did, I was jealous of her. I knew she wanted to become Mr. Brigham's wife. I think she might have just been like working. I think that was just her job.

Whether or not that was true, Jane had no intention of tolerating competition. She had gone through great lengths to get rid of the biggest competition, as a matter of fact. Uh-huh. So on January 15th, Jane poisoned the 45-year-old housekeeper to ensure that she would be out of the way of her dead sister's husband. Like, Ormel's not going to be like, wow, it's weird that every time you're around, someone dies. Like, what the fuck?

You're supposed, the other thing is, it's like. She did that to take her dead sister's husband. The sister that she murdered and crawled into bed with and watched as she breathed her last breath. Yeah. And also like, you don't think he's going to start to suspect this. You're supposed to be a nurse, but all these people just die in your care. Like you're not good at this job. You suck. Less than two weeks later.

70-year-old William Ingram, a Watertown patient under Jane's care, died on January 27th, 1900. The doctor who attended to the body after his death labeled the death, the cause of death, as degenerative disease of the heart, which Ingram was known to have suffered with, but was nonetheless pretty suspicious that his death had come so suddenly.

Nice that he actually like was here. He was like, wait a second. As far as the doctor could tell, the only thing that had changed in his care was the recent arrival of his new nurse, Jane Toppin. Oh, I had a feeling you might be here. Once again, those suspicions were shut down. After Jane was arrested and more than a year after his death, Ingram's family released a statement insisting, quote, no suspicion was attached to Toppin and she proved herself to be most capable. Wow. Yeah.

Like the few murders of intimate relations she'd already committed, the last grouping of murders committed by Jane broke from her established victim profile, starting with her friend, Myra Connors. What? Now, it's unclear how the two women had met, but by February 1900, they'd known one another for about two years.

So that's a long friendship. At the beginning of February, Myra was feeling unwell and called for a doctor who diagnosed her with localized peritonitis, which basically is inflammation of the lining of your abdomen. It's usually caused by some localized infection like a perforation of the bowel or a burst appendix. Not great.

She was prescribed an opium solution. Oof. You know, the 1900s. A week later, on February 7th, Jane arrived at her home, insisting that she be allowed to care for her sick friend.

Until that point, Connors had been making steady progress towards actually a full recovery. But almost immediately after Jane arrived, her condition took a strict turn for the worse. According to testimony provided by Connors' doctor during Jane's trial on February 11th, less than a week after Jane's arrival, by the way, Myra Connors, quote, died in great agony, suffering such terrible convulsions that her left arm was bent nearly double.

What? Yeah. Bent nearly double? I don't understand. Like literally, she went through such convulsions that her arm broke. Oh my God. Like it threw her in such convulsions that her arm broke in like two places. Oh my God. It was like bent the wrong way.

This is supposed to be her friend. And you'll find out why she was going through such horrible convulsions here. Because once again, Jane was benefiting from modern medicine being in its infancy. Although the doctor was confounded by how peritonitis had escalated to such a violent end. He's like, I've never seen this before. But following Jane's arrest, it occurred to him that the symptoms Myra exhibited now strongly resembled the effects of strychnine poisoning.

Strychnine poisoning causes horrible spasming. So the back arches unnaturally enough to cause literal damage to your back and spinal cord. That's how violent the spasms are. Death from strychnine poisoning usually comes only hours after being exposed to it. And it's caused by either asphyxiation caused by paralysis of the systems necessary to control your breathing...

Or you die from exhaustion from the convulsions. That's how bad it is. You can die from the exhaustion of convulsing so violently. What? It is a...

Nightmarish way to die. Yeah, I would say so. I would absolutely say so. What the fuck? And later, it would be learned that like Elizabeth, Jane had been so deeply envious of Myra, particularly for her job as a dining hall matron at St. John's Theological School. Although this seems like, clearly, this is a weak motivation for fucking horrible murders. But she's...

This is her mindset. This is her mindset. Jealousy. She is a jealous, jealous woman and cannot handle it. And to go to those lengths because of your jealousy, like, whoa. And it's clear at this point that Jane has spun wildly out of control. I would say so. To the point that for, you know, it's her ability to resist the urge to kill at this point is non-existent. She cannot resist the urge.

And yet this would be the last time that Jane killed for more than a year. But when she resumed her activity...

It would be what one can only call reckless abandon. I mean, it feels that way right now. And that's where we're going to end part one. Because I think we all need to take a fucking second. We do, but like, damn. Because all this time, I'm like, I need to breathe. Yeah, I mean, I don't blame you. Whoa. Jane Toppin. And when we return for part two, we are going to go through her final murder spree and what happens after. I'm scared.

It's a horrific tale. We will see you then. So we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep hearing. Not so weird as Jane. No. No. No. No. No.

If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.

No, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical.

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.