The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder

After resigning from Hunterdon in October 1996, Charlie secures work at Morristown Memorial Hospital. He abuses patients and, although patients threaten to call authorities, Charlie is merely lectured. He continues mis-administering medicine and is fired within a year after failing to give heparin to a patient scheduled for surgery, which results in the patient’s death. Although he isn’t formally found culpable, he’s sent home for a week and avoids phone calls from the hospital until he’s fired. He writes a letter to appeal, but the decision is upheld, and he fakes an attempt to die by suicide. Emergency services take him to Warren Hospital, where the nurses gossip about him, and he refuses to give a blood sample. He fights the hospital staff and is taken to Greystone once again. When he’s released, he presses charges against the doctor who tried to draw his blood. He tries once again to appeal his termination at Morristown but never follows through.

Charlie applies for a Pennsylvania nursing license and a job at the Liberty Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Pennsylvania. His past employers provide either neutral or positive references. Because of extensive debt, Charlie is desperate for an income. He poisons an elderly patient with insulin, and the patient dies several days later. Following an internal investigation, the center fires a nurse named Kimberly Pepe, who sues the hospital for wrongful termination and alleges Charlie’s culpability. They settle out of court, without any criminal investigation. The center transfers Charlie to intensive care, where he’s ultimately fired because of inappropriate drug protocol. However, he’s unemployed for only two days before a staffing agency finds him more work.

During the holiday season of 1998, Charlie works at Easton Hospital. There, he targets a patient named Ottomar Schramm, asking his daughter Kristina to leave his room while he administers drugs. Schramm’s condition initially worsens but improves with time. Kristina receives a phone call from her father’s general practitioner about unauthorized blood tests that reveal a high level of digoxin. Subsequent tests are ordered and confirm the findings, but Schramm dies overnight. Kristina is advised to request an autopsy. When she arrives at the hospital, Charlie escorts her to her father’s room and pressures her not to ask for an autopsy. However, two other nurses ask if she wants to request one, and she becomes confused and frustrated.

An internal investigation rules Schramm’s death accidental, and by March 1999 Charlie secures new employment at Lehigh Valley Hospital’s burn unit. They use Pyxis MedStation machines to dispense drugs, and Charlie enjoys learning how to manipulate the technology. He dislikes his coworkers, however, and ramps up his crimes to relieve stress. Ultimately, Charlie grows tired even of his intentional overdosing and tries to die by suicide through smoke inhalation. Police arrive, and he’s taken away by emergency services.

By April 2000, Charlie searches for new employment because of his disdain for the Lehigh nurses. He secures work at the highly reputed St. Luke’s Hospital, receiving neutral or positive recommendations from past employers. After he joins the staff, nurses notice an increase in codes. In addition, they find Charlie odd, especially his habit of hiding extra chairs from the lounge in different parts of the hospital.

In February 2001, Charlie tries to woo a fellow nurse by leaving her gifts, but when he reveals that he’s the one who left them for her, she grows uncomfortable. He dislikes working with male nurses, who are increasingly prevalent since his early years in nursing. An elderly, ailing patient is brought in. As a sign of his disdain for the lackadaisical behavior of the other male nurses, Charlie injects her IV bag with digoxin so that she’ll die quickly and he can go home.