Nurse claims: 'I killed up to 40 patients'

A former nurse who claims to have killed 30 to 40 patients since 1987 was charged with murder today, prosecutors in the United States said.

During a court appearance, Charles Cullen, 43, stood and told the judge: “I am going to plead guilty. I don’t plan to fight this.”

He said he did not want a lawyer.

Cullen, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was arrested earlier today and charged with murder in the death of a Roman Catholic clergyman who was a patient at Somerset Medical Center.

He was also charged with the attempted murder of a 40-year-old woman at the same hospital.

Under questioning, Cullen allegedly told officials he had administered lethal doses of drugs to them and had killed 30 to 40 others over the last 16 years at several hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Investigators are examining records at 10 medical facilities where Cullen worked in attempt to document his claims about the other deaths.

“The evidence that we have indicates that may very well be the case,” prosecutor Wayne Forrest said.

The murder charge stems from the death of the Very Rev Florian J. Gall, vicar of Hunterdon County in the Catholic Diocese of Metuchen, who went into cardiac arrest on June 28.

It was later found he had a lethal level of the drug digoxin, a heart medication, in his system and had died from an unauthorised administration of the drug.

On June 16, the 40-year-old woman, a heart and cancer patient, was discovered with an elevated level of digoxin.

She recovered from the overdose and was discharged from the medical centre, but died in September.

He was remanded in custody with bail set at one million dollars (€812,000). It was not immediately known how many more charges he could face.