15 Facts About Jane Toppan

Jane Toppan was born Honora Kelley on March 31,1854, in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Irish immigrants.

In 1885, Jane Toppan began training to be a nurse at Cambridge Hospital.

Jane Toppan was recommended for the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital in 1889; there, she claimed several more victims before being fired the following year.

Jane Toppan briefly returned to Cambridge but was dismissed for administering opiates recklessly.

Jane Toppan then began a career as a private nurse and flourished despite complaints of petty theft.

Jane Toppan began her poisoning spree in earnest in 1895 by killing her landlord, Israel Dunham, and his wife.

In 1901, Jane Toppan moved in with the elderly Alden Davis and his family in Cataumet to take care of him after the death of his wife, Mattie.

Local authorities assigned a police detail on Jane Toppan to watch her.

Jane Toppan insisted upon her own sanity in court, claiming that she could not be insane if she knew what she was doing and knew that it was wrong, but nonetheless she was declared insane and committed.

Jane Toppan died there on August 17,1938, at the age of 84.

Jane Toppan administered a drug mixture to the patients she chose as her victims, lay with them, and held them close as they died.

Jane Toppan is often considered an "angel of mercy", a type of serial killer who takes on a caretaker role and attacks the vulnerable and dependent, though she murdered for seemingly more personal reasons, such as in the case of the Davis family.

Jane Toppan later described her motivation as a paralysis of thought and reason, a strong urge to poison.

Jane Toppan used poison for more than just murder, reportedly poisoning a housekeeper just enough so that she appeared drunk in order to steal her job and kill the family.

Jane Toppan even poisoned herself to evoke the sympathy of men who courted her.