Pod Insights Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén Jolly Jane Toppan (And an Announcement!) About this episode This episode first aired on January 15, 2018. On the outside, Jane Toppan seemed like a loving nurse who cared deeply for her patients. But for years, she used her nursing skills to experiment with medicines…and kill the people who trusted her the most.
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Transcript 8,557 words · 10 speakers
0:03 Speaker 00 Hey listeners, Chelsea here. I'm a producer on this show and I'm in your ears today to share some exciting changes coming to the feed. Rest assured, you're still gonna hear the most interesting true crime stories from all around the world, backed by the research you've come to expect. But very soon, we'll be introducing a new host to all of you. It's someone who shares our obsession with true crime and the criminal mind, a dynamic storyteller with a perspective we think you're really gonna love. And before we launch into this next evolution, we wanted to take a beat and revisit some of your favorite stories from the past eight years. Episodes that reflect the journey this show has taken while we get ready for something new. Today's episode takes us back to January 2018, one of the earliest chapters of the show.
0:48 Speaker 00 It's a glimpse into how serial killers first began to take shape. Enjoy.
0:55 Speaker 01 Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes dramatizations and discussions of murder that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13.
1:11 Speaker 02 What motivates you? Every morning when you wake up, what prompts you to get out of bed? Are you driven by ambition? A need to go out and do great things? Or is it simply a matter of getting through the day? Perhaps there's a cause you care about. Maybe a certain someone. Is love what motivates you? Or lust? Or is it a need to control? To kill?
1:38 Speaker 01 For many psychiatrists and criminologists, these were the questions they asked when trying to understand one of America's most prolific female serial killers, Jane Toppan, aka Jolly Jane. At the turn of the century, from the 1890s to 1901, Jane Toppan went on a killing spree. Her victims were the elderly, the infirm, the lame, her friends, and family. Using skills she acquired as a private nurse, she injected her victims with malicious concoctions. The sadistic alchemy left her victims helpless as she toyed with them for hours, days even, bringing them in and out of various stages of consciousness, only to force them back into a comatose state.
2:20 Speaker 01 When Jane finally grew bored of her victims, she gave them one last injection. As her victims struggled and gasped with their final breath, Jane curled up next to them, kissing and fondling them.
2:31 Speaker 02 Over the course of a decade, Jane Toppan took the lives of 33 people, though she later suggested that she may have killed even more, as she experimented on human subjects for years, trying to perfect her killing technique. Her goal was simple. She said she wanted, quote, "to kill more people, more helpless people than any man or woman has ever lived."
3:01 Speaker 01 Hi, I'm Greg Paulson, and this is Serial Killers. Today, we're looking into Jolly Jane, one of America's strangest and most prolific serial killers. I'm here with my co-host Vanessa Richardson. Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she's done a lot of research for the show.
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6:10 Speaker 01 Jane Toppan, Jolly Jane. Tell me, Vanessa, though we've covered other female serial killers before, like Bell Gunness and Nanny Doss, what makes Jane such an interesting serial killer?
6:21 Speaker 02 Excellent question, Greg. Jane was unique amongst female serial killers, mostly due to her motivations. While many female killers go after creature comforts and positions of power, Jane took a different route in her killings. She killed for power, control, and sexual satisfaction.
6:39 Speaker 01 Much like our typical male serial killers.
6:41 Speaker 02 Yes, not only that, Jane Toppan also had eradowphonophilia.
6:45 Speaker 01 I think we talked about that before, but remind me.
6:48 Speaker 02 We have. Eradowphonophilia is the condition when someone derives sexual satisfaction from someone else dying. To put it simply, Jane was a lust murderess.
6:58 Speaker 01 Fascinating.
6:59 Speaker 02 For Jane, her murders were crimes of passion. Like many male serial killers, she lashed out due to her perverse sexual desires and need for power. Yet she also adhered to many classic female serial killer tropes, desiring material possessions and a better social position. You could say she was the worst of both worlds.
7:23 Speaker 01 Our story begins in the year 1854, in the growing town of Lowell, Massachusetts. Considered the cradle of the American Industrial Revolution, Lowell was the center of large-scale textile factories. Soon, people from all across America began to move to the spindle city in the hopes of a better life. This was especially true of Irish immigrants, Bridget and Peter Kelly.
7:44 Speaker 02 Like many other Irish Catholic immigrants at the time, Bridget and Peter came to America hoping to start a new life. Instead, they were only faced with discrimination.
7:54 Speaker 01 At the time, Irish immigrants were looked down upon as drunken slobs, violent reprobates, and job stealers, taking lower-income jobs from hard-working, native-born Americans. They also faced rampant discrimination for their religion, Catholicism. In a Protestant-dominated community, many felt that Catholicism was out to supplant their way of life. Of course, this couldn't have been further from the truth, as most Irish immigrants were fleeing famine and oppression and simply wanted to find a better life for themselves and their families.
8:25 Speaker 02 So the young couple struggled to support their three children, Nellie, Delia Josephine, and little Honora Kelly, who would later be named Jane Toppan.
8:35 Speaker 01 Life in the Kelly household was poor, both literally and figuratively. Shortly after Honora was born, her mother Bridget died of consumption, aka tuberculosis.
8:46 Speaker 02 Tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in America at the time, and one of the world's most prolific and deadly diseases. By the turn of the century, nearly 420 Americans died daily because of the rampant disease.
8:59 Speaker 01 Peter Kelly was heartbroken and turned to the bottle to fill the void in his heart. Sadly, this only seemed to heighten Peter's pain. Peter gained a reputation as a violent trunkard. He'd get into fights constantly and lose jobs left and right because of it. The girls lived in near destitution. To make matters worse, evidence suggests that Peter may have physically abused his daughters.
9:22 Speaker 02 Eyewitnesses say that they saw the girls not only walking around in rags, but also covered in bruises. It was not a pretty image for Peter or what was left of his family. As things got worse for the family, Peter only drank more. It was a vicious cycle.
9:37 Speaker 01 Still, something in Peter must have clicked, as he realized he could no longer support his children. So he decided to give them up to better caretakers. Peter took his girls to the Boston Female Asylum. Founded in 1799 by Mrs. Hannah Stillman, the Boston Female Asylum was originally intended to be a safe haven and care facility for wayward and mentally ill girls. However, over time, the institution became an orphanage for young girls.
10:04 Speaker 02 Its mission was simple: receive, protect, and instruct female orphans. Things Peter couldn't do for his girls. So in the year 1863, Peter Kelly gave up his daughters to the Boston Female Asylum. Honora, later to be named Jane, was nine years old.
10:21 Speaker 01 The asylum agreed to take the girls in. It was the last time they ever saw their father.
10:26 Speaker 02 Little is known about what happened to Peter Kelly afterwards. Rumors persist, though, that he continued his drunken spiral, slowly going mad. This earned him the nickname "Kelly the Crack," "crack" being short for crackpot.
10:40 Speaker 01 Last anyone had heard of Peter Kelly, he had gotten a job at a local tailor shop. The job must have been tough, though. When the owner came to check on him one day, he found Peter trying to sew his own eyes shut.
10:53 Speaker 02 Whether there's any validity or not to these rumors, it does offer a little foreshadowing into what was on the way. Here, we see a clear sign of addiction and possible mental instability in the family. Growing up in destitution was probably not much help either for poor Honora. Couple that with no positive role model, or any figure to teach her right and wrong, those first nine years must have been very detrimental to the girl's development.
11:17 Speaker 01 Meanwhile, the sisters spent the next year or so living in the asylum. While we have no personal records of what happened to Honora or her sisters while there, we do know what generally went on inside the asylum itself.
11:29 Speaker 02 The asylum taught young girls basic skills for use outside of the facility. They learned basic arithmetic, reading, and writing skills. In addition, they were also taught various domestic skills like cleaning, cooking, sewing, whatever was deemed proper of a lady at the time.
11:45 Speaker 01 Girls were usually held there until they were around 10 years old. After that, the asylum would turn the girls over to foster homes as indentured servants. At these homes, the girls would live and work until they turned 18 years old. After that, they'd be given $50 and sent out into the world to fend for themselves. Such was the case for Honora Kelly.
12:05 Speaker 02 Now 10 years old, Honora was sent off to a foster home along with another foster girl named Elizabeth. The two were sent to live with Ann C. Toppan. Honora never saw her sisters again.
12:16 Speaker 01 Again, there is much rumor and speculation as to what happened to Honora's sisters after she left the asylum. For Delia Josephine, it's said she remained in the asylum until 1869, before being sent to Athol, New York as a servant at age 12. There, she turned to a life of drinking and prostitution. She later died living in destitution and squalid conditions. As for Nellie, all that is known is she was later institutionalized, though no one is sure where or why.
12:46 Speaker 02 Meanwhile, Honora, now referred to as Jane, thought that perhaps now she'd actually have a family with Anne Toppan. She was wrong. Anne Toppan also despised the Irish and Catholicism. She verbally and physically humiliated Jane due to her Irish heritage and weight. In fact, Mrs. Toppan completely changed Honora's name and background. Honora Kelly was now Jane Toppan, the daughter of Italian immigrants who died at sea.
13:13 Speaker 01 Couldn't she just stay Honora? What would that do to a child? Being told your identity was lower than dirt and forced to take up a new one?
13:20 Speaker 02 Nothing good. As we've talked about before, the formative years of childhood are so important, especially mentally. She had already struggled with abuse and destitution as a child. More than likely, this left her with a low sense of self-worth, even before she was taken in by Anne Toppan. Now, she was being told her entire life didn't amount to anything, so she had to change everything about herself. Everything she'd known was being erased. This can cause a crisis of identity for a child, one where a child may try anything to please those around her or lash out in confusion. To make things worse, children in these situations tend to believe everything is their fault, that they are bad people and not just a victim of circumstances.
14:03 Speaker 01 How tragic. Do you think this identity crisis at such a young age caused her to develop her murderous nature?
14:09 Speaker 02 It most likely contributed, yes. Despite trying so hard to please her foster mother, Jane got no love or affection. She was constantly shamed by Anne, who reminded her that her status was quite low and that no one would like her due to her weight. This likely further contributed to an inferiority complex. Jane grew to hate herself and her status in life.
14:33 Speaker 01 On the other hand, Jane's foster sister Elizabeth was doted upon and rarely ever had to work as hard as poor Jane. Mrs. Toppan constantly brought gifts for Elizabeth and told her how pretty she was. She even formally adopted Elizabeth as her own daughter. Jane never got that luxury.
14:49 Speaker 02 This drove Jane to bitter resentment. Elizabeth and Jane came from the same situation, the same foster home, but Elizabeth's life was so much easier. Jane envied and hated Elizabeth. It seemed no matter what Elizabeth did, everything came naturally for her, while Jane had to work extra hard to fit in and talk to people. Yet Elizabeth was always kind to her foster sister. She introduced her to new friends and looked after her as best she could.
15:16 Speaker 01 Both girls attended school. For Elizabeth, school and socializing came easy. For Jane, not so much.
15:23 Speaker 02 To compensate for this, Jane began to act out. Jane was very outspoken to compensate for her lack of confidence. She told grandiose lies about her father being a sailor at sea or how her real sister was married to a wealthy prince. If anyone called her out on her lies, she gossiped about them behind their back. She also told lies to get other students in trouble and tattled as often as she could. She even blamed her own misdeeds on others.
15:50 Speaker 01 What does this tell us about Jane?
15:52 Speaker 02 This just shows Jane's identity crisis in action. On the surface, it's clear that she wanted attention. She wanted positive reinforcement, yet didn't know how to achieve this. So she lied with hopes of getting praise and positive attention, things she desperately wanted and needed. Though the constant lying, gossip, and getting other kids in trouble does paint a picture of conduct disorder.
16:15 Speaker 01 Conduct disorder?
16:16 Speaker 02 Conduct disorder is a type of childhood social disorder that parallels characteristics of antisocial personality disorder. Those suffering from conduct disorder often display impulsive or aggressive behavior, callous or deceitful desire, or even engage in petty crime.
16:33 Speaker 01 Well, Jane did steal from the school and her classmates.
16:36 Speaker 02 Yes.
16:37 Speaker 01 But what causes such a disorder to develop in children?
16:40 Speaker 02 Like many mental disorders, it can be a number of factors. From genetic history, neuropsychological deficits, academic and social problems, or even increased family dysfunction.
16:52 Speaker 01 Like having a drunk father who gave you up for adoption only to be taken in by a bigoted and abusive woman who forced you to change everything about yourself?
17:00 Speaker 02 I'm afraid so. Traits associated with conduct disorder can serve as an early warning sign of growing psychopathy if left unchecked and untreated.
17:09 Speaker 01 Sadly, I don't think Jane ever received the help she needed. As Jane grew into her teen years, she continued to lie and steal. Despite becoming fairly popular for her bubbly nature, she became especially gossipy and continued telling outlandish stories. And while they may have seemed cute when she was 10, now she was a teenager. Such childhood fantasies were quite unbecoming of a lady. She tried dating, but found few suitors would court her due to her reputation for lying or her size.
17:39 Speaker 02 Jane had always leaned on the heavy side. Starting at the asylum, she often overate to help deal with her problems. This was also another point of attack for Anne, who tormented the child about her weight, saying she was too fat. This only made her eat more, which only led to more problems.
17:56 Speaker 01 Of course Jane's foster sister Elizabeth always had plenty of suitors. This further drove Jane to resentment. It was around this time that Elizabeth fell in love with a local deacon at her church, Ormel Brigham. The two became engaged soon after.
18:11 Speaker 02 This again didn't sit well with Jane. She too wanted to be married and have children, yet she found no suitors interested. Her self-image grew darker, and she found herself doubting that she'd ever be married.
18:24 Speaker 01 By 1872, both girls graduated high school. Their service with the Lowell family was done. Mrs. Toppan paid both girls of their stipend and released them of their service. However, Mrs. Toppan died shortly soon after, and left everything to Elizabeth and her new husband.
18:41 Speaker 02 Since Jane had nowhere to go, Elizabeth hired Jane as her housekeeper for the time being. An act of kindness perhaps, but for Jane, it was salt on an open wound. It had been bad enough that Elizabeth was Mrs. Toppan's favorite, but now she had everything Jane ever wanted, plus Jane had to work for her.
19:00 Speaker 01 But perhaps there was a silver lining. By the 1880s, Jane claimed she found a suitor in a Lowell office worker. The two got engaged and even got as far as a wedding. Yet the office worker left her at the altar and skipped town, where he supposedly married another woman. This act supposedly became the reason as to why Jane started killing, saying, quote, "If I had been married, I probably would not have killed all those people. I would have had my husband, my children, and my home to take up my mind," end quote. What do you think? Do you believe her?
19:31 Speaker 02 Well, not really. We know she has a history of lying. This could have been a smokescreen to cover up why she really killed people, her zest for carnal satisfaction and control.
19:42 Speaker 01 After allegedly being left at the altar, Jane contemplated suicide several times before eventually giving up. It was also around this time she became obsessed with how dreams could predict the future and began to read smut novels with fervent determination. Then, around 1885, the 31-year-old Jane decided to leave Elizabeth and become a nurse. She reasoned that no one would ever love her, and she had no alternative. Elizabeth assured her she'd always be welcome in her home.
20:09 Speaker 02 Little did Elizabeth know that Jane was about to embark on a dark journey, one where she'd finally find control and satisfaction in life through death.
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21:24 Speaker 02 Following an emotionally traumatic upbringing and adolescence, Jane Toppan resigned herself to nursing school. It was here she realized her twisted and macabre desires.
21:35 Speaker 01 The year was 1887. The 33-year-old Jane Toppan traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to enroll in Boston's Cambridge Hospital. Jane immediately began her training. Once again, she became a figure of controversy. She became a bit of a kiss-up to her professors and supervisors. She was also beloved by many of her patients, who affectionately nicknamed her "Jolly Jane", on account of her stocky build and seemingly sunny disposition.
21:59 Speaker 02 Still, Jane used many of her old tricks from childhood. She lied frequently and gossiped nonstop, and tattled on nurses who broke the rules while blaming others for her own foibles. She also continued to steal. Yet it was also during this time that something else awoke in Jane.
22:17 Speaker 01 One day Jane and her fellow nurses were called in to take notes on the autopsy process. As the doctor proceeded to cut open the cadaver and reveal its contents to the room, something in Jane began to stir. Many were repulsed. Yet Jane became fascinated. The processes of death, how the body seemed to freeze in place, then slowly decay. Jane wanted to... no, needed to learn more. Every time there was an autopsy, Jane was there, taking notes vigorously, asking questions, learning anything and everything she could. Her supervisors were concerned at first. Why this relentlessly inquisitive, fervent attitude? Especially towards such an unsavory part of the job.
22:59 Speaker 01 Over time, though, they simply wrote it off as just a quirk.
23:03 Speaker 02 This more than likely was the beginning of Jane Toppan's obsession with death and the development of her erotophonophilia, her sexual arousal by death.
23:12 Speaker 01 Why do you think she developed erotophonophilia?
23:14 Speaker 02 I think part of it was a control fantasy, a power struggle, if you will. Most of her life, she'd had no power, no control. She was judged and reduced because of her status, her heritage, her religion, even her appearance. But with death, the ridicule ceased. The cruel gestures halted. And that power, the power to control whether a person existed or not, it must have come off as intoxicating to Jane. She lusted for power and control.
23:43 Speaker 01 Shortly after discovering her own twisted sense of self and sexuality, Jane began to experiment. Jane was very popular among her patients. Some even wished to stay longer, just to be taken care of by her. Little did they know that Jane had other plans for them. Jane became so infatuated with some of her patients that she would falsify their charts, writing incorrect or false information, changing release dates, whatever she could to get people to stay. Of course, there was another ulterior motive behind this.
24:14 Speaker 02 Jane also used her favorite patients as test subjects. Men, women, elderly, the infirmed, it didn't matter so long as Jane liked you. She injected or gave them varying amounts of medicine to test their effects. For the next four years, this became her new obsession. Sometimes she gave them a little extra bit of morphine, other times a dash of strychnine. Her drug of choice was atropine.
24:40 Speaker 01 Atropine is a chemical used in pesticides and nerve agents. Medically, small doses can help speed up a slow heart and accelerate saliva production. It also inhibits the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls hunger, arousal, urination, digestion, defecation, and more. But in high enough doses, it is highly poisonous, blurring vision, causing loss of balance, photophobia or discomfort in bright lights, hallucinations, excitement, and of course, death.
25:10 Speaker 02 Jane would induce a coma with morphine, then wake her victim up with atropine, only to put them back down with morphine. It was a cycle of torture. According to Jane, she did this to some dozen or more patients. Adding to the depravity, she also got into her victims' literal deathbeds. Jane climbed in next to her victims and snuggled with them as they died, often fondling them. It's unclear about how far she took her deviant behavior, but she chose to spend the last moments of the victims' life holding them intimately.
25:42 Speaker 01 That's rather macabre.
25:43 Speaker 02 Yes, indeed. However, in some instances, people managed to get away, like 30-year-old Amelia Finney.
25:50 Speaker 01 Ms. Finney had just gotten out of surgery when Jane entered her room. She gave Amelia a bitter tasting concoction. Jane said it was to help with any after effects from the surgery. Ms. Finney then began to slip into unconsciousness. As she did, Jane climbed on top of her in bed. She kissed Ms. Finney all over her face and head. Luckily, an orderly came in and Jane ran away. Ms. Finney was released from the hospital the next day, unsure if what happened was a dream or not. She was lucky she survived.
26:20 Speaker 02 No kidding. Here we see a merging of two ideas. One, we see her picking her victims based on how much she liked them. And two, her reasons for killing are necessitated out of sexual drive and lust for control. This fits both profiles of female and male serial killers. Clearly, she sought sexual gratification and control like a typical male serial killer, yet she went about it in a precise and thoughtful manner, choosing to go after patients she was most comfortable and familiar with. This fits with the typical female serial killer. Again, this is what makes Jane Toppan such a fascinating case study.
26:56 Speaker 01 Despite her murderous addiction, Jane wasn't caught by the staff or her superiors over the course of her four years there. In fact, in a matter of cruel irony, Jane was often praised by her superiors for taking care of the patients who made it and those that seemed to die under her care. Her superiors recommended she receive more advanced training at the highly respected Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. This was the largest teaching medical facility in Massachusetts and also one of the first places to use ether as an anesthetic.
27:27 Speaker 02 For Jane, this must have been a major confidence booster. Not only was she getting away with murder, she seemed to be getting promoted for it.
27:35 Speaker 01 Jane accepted the offer graciously, and in late 1889, 36-year-old Jane headed off to Boston. There, she continued to experiment and kill helpless patients, again, targeting patients who trusted her and that she liked the most. It's unclear how many died under her care at Massachusetts General. Jane also continued lying, spreading gossip and stealing things.
27:58 Speaker 02 By the summer of 1890, Jane was quite the rising star. She was even put in charge of the nursing staff when the head nurse had to leave the campus. Yet Jane broke one cardinal rule: Never leave the premises without permission. This is to ensure if there's an emergency, all staff are present to help. Feeling a bit too cocky, she left the grounds one day, suspecting no one would find out.
28:22 Speaker 01 But Jane had made her fair share of enemies among the staff for her abrasive personality and pathological lying. She was quickly ratted on. Upon her return, Jane was dismissed from the hospital. It was quite a blow as Jane had passed her final and was just about to graduate. She even had her diploma signed.
28:41 Speaker 02 Jane was furious, but this didn't stop her. By the fall of 1890, Jane returned to Cambridge Hospital. She somehow managed to convince them to allow her to take the test to get her nursing license, despite what happened at Massachusetts General, and passed. She stayed at Cambridge to work as a nurse, but that didn't last long.
29:00 Speaker 01 Many of the nursing staff knew about Jane and her habits of gossiping and stealing from her previous stay. By early 1891, she was dismissed from the hospital, on the grounds of administering opiates recklessly.
29:12 Speaker 02 Opiates are usually pharmaceutical drugs derived from opium, typically used in numbing pain or putting patients under. No doubt she was experimenting with opiates to study their effects on her victims.
29:23 Speaker 01 Again, this didn't deter Jane. By the summer of 1891, Jane decided to become a private nurse. Much like traveling doctors of the time, a private nurse was essentially a freelance caregiver and physician, providing some aid and support to private homes and even hospitals if needed. Her superiors once again gave her glowing recommendations, despite her opiate scandal.
29:46 Speaker 02 Thanks to her supervisor's recommendations, she quickly became one of the most successful private nurses in Massachusetts. At 38 years old, she made $25 a week, in a time where the average wage for a working woman was $5 a week. Yet Jane continued to steal and tell intricate lies and stories regarding her past. While many of her employers were annoyed by this, they simply wrote it off as "part of her poor Irish upbringing." Funny how their prejudice seemed to blind them to what was in front of them: a cruel killer.
30:18 Speaker 01 With her success, Jane spent her free time guzzling beer, making new friends and then turning those friends against each other.
30:25 Speaker 02 Here we see more of Jane's desire to control and manipulate people. To her, it was all a big game. This callous dismissal of others' feelings and wants is typical sociopathic and even psychotic behavior. Yet with this ability to manipulate and control people came a power trip, one that emboldened her. She finally had control of her life and the lives of others. Yet she still had to satisfy her lustful cravings, and that meant finding more victims.
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31:59 Speaker 01 About three years had passed since Jane Toppin had taken life. She was enjoying much success as a private nurse for hire. Yet she found that there was an itch she couldn't quite scratch: her sexual desire to hold people as they die. Then in May of 1895, she decided to poison her landlord, Israel Dunham. Jane later claimed she killed him because he was growing old and fussy.
32:22 Speaker 02 Like her previous hospital victims, Jane slowly poisoned him over time, spiking his tea. Once he became ill, she took care of him, again using atropine and morphine to have him slip in and out of a comatose state, before fatally poisoning him. Israel died on May 26, 1895.
32:42 Speaker 01 Israel's wife, Lovely Dunham, was devastated. Yet Jane made sure she was there to comfort her and keep her in good company. The two grew close over the next couple of years. But then, in 1897, Jane decided Lovely had outlived her usefulness and poisoned her as well. Lovely died in September of 1897. Perhaps one of Jane's biggest murders came another two years later, when she finally murdered her foster sister, Elizabeth Brigham.
33:11 Speaker 02 Jane had been visiting her sister off and on over the years. Elizabeth and her husband, Oramel, were happy to host her. But Jane had always hated Elizabeth for the love Elizabeth had received as a child, for what seemed like the fairy tale story Jane never got. Jane decided that Elizabeth's story wouldn't have a happy ending.
33:30 Speaker 01 In August of 1899, Elizabeth was vacationing in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, when she complained to her sister that she'd been experiencing depression and wasn't quite sure how to deal with it. Jane suggested the two meet at Jane's new vacation home in Cape Cod. The foster sisters met there and spent a few days catching up. One day, Jane took her foster sister on a picnic. She fed Elizabeth corned beef, taffy, and mineral water, laced with strychnine.
33:58 Speaker 02 Strychnine is highly toxic and is used in pesticides to kill small birds and rodents. It can cause muscular convulsion and even asphyxia. Oddly enough, it was also used around this time in small doses as a performance enhancer for athletes and men.
34:13 Speaker 01 Elizabeth became incredibly sick. Of course, her dear sister Jane took care of her. Over several days, Jane used morphine and atropine to slowly poison her. Finally, on August 29, 1899, Elizabeth Brigham died.
34:29 Speaker 02 This marked the first and only time Jane killed out of hate or revenge. Jane hated her sister for all the good fortune she had. Elizabeth was loved by their cruel foster mother, was popular in school growing up, had many suitors, even a husband by this point. Yet now she could bring her sister's fairy tale story to a grisly conclusion. Jane later described her last moments, saying, quote, "I held her in my arms and watched with delight as she gasped for her life."
34:57 Speaker 01 So how does this fit into your idea of a female versus male serial killer?
35:02 Speaker 02 Good question. This fits into the category of the typical female serial killer. Here, she's killing for revenge, a common motive for many female serial killers.
35:13 Speaker 01 In the fall of 1899, Oramel Brigham buried his wife Elizabeth with help from Jane. Jane told Oramel that her sister's last wish was to let Jane have her gold watch and chain. This was a lie, yet Oramel gave Jane the items anyway. Jane pawned them off the first chance she got.
35:30 Speaker 02 Jane also tried to seduce Oramel, yet he rebuffed her advances. No doubt Jane was trying to steal her sister's lifestyle as well.
35:38 Speaker 01 But why continue to do that? Why the obsession?
35:41 Speaker 02 Jane wanted her sister's life. Though they grew up with the same foster mother, Elizabeth had everything Jane ever wanted, but couldn't quite reach: love, attention, and positive reinforcement. Now that Elizabeth was gone, it was the perfect opportunity to seize her nemesis's life and claim it as her own. This was the life Jane could have had, but was told she wasn't good enough to get. I think more than anything, Jane just wanted to be loved and to belong somewhere, which you can see in the intimate way she killed her victims.
36:11 Speaker 01 After Jane was rejected by Oramel, she didn't kill again until December 29th, 1899. She next killed Mary McClear, aged 70. What's interesting about this case is unlike her previous victims, Jane didn't know McClear very well. She had only recently decided to treat her as a patient and killed her rather quickly, taking no time to get attached. So why the change?
36:33 Speaker 02 It's definitely odd. My guess is that Jane killed McClear on a whim. Perhaps she needed some form of sexual release. We know she curls up next to her victims and fondles them as they die. While this behavior doesn't fit into the female killer profile, it certainly fits with the male, killing someone out of misplaced sexual need.
36:52 Speaker 01 It's interesting. Jane didn't quite strike again until February 11th, 1900, when she killed her friend Myra Connors. Connors worked at the Theological School in Cambridge as a dining matron, a lucrative position that came with its own apartment. Connors fell ill and asked her friend Jane to take care of her. Jane was more than happy to oblige. Of course, Jane killed her. Afterwards, Jane told Connors' boss, the dean at the theological school, that Connors had been training her to take up her new position. The dean accepted Jane as the new mess hall matron. After all, why would Jane lie?
37:28 Speaker 02 And here we see Jane killing for a better position in life, a new job and apartment. Jumping back into the modus operandi of the typical female serial killer, not to mention killing someone she was close to. Plus, working in a mess hall, that would be the perfect stomping ground to find new victims.
37:47 Speaker 01 However, by November of 1900, Jane was dismissed from her new position. She received numerous complaints from staff members about her incompetence. Plus, it was discovered that she was stealing money from the school. Thankfully, she wasn't given a chance to kill anyone while she was there. After this, Jane had trouble finding work for a time and needed a new place to live as well. She lost the apartment shortly after being fired. By early 1901, she found residence with Melvin and Eliza Beadle. She convinced them to let her live with them after she nursed them back to health from having gastrointestinal problems.
38:21 Speaker 02 These intestinal problems were because Jane had poisoned them. Jane also took up the job as the Beatles' new housekeeper. The old keeper, Mary Sullivan, had been fired for drinking on the job. Again, Jane was the person behind this newly open position. Jane drugged Mary, giving her the appearance of being drunk on the job, possibly using people's prejudice of the Irish to her advantage. What I find interesting about this whole situation is that Jane didn't kill Mary Sullivan or the Beatles. She had plenty of opportunities to.
38:53 Speaker 01 Once Jane had made enough money working at the Beatles, she moved out and rented a small cottage from Alden and Mattie Davis in Katomet, Massachusetts. She received a discount for being a nurse. After Jane had stayed there for some time, the Davis family became frustrated. Jane still hadn't paid her rent. Fed up with this, Mattie went to visit Jane to retrieve the money. Jane said she would pay and offered Mattie some tea.
39:16 Speaker 02 Oh, no.
39:17 Speaker 01 The tea was laced with morphine. For seven days, Mattie was helpless as Jane poisoned her. She wrote to Alden, saying his wife was ill, but she'd take care of her. Jane toyed with her, bringing her in and out of lucidity, taunting her before letting her slip back into a coma. Finally, Mattie died on July 5th, 1901.
39:39 Speaker 01 A funeral was held, and Jane attended. She offered her sincerest apologies for not being able to save Mattie. Mattie's husband Alden was incredibly grief-stricken, and Jane offered to stay and tend to the poor man until he got better. Little did they know that Jane had decided not only to kill Alden, but the rest of the Davis family too.
39:59 Speaker 02 Jane immediately moved in with the Davis family, but unlike her previous methods of murder, Jane tried something new. Jane tried several times to burn the house down, setting three small fires on separate occasions. Each time, however, the fire was quickly put out by members of the family. No one seemed the wiser either. Frustrated, Jane decided to go back to her old way: poison.
40:22 Speaker 01 First, she poisoned Alden's youngest daughter, Genevieve Gordon. Genevieve had come to stay with her father as they grieved. She died July 26, 1901. Jane passed this off as a suicide to Genevieve's family, saying Genevieve had used her medical supplies to poison herself. Two weeks later, she killed Alden Davis on August 8th. And four days after that, she killed the last Davis child, Minnie Gibbs. She killed Minnie using morphine tablets in her drink. What's particularly dark about this death was that as Minnie was dying, Jane not only cuddled with Minnie, but forced her 10-year-old son to cuddle with his dying mother as well. Why make her son do that?
41:03 Speaker 02 I personally think that was for a bit of revenge. Jane had come to Minnie earlier, asking that any and all debt to the family be cleared. The debt being the money she owed for renting the cottage, the same debt that led Jane to kill Minnie's mother, Mattie. Minnie refused to forgive the debt, so as one final bit of payback, Jane had Minnie's son watch her die. With no one else left in the family, it fell upon Minnie's father-in-law, Paul Gibbs, to oversee the funeral arrangements. He immediately dismissed Jane, who was already trying to seduce Minnie's widower. Paul knew something was up, however. Jane didn't know it, but Paul Gibbs would ultimately bring about her demise.
41:45 Speaker 01 Shortly after killing the Davis family, Jane returned to her hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. She had hopes of once again trying to seduce Oramel Brigham, her late sister's husband. Still obsessed with getting Elizabeth's life?
41:58 Speaker 02 Looks that way. It seemed even in death, Elizabeth was still tormenting Jane. I think Jane couldn't understand why, if Elizabeth could have a happy life, she couldn't. That's why she was so fixated on her. She wanted all the positive things Elizabeth had. If she became Elizabeth, then maybe she'd finally be happy.
42:17 Speaker 01 I guess that childhood identity crisis never really left her.
42:20 Speaker 02 In a way, yes. She was very unhappy with who she was. And to her, taking over her sister's life was the only escape from it. So Jane moved in with Oramel and his sister, Edna Bannister.
42:32 Speaker 01 Edna was the housekeeper, and in Jane's eyes, her rival for affection. She quickly poisoned her, killing her on August 26, 1901. From there, she started to poison Oramel, though her intentions weren't to kill. She only wanted him sick so she could nurse him back to health, thereby winning his affection. This didn't work. Oramel recovered and rejected her advances. Enraged, she threatened to spread rumors that she was pregnant with this child. Oramel didn't take kindly to the threat and decided to throw her out. Horrified at the prospect of being homeless again, Jane attempted suicide by overdosing on morphine. She lived, however, and after Jane was nursed back to health, Oramel kicked her out of the house.
43:15 Speaker 02 Ironic, really. Jane spent so much time killing people, and when it came time to take her own life, she botched it. But this again goes to show you her fusion of female and male serial killer traits. She's killing for both lust and a better position of power, for material and sexual desires.
43:33 Speaker 01 Meanwhile, Paul Gibbs, father-in-law to Minnie Gibbs, ordered an autopsy and toxicity test of his dead relatives, Maddie, Alden, Genevieve, and Minnie. For the entire family to die so close to each other, and over the span of about a month, well, something was wrong.
43:50 Speaker 02 Paul hired famous toxicologist Leonard Wood to investigate if his family was poisoned. The results came back positive for poison, though they weren't sure what kind.
44:00 Speaker 01 At first, they thought it was arsenic poisoning, but later deemed it to be poisoning from atropine and morphine, drugs typically used in medical practices. Gibbs did some more digging and found that through the family's entire demise, Jane was there. Gibbs was convinced. He notified the police, who assigned Detective John S. Patterson, to track down Jane.
44:20 Speaker 02 Jane had moved in with her old friend, Sarah Nichols, but her stay didn't last long as Detective Patterson tracked her down. Jane Toppan was arrested for the murder of the Davis family on October 29, 1901. She was taken to Barnstable Jailhouse, where she awaited trial. She was 47 years old.
44:40 Speaker 01 Two days later, Jane was arraigned in county court. Her defense lawyers wanted to use the insanity plea. Jane thought this was a good idea, as she thought she'd avoid jail time, admitting she was crazy. She pleaded guilty on the grounds of insanity. Jane was then interviewed by Dr. Henry Stedman, a renowned Boston psychiatrist, to see if her claims of insanity were credible.
45:01 Speaker 02 Jane admitted to killing at least 33 people, but suspected she had killed more from her days of experimenting. She also admitted that she killed for the sexual thrill it gave her. However, she embellished much of what she told, and Dr. Stedman wasn't sure how much of it was true or not. What he did know, however, was that this woman was ill.
45:22 Speaker 01 From November 8th to March 31, 1901, prosecutors struggled to gather the truth from the lies Jane told. Her stories constantly changed, but what little consistencies they found, they used, such as how she lived with the Davis family and killed on sexual impulse. She further admitted she felt exquisite pleasure when killing her patients, and lacked any remorse in doing so. Though at times, she tried to backtrack on her motives by saying she was a jilted lover, recalling the time she was left at the altar.
45:52 Speaker 02 By June 23rd, the trial of Jane Toppan came to an end. After eight hours of laying out evidence, the jurors reviewed Toppan's case for 20 minutes. They found her not guilty by reason of insanity. Jane was overcome with joy. She thought she'd fooled everyone by saying she was crazy. She figured she'd hang out in an asylum for a few months, then be released. This wasn't the case.
46:16 Speaker 01 While she may have avoided the hangman's noose, Jane was shipped off to Taunton Insane Hospital, where she remained imprisoned for the rest of her life. Time in the hospital proved hard for Jane. She grew increasingly paranoid, fearing someone would try and poison her as an act of revenge. She continually asked for drugs with the hope of poisoning herself and others. Many suspected Jane would waste away sooner than later.
46:41 Speaker 02 Newspapers went wild with the story of the nurse-turned-murderer. Many were confused as to why a woman as normal and seemingly caring as Jane showed no signs of being crazy. What drove her to commit such horrendous crimes? The paper cited Dr. Stedman, who evaluated Jane before her trial. He said that Jane suffered from moral insanity, that her motives were of sudden and cruel nature, seemingly unmotivated by any one thing, essentially an early diagnosis of sociopathy.
47:11 Speaker 01 Yet as the years went on, Jane slowly calmed down, until she became a quiet old lady. She was never offered probation or any kind of consideration for release. She finally died of old age at 84 years old on August 17th, 1938. So what do you think, Vanessa? Did Jane Toppan ever find any peace? Did she ever find that positive identity she yearned for?
47:34 Speaker 02 I don't think so, Greg. I think despite her own twisted efforts, she never quite found that positivity she wanted. Jane Toppan is a bit of a tragic figure. Tormented by poor self-esteem and bigotry, she never quite knew the feeling of love. Ironic, considering she was a nurse, someone who was supposed to spread love and hope to the poor, the injured, the helpless. Instead, she turned her pain outward. She grew to feel pleasure at watching others die, holding, caressing, and even groping them in their final moments. As it is with many killers, it was about power, control, and maybe even a bit of revenge. Revenge for a life she never quite got a fair shot at.
48:17 Speaker 01 So, in the end, her identity was that of a lust murderess. To this day, Jolly Jane is recognized as one of America's most prolific female serial killers. She was a stalker who struck in secret and reveled in her victims' untimely demise, feeling their last breaths and heartbeats close against her own body. A unique specimen who both fit and defied the stereotype for a female serial killer.
48:49 Speaker 02 Thanks again for joining us. Join us next time as we investigate yet another notorious serial killer.
48:55 Speaker 01 Don't forget to subscribe to Serial Killers on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, or any other podcast directory, or through our website, parcast.com. That's P-A-R-C-A-S-T dot com. A new episode of Serial Killers comes out every Monday. Please let us know what you think and join the conversation on our ParCast Facebook page. You can tweet us at ParCastNetwork. That's P-A-R-C-A-S-T Network.
49:20 Speaker 02 As always, we thank you for listening.
49:22 Speaker 01 Have a killer week.
49:24 Speaker 02 Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler, is a production of Cutler Media, and is part of the ParCast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Ron Shapiro, with production assistance by Joel Stein and Carrie Murphy. Additional production assistance by Carly Madden and Maggie Admire. Serial Killers is written by Michael Pendis and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson.
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