However, unlike the erratic behaviour of Toppan, many Angels of Death hide behind their trusted position of authority to evade suspicion.
Like Jane Toppan, these types of killers use their position and authority as caregivers or medical practitioners to secretly kill patients. The ‘Angel of Death’ is a recurring type of behaviour often found in female serial killers. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was sent to the Taunton Insane Asylum. During her trial in 1902, Toppan admitted to killing 31 people and she claimed to derive a sexual thrill from the act of murder (something quite unusual for a female serial killer as most kill for power or material gain). Poisoning was found to be the cause of death and Toppan was promptly arrested.
The surviving members of the Alden family suspected foul play and ordered a toxicology report on the body of the youngest daughter. She poisoned the father Alden Davis as well as his wife and two of their daughters before moving back to her hometown in Boston. In 1901, Toppan moved in with the Davis family to look after the elderly patriarch of the family. Going on to work as a private nurse, Toppan continued her poisoning spree and is thought to be responsible for the suspicious deaths of several of her landlords. Toppan’s hospital career ended in 1889 when she was fired for frequently prescribing opiates to patients, but she had already managed to claim many victims during this period. While studying at Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts as a trainee nurse in 1885, Toppan began experimenting on patients in her care by injecting them with morphine and atropine to see what effect the drugs would have on their body. One of the most notorious female poisoners was Jane Toppan, a nurse who killed more than 30 people in America between 18. Although statistically poison has proven to be a ‘gender-neutral’ weapon used indiscriminately by male and female murderers, its capacity to kill others while avoiding physical confrontation means it is often associated with the fairer sex (this idea may have been popularised by Shakespeare poison is used in six of his plays but in only one is it wielded by a male character). Poison is often stereotyped as a ‘woman’s weapon’.
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