Jane ToppanThe Motive: For the Sexual ThrillJane Toppan was a well-respected nurse—one of the best,

according to the doctors who hired her. But unlike most nurses who to pledge to help others, Toppan
aspired to “kill more helpless people than any other man or woman who ever lived.” Toppan’s outgoing
personality initially earned her the title of “Jolly Jane” among her nursing classmates. Hospital
administrators had noticed that talented nursing student was obsessed with autopsies. But what they
didn’t notice was that she experimented with drugs on her elderly patients. Toppan completed her
studies but lost her first hospital job because she was reckless with opiate prescriptions. Nevertheless,
doctors recommended the skilled caregiver as a private nurse to their wealthy clients. One by one, she
began murdering her clients. She administered drugs to her patients and then held them close.She
fondled her victims as they died and watched “with delight as [they] gasped [their] life out.” She was
arrested in 1901 and confessed to killing at least 31 people (but there were perhaps 100 victims in all).
She admitted that she derived a sexual thrill from patients being near death, coming back to life, and
then dying again. After an eight-hour trial and 27-minute jury deliberation, Toppan was found not guilty
by reason of insanity. She spent the rest of her life at a state hospital and died in 1938.[5]