Episode 560: “Jolly Jane” Toppan: Angel of Mercy (Part 1)

Morbid

Morbid Network | Wondery

True Crime, Comedy, Exhibit C

4.5 • 95.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2024

⏱️ 97 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Jane Toppan began training to be a nurse at Cambridge Hospital in 1885, she was bright, eager, and well-liked by her peers and seemed to form easy bonds with the oldest and most vulnerable patients. What no one knew at the time was, once Jane managed to get time alone with her patients, she began conducting medical experiments by injecting them with various drugs and even going so far as to get into bed with them to hold them close to her as they died from the overdoses she’d administered.

Thank you to the amazing Dave White of Bring me the Axe Podcast for research!

References

Boston Globe. 1902. "Agree that she's insane." Boston Globe, April 6: 1.

—. 1901. "Alden P. Davis' death due to another cause." Boston Globe, November 21: 1.

—. 1901. "Hint to watch Miss Toppan." Boston Globe, October 31: 5.

—. 1901. "Inquiry is under way." Boston Globe, August 31: 1.

—. 1902. "Is Miss Toppan sane." Boston Globe, March 26: 1.

—. 1904. "Jane Toppan an imbecile." Boston Globe, July 10: 6.

—. 1902. "Jane Toppan insane, found not guilty." Boston Globe, June 24: 1.

—. 1938. "Jane Toppan, poisoner of 31, dies in hospital at age pf 81." Boston Globe, August 18: 1.

—. 1901. "Marriage and money." Boston Globe, November 1: 1.

—. 1901. "Murder by poison." Boston Globe, October 31: 1.

—. 1901. "No cause for suspicion." Boston Globe, November 4: 2.

Lowell Historical Society. 2022. Lowell’s ties to “Jolly” Jane, Massachusetts’ Female Serial Killer. October 29. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://www.lowellhistoricalsociety.org/lowells-ties-to-jolly-jane-massachusetts-female-serial-killer/.

New York Times. 1904. "Jane Toppan, an extraordinary case of moral insanity." New York Times, October 23: A2.

—. 1938. "Miss Jane Toppan, 84, Mass poisoner, dies." New York Times, August 18: 15.

Schechter, Harold. 2012. Fatal: The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer. New York, NY: Pocket Books.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wundery Plus subscribers can listen to morbid early and add free.
0:03.2	Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery App or on Apple Podcasts.
0:07.9	You're listening to a morbid network podcast.
0:14.0	Hey, weirdos, I'm Alina.
0:15.0	I'm Ash.
0:17.0	And this is morbid. No. No, it's morbid in the morning.
0:35.0	Again, two in a row.
0:39.0	Look at us.
0:40.0	Two in a riso.
0:42.0	Waking up early, it's that you might hear a little bit of light rain which I know some of you actually
0:47.5	You dig hard prefer even prefer
0:50.4	prefer light maybe a little tippy tappy
0:53.7	pitter pattern because it's rainy here and it's windy but I woke up and it was so
0:58.6	fucking spooky this morning it was it's very spooky today and it's spooky in the pod lab because we have very light lighting and we only have candle light.
1:07.2	Mm-hmm. It's feeling right. Very like low lights. Yeah. Yeah, fuck the big light.
1:13.0	Because fuck the big light. Yeah, we need to get some lamps in here.
1:16.4	Yeah, it'd be gorgeous. It would be gorgeous. It would be gorgeous.
1:20.4	It would be gorgina. It truly would.
1:23.0	Gorgena.
1:24.0	Um, but yeah, I thought I had something else to say, but, but here I am.
1:29.3	You don't have anything?
1:30.3	No, just that you should buy the butcher game, which is coming out September 17th and you can get it at the butcher game.
	...

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