Charles Cullen has captured the interest of many true-crime fans with the recently released movie The Good Nurse, which can be streamed on Netflix. The film follows the story of the serial killer nurse responsible for an estimated 400 patient deaths. Although Cullen claimed the body count was somewhere around 30-40, only 29 could be confirmed. But due to his method of killing, there may have been even more deaths that Cullen was responsible for and not aware of. The Good Nurse also follows Amy Loughren, who assisted in the investigation that led to Cullen’s arrest.
The documentary Capturing the Killer Nurse was released shortly after the premiere of The Good Nurse. Available to watch on Netflix, this documentary takes a closer look at the real-life investigation into Charles Cullen, with interviews from the detectives who worked on the case and coworkers that Cullen was close to, including the real Amy Loughren. As can be expected, there are some differences between the movie and the documentary, with different emphases. Here we will explore these discrepancies and take a look at the two perspectives of Cullen and compare who he was in real life to how he was portrayed in the drama.
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Reality: The Charles Cullen Story
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Capturing the Killer Nurse took a broader look at the investigation than the drama, which focused more specifically on Amy Loughren’s perspective. The documentary introduced the trail Cullen left behind at the other hospitals he had worked at. Suspicious deaths were swept under the rug to cover the financial interest of the hospitals.
Red flags followed Cullen throughout his career, but rather than report him or perform an internal investigation, the hospitals feared being sued and having their reputations ruined. So instead, they fired him and gave him good or neutral recommendations for his next job. The documentary touched on specific cases that led to investigations that ended up going nowhere due to a lack of evidence.
The documentary also touches briefly on Cullen’s difficult childhood. He particularly struggled after his mother passed away, as he considered her his protector, which seems to be what inspired him to go into healthcare. Oddly enough, his desire to be a protector as a nurse became rather warped and skewed. In the interview room footage included in the documentary, we hear Cullen talk about how he hated to see people in pain, and it may be that part of him believed he was being merciful, but this doesn’t hold up when taking a look at the victims. Several of them were on the road to recovery or in the process of being discharged when he targeted them. Then there’s also the fact that he put insulin into IV bags still in storage. He caused many more deaths that weren’t targeted but random.
The documentary includes information about his prior arrests and his history of animal abuse, including an instance where he poisons a family pet. Cullen also spent some time in psychiatric facilities after a suicide attempt to treat his depression. Capturing the Killer Nurse also emphasizes how Cullen’s coworkers viewed him. Amy and Donna, in particular, were very close to Cullen, and the three of them were dubbed “The Three Musketeers.” They described Cullen as sometimes weird but friendly, caring, and loyal. They said he was a great coworker and friend and a wonderful father to his kids. He even demonstrated this when Amy confided in him about her cardiomyopathy by caring for her and covering for her when she was having a difficult time.
Drama: How Accurate Is The Good Nurse?
When compared to the documentary, The Good Nurse is pretty accurate. However, some creative liberties were taken to include some true details about Cullen and his murders in a manner that didn’t happen in real life. For instance, Amy in the movie is the one that discovers he had been injecting insulin into the IV bags and even goes to the storage room to look through their supply and find ones with holes that would’ve otherwise gone unnoticed.
While it is true that he was doing this, the documentary doesn’t accredit this discovery to Amy, but rather Cullen himself admits to doing so. However, Amy was pivotal in reading the Pyxis logs and deciphering which medications Cullen took and canceled, specifically the drug Digoxin. In the movie, we see her print off the Pyxis chart, but in fact, the detectives contacted the manufacturer and learned the information was stored for longer than 30 days, as the hospital risk manager claimed. They requested the rest of the chart. Amy did, however, print off patient records for the detectives and obtained other critical information in their investigation.
Although we never see Cullen interact with his own kids in the movie, we do see him interact with Amy’s children. This is something that never happened in real life, but we believe this was another creative liberty taken to demonstrate what type of father Cullen might have been, as was claimed by those who were friends with him. Amy’s children never met Cullen, but Amy’s oldest daughter did encourage her mom to help the detectives when her mother explained that she could help stop someone who was hurting people. Her daughter’s moral compass prompted Amy to assist them despite the risk of losing her job and insurance, which she desperately needed due to her health condition.
Overall, between the two films, we get a pretty good sense of what the investigation looked like and the role that Amy Loughren played. Neither analyze Cullen’s past in depth but rather focus on how the hospitals attempted to cover up what Cullen was doing in order to protect themselves. Cullen made his way through 9 hospitals and a nursing home, and while he was under suspicion, he was never stopped. Since then, the Cullen Law has been put in place so that if a hospital employee resigns while under investigation, they must be reported to the medical board.
