‘The Good Nurse’ True Story | Watch Trailer

After you watch The Good Nurse on Netflix, you may think twice before putting your life in the hands of a hospital, as reported by Decider.

Starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne, The Good Nurse is based on the true story of Charles Cullen, a serial killer who confessed to intentionally killing 40 patients during his 16-year career as a nurse in New Jersey and Pennslyvania. Starting in 1987, Cullen worked at ten different hospitals, before he was finally arrested in 2003. The actual number of Cullen’s victims is believed to be much higher, possibly as many as 400.

The Good Nurse movie—which was directed by Tobias Lindholm, with a screenplay by Krysty Wilson-Cairns—is adapted from the 2013 non-fiction book of the same by Charles Graeber.

According to an interview with NPR, Graeber spent six years investigating the Cullen case and even interviewed Cullen in prison. Graeber chronicled Cullen’s troubled life, crimes, and most crucially, why it took so long for him to be stopped. Graeber concluded that hospital after hospital suspected Cullen was harming patients but failed to take measures beyond firing him, in order to protect the hospital from liability.

What is The Good Nurse True Story?
The pattern began again when Cullen began working at Somerset Medical Center in 2003, which is where The Good Nurse movie picks up the story.

“A number of patients were coding mysteriously,” author Charles Graeber told NPR. “Most were digoxin deaths, digoxin being a heart drug like foxglove; it regulates heart rhythm. Others were insulin deaths. They were on the same ward.” One part of the story that was cut from the movie was the involvement of Dr. Bruce Ruck and Dr. Steven Marcus from New Jersey Poison Control, who pressured Somerset Medical Center not to drag their feet on the investigation.

The Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation, with detectives Tim Braun (played by Noah Emmerich in the movie) and Danny Baldwin (played by Nnamdi Asomugha) taking the lead. Braun and Baldwin were given the run-around from the hospital, and were given a mere 4-page document as the total of the hospital’s internal investigation.

The detectives asked for records from the hospital’s “Pyxis machine”—which would have all the data on the victims who died and the nurses who attended to them—but were told that the records weren’t kept longer than two months. Eventually, the detectives called the company who owned the Pyxis machines and were told that, to the contrary, all the data was stored forever.

Finally obtaining that information is what helped law enforcement finally extract a confession from Cullen, and finally, put him behind bars. His most recent murders were also able to be autopsied, alongside the proof of the computerized data.

But, as Graeber told NPR, “We’ll never know how many people Charlie Cullen ultimately killed. Charlie Cullen doesn’t know how many people he killed. He initially could recall 40, and also said there was a large part of his life that was a fog, during which he would have no ability to recall.”
Where is Charles Cullen From The Good Nurse Now?

Cullen ultimately pled guilty to the murder of 29 people, to avoid a death sentence, and was later convicted of 8 more murders in civil courts. He is serving 18 consecutive life sentences in New Jersey State Prison, where he will not be eligible for parole until 2403. At the age of 62 years old, he will almost certainly die in prison.

Watch the trailer below: