The next serial killer that I will be covering is Jane Toppan.
Jane Toppan was born on March 31, 1854, in Boston Massachusetts. Her name given at birth was Honora Kelley. She was the youngest of four children in an unstable Irish Immigrant family. Her mother died when Honora was only one year old. Her father, Peter Kelley tried to raise the children but he was said to have lost his mind and sewed his eyelids shut. It was also reported that he may have abused the kids. After this, she and her sisters Delia and Nellie were sent to Boston’s Female Asylum. This was an orphanage that put little girl’s into adopted homes by the age of 10. They were raised with over one hundred other children. Delia turned to alcoholism and prostitution and Nellie ended up in an insane asylum. Honora on the other hand became an indentured servant for a widow named Ann Toppan.
At the time, there was a stigma around Irish people, so Ann changed Nora’s name to Jane Toppan and passed her off as a young Italian girl. She went to school and received good grades, but she showed signs of being a sociopath around this time. Jane would make up unbelievable lies about her family. At age 18, the Toppan’s freed her and her service, but she continued to work for the family until Ann passed away in 1876. At age 33, Jane started working in the Cambridge Hospital to train to be a nurse.
While working as a nursing student she adopted the nickname “Jolly Jane” because of her friendly and outgoing personality. She did not particularly like elderly patients. Toppan thought that they were ultimately useless and killed at least 12 people in her time as a student nurse. She would experiment on the elderly patients with morphine and atropine. After being trained, she got a job at the Massachusetts General Hospital but lost it because the doctors figured out that she was giving out opiates to patients. They thought that it was better if she became a private nurse for wealthy families instead.
Many of her patients were happy with the care that she provided them, but there were some reports of small items being stolen. Jane became close with her landlord and his wife, but she ended up poisoning them because they had grown old and cranky. Another elderly woman named Mary Mclear was poisoned by Toppan in 1889. Jane even murdered her former foster sister and their housekeeper. There was no suspicion towards Jane until 1901 when she killed the Davis family. Authorities thought it was weird that three members of this family died around the same time, so they performed an autopsy and gathered evidence that Jane committed these murders.
On October 29, 190, Jane Toppan was arrested. In 1903 she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was admitted to the Taunton Insane Hospital. Toppan confessed to killing over 30 people, but only 11 were actually confirmed. However, with the timeline and the number of patients that Toppan cared for, it is suspected that she committed over 100 murders. Toppan eventually died in the Insane Asylum at age 84 on August 17, 1938.
Sources:
https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/jane-toppan/
https://awnaves.medium.com/jolly-jane-the-story-of-serial-killer-jane-toppan-a582737941c7
https://murderpedia.org/female.T/t/toppan-jane.htm
Photo Sources in Order:
https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/jolly-jane-toppan-killer-nurse-obsessed-death/
https://www.ranker.com/list/disturbing-facts-about-jane-toppan/amandasedlakhevener
http://www.hubhistory.com/episodes/episode-7-jane-toppan-nightmare-nurse/
https://wbsm.com/taunton-state-jolly-jane-female-serial-killer/
Very interesting read! I will say that you could benefit from adding a more attention-grabbing introduction but once I got into it a bit it was impossible to put down. This is a really creative topic and I look forward to seeing your future entries.
I have to say, I think that you balance a formal informative style with a narrative style real well. It was quite easy to follow along. I’d also suggest an intro that is less encyclopedic in nature, since I feel its a bit jarring, but the content there is super helpful, and I think helps setup information that comes later on.
I noticed that your narrative sometimes jumps around from basic informative information to dropping large bombshells (like switching from talking about her father trying to raise her straight to him sewing his eyes shut in a single sentence)- it’s a little jarring and abrupt. Either way, this was such a fascinating read! You talked about Toppan being prone to telling lies in her childhood- I wonder which parts of the public story about her history have merit and which ones she may have made up at any point in time.