Richard Angelo
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| “ | I wanted to create a situation where I would cause the patient to have some respiratory distress or some problem, and through my intervention or suggested invention or whatever, come out looking like I knew what I was doing. | „ |
| ~ Richard Angelo |
Richard Angelo (born August 29, 1962), better known as the Angel of Death, is an American medical professional turned serial killer. Born in 1962, Angelo was a smart and dilligent student who enrolled in the nursing program at Farmingdale State College. He was a brilliant honor student who had medical finesse. He was a skilled medical professional who had a good moral compass, until he had an insecurity for wanting to "be the hero", leading to him to deliberately intoxicate and hurt patients in order to try to "save them".
His downfall later came in 1987, where he was accused of injecting patient Gerolamo Cucich with Pavulon, a muscle relaxant used in lethal injections. Thankfully, Cucich did survive the injection. But following his arrests, at least 30 patients that recently died in the hospital he was working in were investigated to have traces of the same injection in them.
It was later concluded that Angelo poisoned at least 35 people at the hospital while working there for seven months, ten of which ultimately died. Angelo ultimately confessed that his motive was to deliberately poison and make his patients sick in order to portray himself as a hero, deliberately giving his patients illnesses simply to cope with his insecurities.
He has ultimately been sentenced to 61 years to life in prison.