Murder With Friends: Angels of Death

In Membership, Murder With Friends - On Demand by Gigi Manukyan27 Comments

Grace Baldridge is joined by MWF co-creator, Amir Nikoui, to talk about “Angels of Death”– a rare type of serial killer who is usually employed as a caregiver and intentionally harms or kills people under their care. They focus on three “angels of death” from different periods in history: Charles Cullen, Miyuki Ishikawa, & Jane Toppan.

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  1. First off, as someone whose chronically ill due to genetic issues, the Angels of Death stories that come out straight up scare the hell out of me; while I’ve only been hospitalised more than overnight a handful of times, I’ve still ended up in the hospital even briefly so often that I’d likely be considered prime prey for someone like Cullen, et al.

    Secondly, I think the theory presented here about the mass graves Ishikawa used is likely pretty close to the truth. The mass graves I’ve studied closely (some of them anyway) are from WW2, and the methodology is definitely not to keep reopening a single grave site one death at a time, or even just a couple. Whereas the WW2 mass graves (and those of more ancient civilisations) tended to be huge open pits that just sort of acted as the collector of bodies before being covered up, Ishikawa wouldn’t have had that luxury, so one of maybe three things things happened there:

    1. Grace’s theory about just burying the babies alive (which is a *horrible* way to die, period).
    OR
    2. Somehow, Ishikawa and her accomplices managed to euthanize the children en mass before taking them to where they’d be buried.
    OR
    3. They somehow were able to just sort of collect the bodies of the dead children up in another location before transporting them to where they were buried. It’s unclear whether the morgue was helping her, so this is probably the least likely thing, in my mind.

    There was an Angel of Death case in the past year or two, in I think Germany. They’re sadly still happening, frequently, despite the massive reforms hospitals have taken to try and prevent them.

  2. ok I am FREAKING out……… Cullen killed in my hometown … I was 18 in 97 and worked for hospital day care in Morristown…..

  3. Hey guys!

    Great episode. Miyuki Ishikawa reminds me of the Victorian Baby Farmers in a way. You guys should look into Amelia Dyer – her kill count is put at 400+ babies. She was a Victorian Serial Killer that was active for about 20 years or so in England. She was a trained nurse who escalated from letting children die of neglect to straight up killing them herself. All for money. Its a really twisted story that serves as a frame for discussing the era, society, and female killers.

  4. I think both Charles Cullen and Jane Toppan would be good subjects for horror films. Miyuki Ishikawa less so just because it seemed for her it was more a business transaction. She probably just wanted to make some easy money.

    I read The Good Nurse and Charles Cullen had a friend who helped bring him in to the police. That was an interesting aspect of his story. Also, just got to bring up that heath care in this country is for-profit so Charles Cullen probably got away with shuffling around so much because they didn’t want to deal with him and possibly face a wrongful termination suit thus losing out on $$$, not caring so much that he might be harming his patients.

  5. So glad there’s a season two. Angel of Death is a perfect topic and I learned so much.

    Happy New Year. So hopeful that 2018 will bring an end to “Trump-ian policies and to Trump’s presidency.

    1. Hi Kantner , I am not commenting on your post, but for some reason I cannot leave a comment outright, thus I am piggybacking, my apologies.

      I feel that in the case of Miyuki Ishikawa, we have to remember that at that time in Japan, the entirety of Japan had been bombed into the ground. It had ceased to exist as an independent nation, all trade ties bar subsistence had been struck from the norm. People were starving in the street and in some cases were rotting from the inside out due to radiation poisoning. The children killed, though a disgusting act by modern convention may well have died later through the sheer desperation of the time. Now while this does not excuse the crime, it does lend credence to why it was treated by the Japanese courts as a lesser offence. I do not wish here to start trouble, but I think in this respect historical context needs to be given. In a country that can not feed its prevailing population any new born’s are unfortunately going to be ill considered. This speaks more for circumstance and heritage then for the crimes of the communally supported protagonist.

      1. Again Kantner, I am sorry for having to piggyback off of your prior comment, I wish you a happy new year and hope that you and yours are having a prosperous 2018. I cant apologize enough for not being able to comment initially under my own name outright,

  7. That’s kinda harsh to say that if ur suicidal as a child ur fucked up. I feel embarrassed to admit this now after what I said but I was a suicidal child. But I was forced to think of death. I was being raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and they believe that Armageddon is going to come any day, any minute even and they look forward to it. But as a child I wasn’t baptised so if Armageddon was to come I would’ve been killed and as I would’ve died during Armageddon, according to their beliefs I wouldn’t have been resurrected. I was so scared of Armageddon coming and also ashamed to be scared because ur sposed to be excited for it to come, that I thought many times about killing myself before Armageddon came Cus at least then I would be ressurected after Armageddon to get my second chance as many ppl would talk about and tell me how soon it was gonna come that I didn’t believe the world would b here long enough for me to grow up enough to get baptised. It was traumatic for me especially as I found out that god wouldn’t resurrect me if I had been “in the truth” and still killed myself. So sure it fucked me up but not to the point that I have ever had any homicidal thoughts. I jus think that comment wasn’t thought out well by Amir and it touched a nerve Cus I was suicidal up until my teens even after I got out of the doomsday cult that is Jehovah’s Witnesses.

    Moral of the story not all suicidal kids are gonna be murderers or b fucked up in some malevolent way and Jehovah’s Witnesses are terrible ppl

  8. Thanks Amir and Grace! Happy Holidays to you guys too and to your families and friends ❣️

    Regarding Miyuki Ishikawa, if she was apprehended and tried in 1948, that would be under Occupied Japan which had no real authority, the US driven GHQ did. GHQ might have chosen to ignore the case though, given the huge anti-Japanese sentiment at the time. Japan still has some reallt outdated ways regarding women and children though.???

    1. What the hell? Who on Earth says those kind of things about a person you don’t even know? You’re a sad individual.

      1. Oh, I didn’t read further down, to see how your humor was misinterpreted Kaynetime(perhaps PaigeCox23 is an only child). Peace to all:)

    3. I am a nurse and work for the same hospital system that Cullen worked for. It is terrible that he slipped through so many cracks to take others lives. The positive out of it is that there are a lot of regulations now that make it harder to become a nurse and to go from hospital to hospital getting jobs. They need to go further though and reopen psych hospitals and make it possible for families to be able to refer their family members when they see signs of mental illnesses. When Cullen was torturing his dog that was a clear sign of illness.children that have been sexually abuse usually act out by becoming suicidal. There is always a reason for behavior.

  10. Since you did Verdun, I suggest you may also want to do two ancient stories: The battle of Teutoberg Forest in 9 AD and the Anabasis of Xenophon in 370 BC. Both are relatively limited in scope, and so might fit your format. The Teutoberg Forest involves both betrayal and major consequences for history. The Anabasis of Xenophon has the interesting twist of mercenaries winning their battle, but losing their employer and thus having to fight their way out from deep in enemy territory.

    The first is a major betrayal, when a germanic officer of roman auxiliaries lured three legions of the roman army into the forest and totally destroyed them. Roman legions were nearly invicincible when battling in open terraine, winning against superior numbers due to better training and tactics, but they were in line of march on a narrow road through dense forest when ambused by germanic tribes coordinated by Arminis, an officer in the roman army that was ambused. This decisive battle ended Roman attempts to conquer Germany, the Rhine henceforth became the northern boundary of Rome during the Empire. Both Arminis and his brother were fostered in Rome (hostages but treated well to indoctrinate them into the Roman lifestyle.) Both were made Roman officers, but the brother remained loyal to Rome and continued to serve in their army.

    The Anabasis of Xenophon (March of the ten thousand) concerns a group of greek mercenaries who were hired to support the claim of one pretender to the throne of Persia. Somewhere in Mesopotamia, a battle was fought and won, but during the battle, the pretender was killed. Since the whole point of the war was to put the pretender on the throne, the mercenaries were now deep in enemy territory with no local support. The persians invited the greek officers to a parlay to discuss terms for the greeks to leave, but then murdered all of the officers. The persians then expected to kill the rest of the greeks, but these elected new officers and decided to march out of enemy territory on their own. They managed this against considerable odds, though were helped by the poor coordination between different governors of satrapies of the Persian empire so they were never overwhelmed.

    Both have Wikipedia pages.

  11. I would like to see a session on the de-population of native Americans by European diseases. I just finished re-reading “1491” by Charles Mann on pre-columbian indigenous peoples. Very good descriptions for a starting point. Most of this occurred without intent by Europeans due to incidental contact with sick sailors, pigs, and rats in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (though some later intentional infections were done in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). The combination of population losses and demoralization allowed the Pilgrims to occupy deserted villages and the Spaniards to conquer the Inca and Maya. The book “1491” also points out that the pre-Columbian native Americans also managed their environment, so the “wilderness” encountered by the Europeans was actually lands that much more populous natives had managed to favor hunting, gathering of fruit and nuts, and planted agriculture. After the die-off of most tribes and breakdown of their environmental management, some ecological changes resulted, such as the huge numbers of bison and passenger pigeons (see last chapter of book).

    There are probably also additional materials in Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, but I last read that around twenty years ago. I vaguely remember it has a broader thesis, explaining how Europe was able to colonize the rest of the world, not just the Americas. I think this would be of interest in line with your piece on Andersonville, etc. For that matter, the Irish Potato Famine and the Scottish turning out of the crofters to convert the highlands to sheep (has a fancy name, but I forget it), would also be interesting.

    And if you want to go further, how about the Mongol invasions. For that, I strongly recommend a Teaching Company Great Courses set by Kenneth Harl called “The Barbarian Empires of the Steppes”. Dr. Harl is one of my favorite lecturers and did another excellent one on “The Vikings”. These “Great Courses” are DVD’s providing the lectures of a college course (though intended for a home non-credit audience) and Dr. Harl includes excellent graphics, particularly maps, that gives an in depth understanding of the subject. They are provided in 12 to 36 lectures, depending on the course, with the lectures usually 30 minutes, though some courses are 45 minute lectures. If you are just researching a more limited topic, you can just view the lectures you need. You want to purchase these on sale if you can’t find these at a library (don’t know whether licensing allows use by libraries). They go on sale all the time, though you may have to wait up to a year for your particular course to go on sale. Sale prices are 70% off. There is also a subscription option that I think will allow you to view anything on-line. You can look into this on their website, http://www.TheGreatCourses.com.

    1. These all sound great! I actually recently finished Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History episode on the Mongol Invasion – WOW! Super fascinating and brutal. I would highly recommend giving it a listen.

  14. Sorry. Love the show. :) Keep up the great work. Happy Yule. :)

    Also, if you have plans to cover unsolved murders, what about those covered by two filmmakers who published a mini-series called The Killing Season? It starts with four bodies on Long Island, moves to Jersey, then to Florida, goes cross-country with LDSKs (Long-distance serial killers, of whom snipers are also categorized) and ends in New Mexico/Mexico.

  15. Profiler John Douglas said that Jane Toppan was one of the most evil people in history because she took such extreme sexual pleasure in the death throes of her victims. She’d hug them to her and actually orgasm as they died. There are other killers who’ve felt the same thing, but they were male. Jane’s the first woman who was known to kill off the people she was supposed to have cared for and done it for the sole reason of self-gratification.

    Many Angels Of Death kill for the attention (a sub-section are those who kill for the sympathetic attention they get, a la Munchausens-By-Proxy), for mission-oriented reasons(greed, or to get rid of the infirm, old people, sick, or dying), or for hatred (hating people/men/women/children/seniors, etc., who are sick). Jane Toppan killed for gratification. There aren’t many Angels of Death who killed for that sole reason.

  16. Wishing everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

    We’re off most of next week, so decided to drop this episode early for members. As always, thanks for your support!

    -Amir, Grace and the whole MWF team.

  17. I’m so glad you did this one. I requested it on a few videos. It has always been interesting to me. Thanks for the episode!!!!

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