Dorthea K. Hoagland was an 80-year-old woman and a homemaker from Middlesex, New Jersey. In the spring of 2003, she found herself a patient at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville. Her life came to an unexpected and tragic end on April 6, 2003, not from a natural illness, but at the hands of someone entrusted with her care.
Her death was not an isolated incident but part of a larger, more sinister pattern of events that had been unfolding within the walls of various medical facilities. The person responsible for her death was Charles Cullen, a registered nurse who worked at the hospital. Cullen, who would later be identified as one of the most prolific serial killers in New Jersey's history, had a dark history of murdering patients under his care.
An investigation into a series of suspicious patient deaths at Somerset Medical Center eventually led authorities to Charles Cullen.
He was arrested in December 2003, and during questioning, he began to confess to the numerous murders he had committed throughout his sixteen-year nursing career across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He admitted to ending the lives of his patients by administering lethal doses of medications. Cullen claimed his actions were mercy killings to end the suffering of very sick patients. In the case of Dorthea K. Hoagland and many others, he used his position of trust to carry out these fatal acts. Cullen ultimately pleaded guilty to numerous murders, including that of Dorthea, and was sentenced to multiple life terms in prison.
