In what should have been a routine hospital stay, 21-year-old Michael T. Strenko, a male from Manville, New Jersey, lost his life on May 15, 2003, at the Somerset Medical Center in Somerville. Strenko, a former high school soccer and track athlete who worked in packaging for Fisher Scientific, was in the hospital for what his parents described as a routine surgery to have his spleen removed. He was a young man proud of his physique and his powerful car stereo.
Following the procedure, Strenko never regained consciousness. His family was present at the hospital and recalls a disturbing encounter with a nurse, Charles Cullen. Cullen approached them in the waiting room, unnervingly detailing the medications being administered and bluntly stating that Michael was gravely ill and that people in his condition often did not survive. The interaction was so unsettling that Strenko's mother asked Cullen to leave. Their instincts that something was terribly wrong were later tragically confirmed.
The devastating truth emerged that Michael Strenko had been murdered by Cullen, a nurse who would come to be known as the 'Angel of Death'. Cullen had administered a lethal overdose of the heart medication digoxin. Strenko was the youngest of the numerous patients Cullen confessed to killing over a 16-year period across various hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. While Cullen claimed his actions were mercy killings to end patients' suffering, many of his victims, including Strenko, were recovering and not considered terminally ill.
Charles Cullen was arrested in 2003 and ultimately pleaded guilty to the murder of Michael T. Strenko, along with 28 other murders and six attempted murders. His confession brought a horrific clarity to the Strenko family's loss and reignited their grief. Cullen was sentenced to life in prison. In the aftermath, the families of Cullen's victims, including the Strenkos, reached a confidential settlement with the hospitals where he had been employed, bringing some sense of closure to the long legal ordeal.
