The Good Nurse
moderate a word of Charles Cullen ’s real - life crimes , including murder .
Warning : Contains looter forThe Good Nurse . Netflix’sThe Good Nurseis a mostly accurate portrayal of the true narration behind it , with some modest change and fictionalizations of the real events , and here’sThe Good Nursetrue level explained . Netflix ’s true crime drama tells the tarradiddle of Amy Loughren ( Jessica Chastain ) , a undivided mother and nurse who is diagnosed with a warmness condition . Loughren satisfy Charles Cullen ( Eddie Redmayne ) , who she speedily befriends . When the commonwealth police are called to investigate a serial of mysterious deaths at the infirmary , Loughren grows progressively suspicious of Cullen and becomes subservient in work about the sequent killer ’s arrest and eventual confession to the murder of at least 40 people .
tell the storey through Loughren ’s view , The Good Nurse’schief nidus is not on the crimes of the infamous consecutive grampus , but on the crack-up of a friendship and the traumatic wallop of discovering someone closemouthed to you is a insensate - blooded murderer . Unlike other Netflix true offence stories , The Good Nursereveals petty about Cullen ’s life or crimes before he meets Loughren , rather center on his last murders and stay in 2003 . While it only cover a small portion of Cullen ’s story , the film is a strikingly accurate portraiture of the months leading up to his arrest and Loughren ’s crucial role in them . Here’sThe Good Nursetrue story explain .
Is Amy Loughren Real & Were She And Charles Cullen Friends?
InThe Good Nursetrue floor , Amy Loughren is a real person who currently go as a reiki master and hypnotherapist , among many other things . She was indeed a register nurse who worked in an ICU alongside Charles Cullen and did digest from cardiomyopathy , which she kept from her colleagues . As revealed in the film ’s terminate credits , Loughren underwent experimental heart operating theater in 2008 and her health has since meliorate . Loughren , a single female parent of two children , is now a grandmother . She was in reality postulate in filmingThe Good Nursebefore helping with the film ’s promotion , lending to its legitimacy .
Loughren ( one ofJessica Chastain ’s honest movie characters ) and Cullen really were confining friends during their time as colleagues inThe Good Nursetrue story . Cullen worked with Loughren at the infirmary and did indeed help her hide her heart experimental condition from her co-worker . recall her relationship with Cullen , Loughren revealed ( via NJ Advance Media)that“Charlie and I were very harm - draw together in the same way that soldier bond … I had a relationship with him that was very fun , very funny . We would banter , and he was one of the closest people to me . "
The Good Nurseaccurately depicts this kind of workplace camaraderie with the two sharing wanton - hearted conversation about significant sequence in their lives . While their relationship was close inThe Good Nursetrue storey , the celluloid does magnify Cullen ’s relationship with Loughren ’s baby . Her children did fuck about Cullen , but there is no evidence that they ever converge him or that Cullen ever natter Loughren ’s home . address this return in an consultation ( via Digital Spy ) Loughren explained that writer Krysty Wilson - Cairns added this point as a way to " get across how close we were . "
Related : The Good Nurse : What happen To Amy Loughren In Real Life
Charles Cullen’s Life Before Meeting Amy
InThe Good Nursetrue write up , Loughren and Cullen bail bond over their several divorces , and Cullen ’s turbulent human relationship with his x - wife becomes a source of humor for the pair . As in the movie , Cullen was separate from his wife Adrienne Baum for 10 class and was already the father of two daughter when he take on Loughren . Frank Baum filed a restraining order against Cullen in 1993 and claim her ex - hubby ill-use the family dogs and was a peril to her and her children .
This becomes a germ of temper for Cullen inThe Good Nurseas he paint his ex - wife to be deluded and connote she is wrongfully preventing him from come across their children . The Good Nursetrue story , however , leaves out Cullen ’s history of genial illness and assay self-annihilation . Cullen suffered from impression for most of his puerility and grownup life and attempted suicide several times during his service in the U.S. Navy . While not explicitly mentioned in the photographic film , much of Cullen ’s residual trauma is capture in one ofEddie Redmayne ’s effective movie performances , which Loughren herself revealed ( via Sky News)“truly incarnate who my champion Charlie was . "
Are The Victims & Hospital Real?
The Good Nursetrue storydoes not apply the gens or stories of Cullen ’s actual victim . Director Tobias Lindholm and author Krysty Wilson - Cairns chose to rename the victim and subtly change their stories to nullify re - traumatizing those affected by Cullen ’s crimes . As a result , Ana Martinez , whose suspicious end invites investigation by State Department constabulary in the film , is a completely fancied character . In reality , it was the slaying of a local priest named Florian Gall that eventually lead to Cullen ’s arrest and confession .
Unlike othertrue - law-breaking tarradiddle likeMonster : The Jeffrey Dahmer Story , The Good Nursetrue story also changes the name of the infirmary Cullen and Loughren worked at . In the film , Parkfield Memorial Hospital is a fictionalized version of the real Somerset Medical Center , New Jersey , where Loughren and Cullen worked in 2003 . Tim Braun and Danny Baldwin , the two law detectives in the film , are , however , the real names of the detectives who look into Cullen in real living .
Did Cullen Really Use Insulin & Digoxin to Kill His Victims?
In the movie , Cullen murders his victims by injecting insulin and Lanoxin into patient role ' IV bags , non - lethal medications can nonetheless stimulate a fatal overdose , which is exactly how Cullen committed his crimes inThe Good Nursetrue story . As the film register , Cullen attained these chemical substance via a fault in the hospital ’s computerized drug - dispensing system . The computer ’s records showed that Cullen was requesting medicament for patients he was not depute to and that many orders were rapidly set off after petition . In the motion-picture show , Loughren sees Cullen perform this precise trick to sneakily obtain medicinal drug to treat her cardiomyopathy , which is one of the intellect she becomes shady of Cullen .
How Accurate Is Charles Cullen’s Arrest & Confession?
The Good Nursetrue story accurately portrays the real version of Cullen ’s taking into custody and confession . As in the film , after the infirmary failed to cooperate with state police , Amy Loughren approached detective Baldwin and Braun with her distrust palisade Cullen . Somerset infirmary , like the fancied Parkfield Memorial Hospital , also failed to reach out to the police force for several month after the wary decease was first reported . as well , the film shows the police exhuming the body of one of Cullen ’s victims to perform an autopsy , which reassert the presence of Lanoxin and insulin in the patient role ’s blood upon death .
ThisThe Good Nursetrue level event in reality occur in literal life , with leger author Charles Graeber noting ( via USA Today),“I have picture from that time , and it could not look more similar"in the motion picture . In another exact detail , Cullen was actually provoke by the infirmary before his arrest for the ostensible reason of lying on his job app . What ’s more , Loughren really did serve as an undercover informant for the police and was instructed to run across with Cullen after work while wear a wire . The evidence from these conversation put up the police with the probable cause they needed to stop Cullen .
The climactic diner scene inThe Good Nurseis actually based on a two - hour conversation between the two in genuine lifetime . For the screenplay , Graeber allow for Wilson - Cairns with transcripts from this conversation . One detail that the cinema changes about the true story come in the third enactment when Loughren , comforting Cullen and treating him like the friend he once was to her , convert him to confess to his crimes . In reality , Cullen issue ties with Loughren once he discovered her involvement as an hush-hush informant . Cullen actually confessed his crime forthwith to investigator Baldwin and Braun and promised to cooperate with authorities if they did not pursue the death penalisation .
How Many Murders Did Charles Cullen Commit, & Where Is He Now?
Onscreen textual matter at the remainder ofThe Good Nursetrue story country that Cullen " pled guilty to the murder of 29 people . The real number of victims is believe to be as many as 400 . " While Cullen was convicted of 29 murders , he in reality confess to as many as 40 . The film ’s suggestion thatCullen killed 400 potential victims is an precise estimation , as Cullen would later tell regime that he kill some two or three victims a week for a period of metre . As the film states , Cullen is presently assist " 18 successive spirit sentences in New Jersey State Prison and will not be eligible for parole until 2403 . "
The serial killer was initially given 11 life sentences but was given an additional six by jurist William Platt when he repeatedly scream the words"your honor , you demand to step down"during his hearing , and the number has since increase to 18 . Moreover , while the exact number motley , the most frequent estimate place the year of Cullen ’s eligibility for parole at 2388 or 2403 as Tobias Lindholm’sThe Good Nursesuggests . As a whole , therefore , Netflix ’s truthful offense dramaThe Good Nursetrue story remains faithful to the harrowing tale while altering pocket-size point to make its message more touching and its emotional beats more intense .
Like all serial killers , Charles Cullen is a fascinating matter , andThe Good Nursetrue story did its best to keep abreast the plot of Charles Graeber ’s record , The Good Nurse : A True Story of Medicine , Madness and Murder . for gather enough information for his book , the journalist had to sit down with the murderer himself in a number of unrecorded sitting to gather the full chronicle . Graeber was the only diarist that Cullen gibe to talk to while in prison , and one of the first thing that Graeber sharpen out toNewsweekwas that Cullen was anything but a mercy killer .
Rather , after sit in with Cullen , Graeber believes that the murder were self - serve . Graeber say that the mercy pop slant was take as more of a convenience for Cullen himself . In his own brain , Cullen was acutely aware of the fact that the hospitals he was working for were somewhat privy to what he was doing , which is why he was passed around so often , since the facilities did n’t desire to deal with the liability of the situation any longer . In one sense , Graeber believed that Cullen was able-bodied to justify his killings because of the infirmary ’s lip service . However , another harrowing understanding he remark is the following :
Another is that it work out for him , it really meant something unlike to him and depending on the circumstances in his life — whether his marriage was light aside , whether the detainment get wind for his children were buy the farm badly , he had matte up wrong or disesteem in some way in his personal life , or simply was n’t feel the limelight of the macrocosm was enough upon him — This was a elbow room of sort of giving himself a piddling beak me up , and it really was that wide-eyed .
What must always be considered when dealing with sociopaths is that Graeber was rightfully only permit into what Cullen was willing to let him see . In their conversations , Cullen had his own favorite topics , such as his mistreatment in the Navy or being browbeat in the work . However , when it came to discussing the murders directly , Cullen would n’t be quite so outgoing . It ’s a tale as old as time when it comes to speak to serial killers , as few are truly willing to hash out their motivations at length . Either way , The Good Nursetrue tarradiddle stuck as closely as potential to the book and the harrowing true - criminal offence story itself .
