Donald Harvey

For other people with the same name, see Don Harvey.
Donald Harvey

Mug shot of Donald Harvey
Born (1952-04-15) April 15, 1952
Butler County, Ohio, U.S.
Criminal penalty 28 consecutive life sentences plus $270,000 in fines
Killings
Victims 37–57;
87 claimed
Span of killings
 1970–1987
Country USA
State(s) Kentucky, Ohio
Date apprehended
 1987

Donald Harvey (born April 15, 1952) is an American serial killer who claims to have murdered 87 people, though official estimates are that he has from 37 to 57 victims. Harvey claimed he started out killing to "ease the pain" of patients.[1] As time progressed, he began to enjoy it more and more and became a self-described "angel of death". Harvey is currently serving 28 life sentences at the Toledo Correctional Institution in Toledo, Ohio, having pleaded guilty to murder charges to avoid the death penalty. His inmate number is A199449.[2]

History

Dating as far back as the age of eighteen, Donald Harvey worked in and around the medical profession, beginning his career as an orderly at the Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky. It was at this time that marijuana became a very important part of his life. He used the drug into his forties, when he stopped due to his frequent heart palpitations. He later confessed that during the ten-month period he worked at this hospital, he killed at least a dozen patients. Harvey is insistent that he killed purely out of a sense of empathy for the sufferings of those who were terminally ill. He has also admitted that many of the killings he committed were due to anger at the victim.[3] Harvey is notable for having kept his crimes from coming to light for over 17 years. The true extent of his crimes may never be known since so many were undetected for so long. Harvey is also notable for having used numerous methods to kill, such as arsenic; cyanide; insulin; suffocation; miscellaneous poisons; morphine; turning off ventilators; administration of fluid tainted with hepatitis B and/or HIV (which resulted in a hepatitis infection, but no HIV infection, and illness rather than death); insertion of a coat hanger into a catheter, causing an abdominal puncture and subsequent peritonitis. Cyanide and arsenic were his favorite methods, with Harvey administering them via food, injection, or IV. The majority of Harvey's crimes took place at the Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky, the Cincinnati V.A. Medical Hospital, and Cincinnati's Drake Memorial Hospital.

Harvey did not limit his victims to helpless hospital patients. When he suspected his lover and roommate Carl Hoeweler of infidelity, he poisoned Hoeweler's food with arsenic so he would be too ill to leave their apartment. He poisoned two of his neighbors—sickening one, Diane Alexander, by putting hepatitis serum in her drink and killing the other, Helen Metzger, by putting arsenic in her pie. He also killed Hoeweler's father Henry with arsenic.[4]

Harvey is incarcerated in Toledo Correctional Institution. His first parole hearing is scheduled for April 2043.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Holmes, Ronald, & Holmes, Stephen. (2009). Serial Murder 3rd ed. Sage Publications, Inc.
  2. 1 2 Offender Search Detail - Donald Harvey Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
  3. ↑ Interview on Mindhunter, MSNBC, November 30, 2008.
  4. ↑ Psychology, Department Of; Elizabeth Sellers; Pannill Hedgecock; Melissa Georges. "Donald Harvey "Angel of Death"; page 4" (PDF). Radford University. p. 13. Retrieved 28 March 2014.

External links

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