Donald Harvey

Donald Harvey
Mug shot
Born	(1952-04-15)April 15, 1952 Butler County, Ohio, U.S.
Died	March 30, 2017(2017-03-30) (aged 64) Toledo, Ohio, U.S.
Cause of death	Blunt trauma
Other names	"Angel of Death"
Criminal penalty	28 consecutive life sentences plus $270,000 in fines
Details
Victims	37 convicted 40-57 estimated 87 alleged
Span of crimes	1970–1987
Country	United States
State(s)	Ohio, Kentucky
Date apprehended	April 6, 1987
Imprisoned at	Toledo Correctional Institution, 1987

Donald Harvey (April 15, 1952 – March 30, 2017) was an American serial killer who claimed to have murdered 87 people, though official estimates are between 37 and 57 victims. He was able to accomplish this during his time as a hospital orderly.

Harvey claimed to have begun killing to "ease the pain" of patients – mostly cardiac patients – by smothering them with their pillows.^[1] However, he gradually grew to enjoy killing and became a self-described "angel of death". At the time of his death, Harvey was serving 28 life sentences at the Toledo Correctional Institution in Toledo, Ohio, having pleaded guilty to murder charges to avoid the death penalty.

History[]

Donald Harvey was born in Butler County, Ohio in 1952 and was raised in Owsley County, Kentucky.^[2] He dropped out of school in ninth grade, and began working in hospitals at the age of 18. Harvey's first medical job was as an orderly at the Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky. He later confessed that during the ten-month period he worked at the hospital, he killed at least a dozen patients. His second victim was killed in the room with Danny George, a twelve-year-old child. Harvey was insistent that he killed purely out of a sense of empathy for the suffering of those who were terminally ill, but also admitted that many of the killings were committed were due to anger at the victims.^[3]

The full extent of Harvey's crimes may never be known since so many were undetected for so long. He didn't use any particular modus operandi and used many methods to kill his victims, 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), and insertion of a coat hanger into a catheter, causing an abdominal puncture and subsequent peritonitis. Cyanide and arsenic were his most-used methods, with Harvey administering them via food or injections. The majority of Harvey's crimes took place at the Marymount Hospital, the Cincinnati V.A. Medical Hospital, and Cincinnati's Drake Memorial Hospital. At various times, he worked as an orderly or an autopsy assistant.

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]

Investigation[]

After keeping his crimes hidden for seventeen years, Harvey slipped in March 1987. An autopsy on John Powell, who had died abruptly after spending several months on life support following a motorcycle accident, revealed large amounts of cyanide in his system. Harvey became a person of interest when investigators learned he had been forced to resign from the Cincinnati VA hospital after he was caught stealing body parts for occult rituals. At the time, most hospitals did not vet orderlies as closely as doctors or nurses. When they brought Harvey in for questioning, he confessed to Powell's murder, claiming he had euthanized him with cyanide.^[5]

Pat Minarcin, then an anchor at Cincinnati station WCPO-TV, found it unlikely that someone who had spent almost two decades caring for patients could suddenly kill one without having killed before. During his report on the night of Harvey's arrest, Minarcin asked on-air if there had been any other deaths. It was soon revealed that several nurses at Drake had raised concerns with administrators upon noticing a spike in deaths while Harvey was employed there, but had been ordered to keep quiet. Not wanting to chance that he would be acquitted, the nurses contacted Minarcin and told him that there was evidence Harvey killed at least ten more people.^[5][6] Over the next several months, Minarcin investigated the suspicious deaths and amassed enough evidence to air a half-hour special report detailing evidence that linked Harvey to at least 24 murders in a four-year period.^[7] Harvey had been able to stay under the radar in part because he worked in an area of Drake where patients were not expected to survive.^[5]

When Harvey's court-appointed lawyer, Bill Whalen, was briefed in advance about Minarcin's findings, he immediately asked Harvey if he had killed anyone else. Harvey replied that by his "estimate," he had killed as many as 70 people. Whalen knew that if prosecutors could link Harvey to more than one murder, he could receive the death penalty. In a bid to save his client's life, he offered prosecutors a plea bargain–if the death penalty were taken off the table, Harvey would accept a sentence of life imprisonment and confess to all of his murders. The prosecutors agreed. In a marathon session with prosecutors, Harvey admitted to killing 24 people.^[6][5]

In August 1987, Harvey pled guilty to 24 counts of first-degree murder. In accordance with the plea agreement, he was sentenced to three concurrent terms of life in prison.^[8] The plea agreement allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty if more murders came to light.^[5] With this in mind, that November Harvey pled guilty in Laurel County, Kentucky, circuit court to killing nine patients at Marymount in the 1970s. He was sentenced to life plus 20 years, to run concurrently with the Ohio sentence.^[9] Ultimately, Harvey pled guilty to 37 murders. However, he confessed to killing as many as 50 people.^[6]

Harvey was incarcerated in the Ohio prison system on October 26, 1987.^[10]

Death[]

On March 28, 2017, authorities reported that Harvey had been found in his cell severely beaten. He died on March 30, 2017.^[11][12] On May 3, 2019, fellow inmate James Elliott was charged with aggravated murder and other charges related to the death of Donald Harvey.^[13][14] In September 2019, Elliott was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to killing Harvey.^[15][16][17]

See also[]

• Serial killers with health-related professions

General:

• List of serial killers in the United States

References[]

External links[]

• Donald Harvey at The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
• Angel of Death: The Donald Harvey Story archived from <crimelibrary>
• CBS News: "Serial killer known as the "Angel of Death" found severely beaten in prison", March 29, 2017
• 'Angel of Death' serial killer dies after attack in prison