Jane Toppan (March 31, 1854 – August 17, 1938), born Honora Kelley, was an American serial killer, nicknamed "Jolly Jane". After her arrest in 1901, she confessed to 31 murders. Toppan is quoted as saying that her ambition was "to have killed more people—helpless people—than any other man or woman who ever lived".
Early life
Jane Toppan was born Honora Kelley on March 31, 1854, the daughter of Irish immigrants. Her mother, Bridget Kelley, died of tuberculosis when she was very young. Her father, Peter Kelley, was well known as an eccentric and abusive alcoholic, nicknamed by those who knew him "Kelley the Crack" (as in "crackpot"). In later years, Kelley became the source of many local rumors concerning his supposed insanity, the most popular of which being that his madness finally drove him to sew his own eyelids closed while working as a tailor.
In 1860, only a few years after his wife's death, Kelley took his two youngest children, eight-year-old Delia Josephine and six-year-old Honora, to the Boston Female Asylum, an orphanage for indigent female children. Kelley surrendered the two girls, never to see them again. Documents from the asylum note that they were "rescued from a very miserable home".
No records exist of Delia and Honora's experiences during their time in the asylum, but reportedly Delia became a prostitute, while their older sister Nellie (who was not committed to the orphanage) was committed to an insane asylum. In November 1862, less than two years after her father had left them, Honora Kelley was placed as an indentured servant in the home of Mrs. Ann C. Toppan of Lowell, Massachusetts. Though never formally adopted by the Toppans, Honora took on the surname of her benefactors and eventually became known as Toppan. The original Toppan family already had a daughter, Elizabeth, whom Honora was on good terms with.
Motives
An article in the Hoosier State Chronicles. published shortly after Toppan's arrest, reported that she would fondle her victims as they died and attempt to see the inner workings of their souls through their eyes. Under questioning, Toppan stated she derived a sexual thrill from patients being near death, coming back to life and then dying again. Toppan administered a drug mixture to the patients she chose as her victims, lay with them and held them close to her as they died.
Toppan is often considered an "angel of death", a type of serial killer who takes on a caretaker role and attacks the vulnerable and dependent, though she also murdered for seemingly more personal reasons, such as in the case of the Davis family. It is possible Toppan was also motivated by jealousy, in the case of the murder of her foster sister. She later described her motivation as a paralysis of thought and reason, a strong urge to poison.
Toppan used poison for more than just murder, reportedly poisoning a housekeeper just enough so that she appeared drunk in order to steal her job and kill the family. She even poisoned herself to evoke the sympathy of men she was courting.
Murders
In 1885, Toppan began training to be a nurse at Cambridge Hospital. Unlike her early years, where she was described as brilliant and terrible, at the hospital she was well liked, bright and friendly, evoking the nickname "Jolly Jane". Once Toppan became close with the patients, she picked her favorite ones. The patients were normally elderly and very sick. During her residency, Toppan used her patients as guinea pigs in experiments with morphine and atropine; she altered their prescribed dosages to see what it did to their nervous systems. However, she spent considerable time alone with patients, making up fake charts and medicating them to drift in and out of consciousness and even getting into bed with them.
Toppan was recommended for the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital in 1889; there, she claimed several more victims before being fired the following year. She briefly returned to Cambridge but was soon dismissed for administering opiates recklessly. Toppan then began a career as a private nurse and flourished despite complaints of petty theft.
Toppan began her poisoning spree in earnest in 1895 by killing her landlord, Israel Dunham, and his wife. In 1899, she killed her foster sister Elizabeth with a dose of strychnine. In 1901, Toppan moved in with the elderly Alden Davis and his family in Cataumet to take care of him after the death of his wife, Mattie (whom Toppan had murdered). Within weeks, she killed Davis, his sister Edna, and two of his daughters, Minnie and Genevieve.
The surviving members of the Davis family ordered a toxicology exam on Alden Davis' youngest daughter, Minnie. The report found that she had been poisoned, and local authorities put a police detail on Toppan. On October 29, 1901, she was arrested for murder. By 1902, she had confessed to 31 murders.
Soon after the trial, one of William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, the New York Journal, printed what was purported to be Toppan's confession to her lawyer, claiming that she had killed more than 31 people and that she wanted the jury to find her sane so she could eventually have a chance at being released. Toppan insisted upon her own sanity in court, claiming that she could not be insane if she knew what she was doing and knew that it was wrong, but nonetheless she was declared insane and committed. On June 23, in the Barnstable County Courthouse, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed for life in the Taunton Insane Hospital.
Victims
Victims Toppan identified are:
Israel Dunham: patient, died on May 26, 1895, aged 83
Lovely Dunham: patient, died on September 19, 1897, aged 87
Elizabeth Brigham: foster sister, died on August 29, 1899, aged 70
Mary McNear: patient, died on December 28, 1899, aged 70
Florence Calkins: housekeeper for Elizabeth, died on January 15, 1900, aged 45
William Ingraham: patient, died on January 27, 1900, aged 70
Sarah (Myra) Connors: patient and friend, died on February 11, 1900, aged 48
Mattie Davis: Wife of Alden, died on July 4, 1901, aged 62
Genevieve Gordon (Annie): daughter of Alden and Mattie, died on July 31, 1901
Alden Davis: died on August 8, 1901, aged 64
Mary (Minnie) Gibbs: daughter of Alden and Mattie, died on August 13, 1901, aged 40
Edna Bannister: sister-in-law of Elizabeth, died on August 26, 1901, aged 77
Fictional portrayals and legacy
In the independent film American Nightmare, written and directed by Jon Keves, Debbie Rochon portrays a serial killer named "Jane Toppan" who manages to kill numerous characters throughout the course of the film by various means. The character is also employed as a nurse. This character was inspired by Toppan.
Toppan was the subject of one of six monologues in the play Murderess by Anne Bertram, which premiered in St. Paul, Minnesota, at Theater Unbound. She was portrayed by Laura Wiebers in the segment The Truth About Miss Toppan, directed by Mishia Burns Edwards. The play opened to favorable reviews. Minneapolis StarTribune theater critic William Randall Beard called the Toppan segment "a chilling portrait of a sociopath nurse."
Toppan was featured in an episode of Deadly Women and episodes of the podcasts Criminal, My Favorite Murder, Serial Killers, an episode of Hellevator, Lore and Bailey Sarian’s series Murder Mystery and Makeup
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