Image Source: Getty / Leon Bennett
Jessica Chastain is entrance and heart in Netflix’s newest true-crime movie “The Good Nurse” as heroic nurse Amy Loughren, a pivotal determine who helped take down her coworker turned serial killer, Charles Cullen.
In 2003, Cullen was arrested for the tried homicide of a affected person and the homicide of one other, which ultimately led to him confessing to 29 killings all through his 15-year profession as a nurse in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne portrays Cullen within the movie, which examines the true story of Loughren’s difficult relationship with Cullen — whom she thought of a detailed buddy — and the way her cooperation with investigators led to the top of his murderous spree.
Amidst “The Good Nurse” hitting Netflix on Oct. 26, here is what Loughren is as much as at the moment.
Who Is Amy Loughren?
In 2002, Loughren labored as an ICU nurse at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, NJ, the place she met Cullen, a nurse in the identical unit. At the time, she was a single mother and suffered from cardiomyopathy. This coronary heart situation often affected her skill to breathe and even resulted in a visit to the ER whereas at work, per Vanity Fair.
Working lengthy shifts as a single mom with an usually debilitating bodily situation made Loughren exhausted and susceptible to these round her, making her bond with Cullen nearly instantly. “When you’re employed within the ICU in trauma, it is such as you’re troopers. . . . You trauma-bond. We shared secrets and techniques. I simply did not understand how deep his secrets and techniques actually have been,” she defined to The Times in October 2022.
Loughren and Cullen grew shut over the subsequent 12 months, however by November 2003, a startling discovery involving Cullen, her closest work buddy, got here to mild: he was coincidentally the nurse assigned to a number of sufferers who mysteriously died from a collection of medical errors.
How Did Amy Loughren Catch Charles Cullen?
While working collectively, Loughren seen that the mix of medication Cullen often used and ordered — particularly insulin and digoxin — was uncommon. At Somerset Medical Center, medical information have been stored and monitored by a computerized system known as Cerner. Upon nearer examination of affected person information by Cerner, Loughren noticed proof of Cullen’s murders. An excerpt of “The Good Nurse,” the e-book by Charles Graeber that impressed the movie, notes that Cullen’s digital recording of sufferers was “the worst charting Amy had ever seen. There have been blotches of phrases right here and there, blurts, spasms of hurried and misspelled observations.” Furthermore, Loughren discovered that Cullen was looking affected person charts, a lot of whom he was not assigned to, for prolonged intervals, as The New York Post reported.
At the time, Somerset Medical Center was launching its personal investigation into the suspicious deaths of 4 sufferers and ultimately concerned native legislation enforcement in extracting data from each the Cerner system and the hospital employees concerning the nature of the frequent sample of affected person deaths. Loughren was one of many employees members the detectives relied on throughout the investigation. Despite having circumstantial proof to arrest Cullen, a confession was what detectives Tim Braun and Danny Baldwin wanted.
Along with detectives Braun and Baldwin, Loughren organized a sit-down with Cullen at a diner, throughout which she wore a wire, hoping to get some form of confession from her former buddy. Loughren recalled the unsettling moments main as much as the occasion to Glamour, saying in a 2022 interview, “It was terrifying getting into, particularly after they wired me up, noticed my scar of a latest pacemaker implantation, and the detective mentioned ‘no, we will not put this wire on you.’ I mentioned, ‘Yes you possibly can. I’m a cardiac nurse, I do know I’ll be okay.’ He went to his colleague and so they talked about shutting this down, so I needed to discuss them into it. The reality is I did not understand how this is able to have an effect on my coronary heart, however I knew I wanted to go in there and get that confession. I used to be decided possibly, not courageous.”
The two sat throughout from each other and mentioned his actions for 3 hours, and Cullen ultimately gave sufficient data for the detectives to arrest him. According to The New York Times, Cullen was arrested on one depend of homicide and one depend of tried homicide on Dec. 12, 2003. He would later confess to killing 29 folks and was sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences with out the potential of parole in March 2006, per CNN.
Where Is Amy Loughren Now?
Loughren retired from nursing and is now devoted to therapeutic from her experiences as a nurse alongside Cullen. Per her web site, she enjoys touring and happening adventures. She’s “a Reiki Master, a Hypnotherapist, NLP Practitioner, Meditation Instructor, DreamSculptor Practitioner, Reconnective Healer, Integrative Energy Healer, Past Life Regressionist, Crystal Language Reader, [and] Medical Intuitive.” Loughren can also be an beginner activist amongst her different titles and seems to reside in Deland, FL, in response to her Twitter bio.
Outside of her skilled and religious endeavors, Loughren additionally labored with Redmayne and Chastain throughout the manufacturing of “The Good Nurse.” She revealed to Glamour, “Eddie took notes from my description of him, and I watched him take these notes and put these into his craft and artistry to change into Charles. Jessica talked loads too — she performed the model of me from 20 years in the past. . . . Jessica provided a gentleness to that 20-year-old previous self that I did not understand I had and that to me was one of the vital stunning issues that she put into play.”
Marvel on the heroic actions of Loughren in Netflix’s “The Good Nurse,” which is streaming on Netflix now, and watch the trailer under.