Serial killer known as ”Angel of Death’, Donald Harvey, dies from his injuries two days after prison beating
‘Angel of Death’ Donald Harvey dies from his injuries two days after prison beating
Serial killer Harvey succumbed to his injuries on Thursday, two days after he was badly beaten in an Ohio prison
Former nurse’s aide Harvey, is believed to have killed up to 87 people, badly beaten in prison
He was serving 15 life sentences after pleading to 35 murders in 1987, he earlier admitted a count of 87 victims, over 18 years
64-year-old Harvey was going to be eligible for parole by 2043, when he would have been in his 90s
Serial killer and former nurse’s aide Donald Harvey was literally stomped to death by unknown persons in his jail cell at an Ohio prison, Tuesday
64-year-old Harvey succumbed to his injuries on Thursday, two days after he was badly beaten in an Ohio prison.
The “Angel of Death” nurse’s aide convicted of killing nearly three dozen hospital patients in Ohio and Kentucky during the 1970s and ’80s was badly beaten in prison, officials said.
Don Harvey was serving 15 life sentences after agreeing to a plea deal in 1987 for 35 murders to avoid the death penalty.
The then 35-year-old nurse’s aide confessed to having killed between 70 and 87 people, as well as assorted pets during his 18-year murder spree. Harvey used cyanide, rat poison and arsenic to kill his victims. Some of the patients were smothered with pillows or suffocated when he let their oxygen tanks run out.
He was finally caught after a medical examiner sniffed cyanide while performing an autopsy on a 44-year-old motorcycle accident victim. John Powell, had been in a motorcycle accident in July 1986 and admitted at Cincinnati’s Daniel Drake Memorial Hospital with massive head injuries. For months, he was unresponsive, suffering seizures, embolisms, pneumonia and bedsores.
No one suspected foul play when, in early March 1987, Powell ostensibly succumbed to his injuries.
‘Angel of death’ Donald Harvey in court during his sentencing in Cincinnati, OH in 1987
“I did it,” Harvey admitted.
The emotionless killer, calmly recounted how he poured half a vial of cyanide into Powell’s feeding tube and flushed the rest of the poison down the toilet. The self appointed grim reaper claimed he was trying to end his patients’ suffering as he killed patients in Cincinnati and London, Kentucky but prosecutors disagreed.
In the view of former Ohio prosecutor Arthur Ney Jr. once “He killed because he liked to kill”.
Unrepentant serial killer Donald Harvey led by Laurel County, Kentucky, sheriffs in 1987 after confessing to stunning body count
He told investigators he committed his first murder when he worked at Marymount Hospital in Kentucky in 1970. By the time Powell’s murder flushed him out, 35-year-old Harvey had been killing for 18 years. He admitted to killing somewhere between 70 and 87 people, He claimed he murdered his victims out of compassion for their suffering, to put people out of their misery, although of the killings were clearly provoked by rage, hatred or jealousy.
In August 1987, Harvey pleaded guilty to two dozen counts of murder and received four consecutive sentences of 20 years to life.
Killings in other hospitals earned him another 11 life sentences. The Angel of Death will be in his 90s before his first possible parole in 2043.
He had been in critical condition after he was found injured at the Toledo prison on Tuesday. He was beaten when an unarmed person went into his cell.
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