Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1902-07-01

| one who considered her a dear friend.
She would say to herself: "Why should
care for the life OF another when by
taking 1t l can crafty my passion?
What are these people to me? / am
alone in the world. Why should l
carer"
1t was this reason she gave to Drs.
Steadman, Quinby and Jelly, the in.
sanity experts, and to the jailer's wife
at Barnstable.
She lived life within herself. life
which at times seemed to have been
suspected by the most discerning of
those with whom she came in contact,
but even these, as it now appears,
were afraid to express any suspicious
they might have of this companionable
woman, capable nurse, who, when in
the humor, could become the leader
OF the nerrymaking in any company of
intelligent persons.
If as girl she quarreled with her
schoomates, and by her elders was
considered n strange child, nothing
more was thought about it. Among
the nurses at the Massachusetts Gen
eral hospital, where Is years ago she
was n student, she was popular, al
though on second thought it occurred
to her acquaintance that they knew
very little about her.
She entered only momentarlly into
the lives OF those with whom she came
into contact, and when she suddenly
left the hospital without obtaining her
diploma little thought was given to
this fact by her associates.
Fifteen years later they re.
membered that Miss Toppan always
had words of sympathy for the dead,
and that when she left the hospital
the physicians in charge were very
retlcent when her name was men
! toned.
| Her ability as n nurse was nevcr
questioned, and the fact that she did
not hold a diploma did not prevent
her from becoming the favorite rurse
OF the leading physicians OF Cambridge
and Somerville, and thus administer.
ing to the wants OF the sick in MANY
OF the most prominent families I'm those
cities.
1t Is among those families that the
| physicians in whose care the LIST of Al
murdered persons has been placed vii,
probably continue the Investigations
IN unearthing the crimes of this whole
sale poisoner. In some homes lane
Toppan was suspected of theft. but
never OF murder, not even when srs.
picion of having set mysterious fires
fell upon her.
How long she pursued her murder.
ous career, until year ago, when her
passion, fec by success In conceaIine
her crimes, seems to have taken full
possession Of her, can only be conlec.
tured.
The impulse to KILL last summer
heid such complete possession of the
nurse that she appeared to have been
driven to desperate straits in order
to find victims. Having killed off
nearly all her most intimate friends
that sense Of isolation was strong upon
hcr, but she had no regret for what
she had done. With morphine and
atrophine always In her possession. on
her return to Lowell, she again at
tempted to add to her list of victims.
ana, falling, tried to take her own
life.
Had she been successful one of the
most remarkable stories In the Grim.
inal history OF the world would have
gone to the grave with her; for until
Jane Toppan, In Barnstable Jail made
her confession TO the experts only
small part of the truth was suspected,
and even the physicians were at loss
to explain the motive for the crImes
that might have been traced to her.
Until Jane Toppan herself told the
strange story of that uncomfortable
passion, which made the impulse 10
XIII Irresistible, and which she expects
to pass from her within Ave years. tho
motive ascribed by the state autborl.
ties for her criminal acts was believ.
ed to be love for money, something
they could not reconcile with the dis.
position of this apparently open heart.
cd, free'handed woman, who WINS
known among her friends as "Jollv
Jane Toppan."
IL seemed foreign to the nature of
the woman, Of whom II is now told
that she stood beside her rigid victims
found enjoyment in their sufferlngs ana
her greatest pleasure In watching the
breath depart from their bodies; who