The Savannah morning news., 1902-06-25
A MODERN BORGIA
JANE ToPPAN CoNFEssEs TO THIR-
TY-ONE MURDERS.
DECLARES SHE is NOT INSANE.
As TRAINED NURSE SHE POISONED
HER PATIENTS.

mRnd-Morphine Was Her Favor
lite Drug and Intimate Friends
Were Among Her Victims-Repu-
table Ply sicians Employed Her
and SO SkiIfuI Was She That She
Was Enabled to Escape Detection
for Years-WiH Now Spend Re-
mninder of Her Life i'm Insane
Asylum.
Boston, Mass. June 24.-Suspected
of the death of eleven persons. but
indicted for numbering only three.
Miss Jane Toppan. who was yester-
day declared insane. has confessed
that she has killed during her career
as a professional nurse no less than
thirty-one human beings. This state
ment was made to Judge Fred NJ.
Bixby of Brocton. senior counsel at
the trial at Barnstable. yesterday.
when Miss Toppan was found
not guilty, by reason of in
sanity, on the charge of numbering
Mrs. Mary d. Gibbs. Judge Bixby said
also that Miss Toppan had admitted
| that she had set fires and committed
other serious acts. She said she could
not help committing the crimes. She
argued, moreover, that she was not in
sane. She said she knew she was do
ing wrong when she administered poi
son to her victims, and she asked
! Judge Bixby how, under such circum-
! stances, she could be of unsound mind.
Morphine was Miss Toppans agency
for producing death. Many of her vic
Tins were unsuspecting and most init
mate friends; others were the patients
| of reputable physicians who employed
! her on account of her ability as a
nurse. Miss Toppan was so expert in
her knowledge Of how to employ drugs
and poisons that she was able TO es-
cape detection for years. In she detail
ed story as told to Judge Bixby,
Miss Toppan did not enumerate her
many victims. although she did admit
| the killing of Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Harry
Gordon of Chicago and Alden p. Davis,
| all of whom died at Cataumet last
summer. Miss Toppan was indicted
| last December for these three muir
! ders. the state electing 10 try her on
the Gibbs count yesterday.
Miss Ioppan was taken to the Taun-
| ton Insane Hospital to-day to begin
her life sentence.
| To her senior counsel, Judge r. NJ
Bixby Of Brockton, she first admitted
killing the three persons named in the
| indictment and then of other persons,
until the list entire Numbers thirty
one. This list is held by her counsel,
and ii is not expected that it will
be made public. The remarkable in
| cident in connection with this list is
that when it was made up she re-
| peated with a show of interest the
names of her victims. checking off
the number on her finger tips. She
told how she killed each, saying she
| uGaA nd az ,,at.r -.
mineral water and whiskey. Some
times she used injections, as in the
case of the deaths at Calumet. She
| did not remember how each indi-
vidual was killed, but where they were
poisoned the drugs were those mem
toned.
Gave Disgusting Details.
To the aliensts to whom she made
a confession of the Calumet cases she
spoke without reserve, describing de-
liberately the most indicate details,
| believing that it was knowledge due
to them as physicians. In fact, she
discussed the cases as II she were a
student in medicine or surgery at a
clinic. She implied TO them that it
was to crafty an abnormal passion
that she put patients TO death, and
during the interval of ebbing life and
the departure of natural heat from the
body, II was her passion also to handle
the bodies of her victims.
She said the paroxysms of desire were
intermittent and there were times when
patients were quietly dying that her
better nature would become uppermost
and she would try to check approach
ing death. She might nurse the patient
ever so carefully and seek to effect a
cure. Then would come a craving to
administer poison and this amounted
to the strongest uncomfortable i'm
hi at.
would stop, and then she would render
her patient unconscious.
Fondled Ds ing Patients.
In the presence of death she would
gleefully fondle the patient, stare into
the eyes. as if it were to see the inner
workings of the soul: do all possible
to intensity the agony of the patients
and then when the end came would
become herself again.
The alienists, listening with Won
der to the story, were fore
ed study Jane Toppan as
subject. They found that
CHE embodied the worst types of de-
generacy and with this clear there was
no doubt of her mental condition.
While murder was Jane Toppan's
greatest crime there were many lesser
forms of mental depravity. each in
themselves deplorable. She told Of set
ting fires in homes in which she was
nurse or visitor and intimate acquain-
tances tell Of peculations of money and
jewelry. With the money she earned
or obtained one way or another she
was in the habit Of making lavish rres-
ents to her friends. To her acquain-
tances she was generally of a happy
disposition. She attended a Congrega-
tionalist church in Lowell and at all
times was devout.
Moral Degenerate.
The case tried yesterday rested on the
testimony of alienists, who not only
pronounced Jane Toppan to be insane.
but TO be a degenerate. They said her
impulses irresistibly compelled her TO
murder her patients in order that she
might enjoy the sight Of their strug-
giles. They told OF her confession OF
killing Mrs. Gibbs by administering
morphine and atrophine. hiding the ef-
feet OF the FORMER by use Of the latter.
no Change in P"cnbonias Field.
Roanoke. Va. June 2f.--Adyices re-
ceiyed by the Norfolk and Western
Railway fo-laW Indicate fh4f fHara