Content area
Full Text
When it comes to the worst that human nature has to offer, Clifford Linedecker has seen it all.
Linedecker, a Plymouth native and author of several true crime books, has been inside the house of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. He has spoken to Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme -- the member of Charles Manson's "family" who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford.
But even this hard-boiled author and former police reporter admitted that the case of Charles Cullen probably disturbed him more than any other case he has written about.
Cullen is a nurse sentenced last week to 11 life terms for murdering patients admitted into the intensive care units of hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Linedecker writes about the Cullen case in his latest true-crime paperback, "Death Angel," written with Zach T. Martin and published in December.
What makes the Cullen case so disturbing, Linedecker says, is that it happened in a place where nearly every American eventually will end up -- a hospital.
"Everybody has been in a hospital, or will be in one, or knows somebody who has been in one," Linedecker says. "That's what makes this a really scary story."
The fact that Cullen used his position as an ICU nurse to play God infuriates Linedecker, who believes the convicted killer should be executed.
Cullen was convicted of 11 murders, but he confessed to killing at least 40 patients between 1988 and 2003, Linedecker says. Cullen avoided the death penalty by...