Kristen Gilbert

Infobox Serial Killer
name=Kristen Gilbert


image_size=152px
caption=
birthname= Kristen Strickland
alias= The Angel of Death
date_of_birth= Birth date and age|1967|11|13|mf=y
place_of_birth= Fall River, Massachusetts
occupation= Former Nurse
children= 2
location= Massachusetts
victims= Four confirmed
country= U.S.
states= Massachusetts
endyear= 1996
apprehended= 1996
charge= First-degree murder
penalty= Life in prison
status= Imprisoned

Kristen Gilbert (born November 13, 1967 as Kristen Strickland in Fall River, Massachusetts) is an American serial killer who was convicted for three first-degree murders, one second-degree murder, and two attempted murders of patients admitted for care at the VAMC ("Veteran's Affairs Medical Center") in Northampton, Massachusetts. She killed her patients by injecting them with epinephrine, causing them to have heart attacks.

Although other nurses noticed a high number of deaths on Gilbert's watch, they passed it off, jokingly calling her the "Angel of Death." In 1996, three nurses reported their concern about an increase in cardiac arrest deaths and a decrease in the supply of epinephrine; an investigation ensued.

The prosecutor in her case, Assistant U.S. Attorney William M. Welch II, asserted that Gilbert was having an affair with a security guard at the hospital. The security guard, James Perrault, testified against her, to the point of saying that she'd confessed at least one murder to him. The defense attorney, David P. Hoose, claimed reasonable doubt, based on a lack of direct evidence.

Gilbert, a divorced mother of two, was convicted on March 14, 2001 in federal court. Though Massachusetts does not have capital punishment, her crimes were committed on federal soil and thus subject to the death penalty; however, upon the jury's recommendation, she was sentenced to life in prison without the chance for parole plus 20 years.

Gilbert was the subject of Connecticut author M. William Phelps's book "Perfect Poison".

Gilbert was transferred from a federal prison for women in Framingham, MA, to a federal prison in Texas, where she has remained ever since. She is serving her sentence at Carswell Federal Medical Center in Forth Worth, Texas. Kristen Gilbert dropped her federal appeal for a new trial, due to a recent US Supreme Court ruling that would have allowed prosecutors to pursue the death penalty.

External links

* [http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2003/12/16/in_depth_us/whoswho588843_0_4_person.shtml CBS News Bio]
* [http://www.forensicnursemag.com/webx/391webx1.html Interview with M. William Phelps, author of "Perfect Poison"]
* [http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~leg485/ponsor.htm Article by Judge Michael Ponsor, Is the penalty worth the price?]
* [http://www.mcadp.org/Hoose.html Remarks by Defense Attorney Hoose]
* http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=john_brigham