Richard Angelo

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Richard Angelo was an American serial killer.

Angelo worked as a nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital on Long Island. By the time he was caught, he had killed 25 patients.

"I wanted to create a situation where I would cause the patient to have some respiratory distress or some problem, and through my intervention or suggested intervention or whatever, come out looking like I knew what I was doing," Angelo later said of the murders. "I had no confidence in myself. I felt very inadequate."

On October 11, 1987, Angelo purportedly told a patient "I'm going to make you feel better," and injected pavulon into his IV. Immediately the man felt numbness and had difficulty breathing. However, he was able to buzz in another nurse who saved his life.

Two psychologists testified that Angelo suffered from dissociative identity disorder, and after he'd injected them, he'd moved into a separate personality that made him unaware of what he had just done. Angelo had earlier passed a polygraph test when asked about the murders. The test was ruled inadmissable in court, however.

Prosecutors called to the stand two mental health experts, who agreed that Angelo suffered from a personality disorder but not one that precluded him from appreciating whether his actions were right or wrong.

The jury convicted Angelo of two counts of second-degree murder, one count of second-degree manslaughter, one count of criminally negligent homicide, and six counts of assault. He was sentenced to 61 years to life.