PsychPodcast

The Crime Duckies podcast discusses former nurse Kristen Gilbert, who worked at a medical center and was suspected of killing over 350 patients. She was charged with killing four patients by injecting them with epinephrine without orders. The podcast also explores Gilbert's background, including her manipulative habits and psychiatric episodes. Special guests, Nurse Kate Fowler and Dr. Rachel Donovan, share their perspectives on Gilbert's behavior and diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Gilbert was sentenced to four consecutive life terms without parole. Hello, fellow crime lovers. Welcome back to the Crime Duckies podcast with another week of our Student Killer Roundup series. I'm Sarah, and I'm here with our co-hosts, Carson, Kayla, and Haley. And later, we're going to have some special guests that we'll bring on the podcast. But this week's episode is focusing on former nurse Kristen Gilbert. A little bit of info on Kristen Gilbert. She worked at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center for seven years and apparently killed over 350-plus patients. But now I'm going to pass that on to Kayla to give us more of a description. Yeah, so it was suspected that she killed 350-plus patients, but she was only charged for killing four patients by injecting them with epinephrine, even though there was no orders for epinephrine. So a little bit suspicious. It makes me wonder what, you know, wondering if any hospital staff were really watching what was going on with the patients or, like, how her family had any effect on her. Right. Yeah, that's a great question. I do know that she did grow up in Massachusetts, and she grew up with a younger sister, and her father worked full-time, and then her mom worked as a part-time teacher and homemaker. And there was nothing really concerning about her childhood that, like, I don't know, that triggered her to do any of these crimes. It wasn't until her teenage years where her friends, her family, and her boyfriend started noticing her manipulative and dishonest habits. Yeah, I heard that she was pretty highly intelligent and even graduated a year and a half early from high school, but it was kind of more when she started at Bridgewater State College, where she was studying pre-med, but started having, like, psychiatric episodes and violent threats, making, which she was making towards herself and others. And she even faked a suicide attempt where psychiatric treatment was ordered by the officials of that college and told her that she basically had to go somewhere else to finish her degree. And there was also talk that she was, once she got her first nursing job, that she started flirting with the security guard. And we're going to get the whole inside scoop on that from our special guest, Dr. Nurse Kate Fowler. Yes. All right, crime junkies, we are now going to introduce our special guests. So first we have Nurse Kate Fowler, and then next we will have Dr. Rachel Donovan. Take it away, Kate. Okay, so my name is Kate. I worked with Kristen for several years, and I really have never thought that anything was abnormal about her. I mean, she seemed so nice and normal, but it just didn't turn out to be that way. I mean, we started noticing pretty early on that she had a lot of patients who were dying, and it was really questionable. Do you want me to pause it? Yeah. Welcome back, crime junkies. We are back. Wait. All right, crime junkies, we are back, and we have two special guests with us. We have Nurse Kate Fowler and Dr. Rachel Donovan. So take it away, Kate. Okay, my name is Kate. I am a nurse who worked with Kristen for several years. I mean, I was close with her, but I never really thought that there was anything different about her. She seemed so, she was so perky. I don't know what to say. I feel like I need to write something down. Okay, crime junkies, we are back with two special guests. We have Nurse Kate Fowler and Dr. Rachel Donovan. So take it away, Kate. So my name is Kate. It's so nice to be on this podcast. Yeah, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. But to talk about Kristen, I mean, she seemed to have her whole life planned out. Nothing seemed so different about her. I mean, the only thing that really seemed different, the only time that we started to notice anything about her is when she started getting really close with the security guard. And she would just seemingly, we think that she was doing these things for attention. Right. Because why else would you administer epinephrine to a patient when you don't need it? So I, me and my coworkers, we think that it was her trying to get the attention of James Pearl, the security guard. And I mean, we would see her after work into a car with him and go home with him. And I'm not sure, I mean, she had, she was married, she had kids, but I just can't imagine why somebody would want to do this. So it was just really disturbing to see, to witness this and not even realize that it was her. We all actually at the unit had a nickname for her. We called her the Angel of Death and we didn't even realize how right we were about that at the time. It was just a joke and it breaks my heart to hear that it was true. Right. Yes. Well, thank you for sharing. I'm going to lead into Dr. Rachel Donovan and see if she's a psychiatric doctor. Psychiatrist, yeah. Oh God. All right, crime junkies. And now we're going to talk to Dr. Rachel Donovan, who was actually the psychiatrist that analyzed Gilbert after she had called in a bomb threat to the hospital that she was working at, where she was then diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. So Dr. Donovan, can you kind of give us what that experience was like and kind of how you would profile her as a serial killer? So, yeah, I did diagnose her with borderline personality disorders and that was due to her threatening people outside of herself. And you could kind of see that when she was in college as well. So she definitely has a history of doing that as well as, you know, the allegations of the affair and looking for attention. That's definitely a part of being someone with borderline personality disorders. And her being organized and hiding everything as well as, like, you not being able to, like, see that she was doing this, like, right under your nose. And a lot of people, like, wouldn't have been able to. That's how she was able to get away with this for so long. But, yeah, being at a hospital and actually having that power over somebody to be able to inject them and not really, like, have them care or think, oh, she's under, she's going to take care of me and all of a sudden you're kind of getting carried away in a body bag. That's, it's terrible and a lot of people, like, don't really realize it because they have so much trust in nurses. So she was able to, like, I guess dive into the psyche of that and realize that she can get away with all of this stuff. But, yeah, she just, she did it all the time because Right. And she just played them to a degree where she knew that nobody would be able to catch her. And that's how she got away with it for however long. Right. And that's why she's accused for at least being able to kill, like, 350 people and only being charged with four counts of murder. But, yeah, so it was just easy to hide. I mean, when you inject epinephrine with somebody who doesn't have any allergies or any cardiac issues, you're going to induce some cardiac dysrhythmias. And depending on the patients that she had, which the four accounts that she was charged for, they were all veterans, they're older. And so when you induce that kind of dysrhythmias with somebody, it can be fatal. And that's how she was able to, I guess, kill them right under their nose and get rid of the evidence, I guess. Right. And it's terrible. I really forgot how or what I was talking about the entire time. All right. And thank you so much, Dr. Donovan, for sharing your insight with us. And for all the listeners that are wondering what happened to Kristen Gilbert, recently the jury sentenced Gilbert to four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole plus 20 years earlier this year in March of 2001. Yes. And that wraps up today's episode. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. And thank you to our special guests, Kate and Rachel. And we will talk to you guys next week.