If Netflix has proved one thing over its tenure as one of the top streaming platforms, it’s that they know how to make a great true crime production. The streamer’s brought us everything from the unscripted and over-the-top true story of Tiger King and the horrific and brutal slayings of the notorious Richard Ramirez in Night Stalker: The Hunt For a Serial Killer to scripted productions like Ryan Murphy’s record-breaking limited series, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story that proved to be such a hit it landed Murphy an anthology contract with Netflix. This fall, audiences were given another unbelievably tragic and twisted scripted tale about one nurse’s killer secret in the book-turned-film The Good Nurse starring Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain. And now, they’re following it up with a documentary behind the real story of the murderer who would come to be known as Charles Cullen in Capturing the Killer Nurse.
A trailer released today tracks the search for the heartless killer and shares how he was able to get away with his crimes for so long. As a voiceover explains, Cullen was able to operate undetected because there were no witnesses and no hard evidence to accuse him of the bizarre deaths. Featuring the faces of several folks at the heart of the case, the trailer sees the appearances of hardworking detectives and the woman at the center of it all, Amy Loughren - Cullen’s co-worker who put an end to his repulsive acts after walking in on him murdering a patient. We’ll also see footage of Cullen during police interviews and hear first hand from the families of the victims whose lives were changed in irreparable ways as well as the book’s author Charles Graeber.
Directed by Tim Travers Hawkins (XY Chelsea), the documentary will tell the true story about how Cullen spiraled from a beloved member of the Somerset Medical Center staff to an imprisoned man charged with a slew of murderers. From the trailer it’s clear that Cullen believed he was helping the people who he killed, with the real number of lives taken possibly in the hundreds during his long spanning nursing career in several Northeastern medical facilities. Perhaps the most chilling fact of all is that Cullen is not the first member of his profession to have carried out such heinous crimes, something the feature also promises to dive into.
Robin Ockleford serves the film as its producer with Graeber joining Henri Singer and Susannah Price as executive producers.
You can check out stills featuring the detectives and Loughren below as well as the documentary’s trailer. Discover the true story behind Cullen’s medical crimes when Capturing the Killer Nurse lands on Netflix on November 11 and, if you haven’t yet, you can see the currently streaming Redmayne and Chastain led dramatic depiction in The Good Nurse.