Speaker #0Welcome to Sinisterly Suite. We're going to talk about Donald Harvey, or the Angel of Death. You don't expect a serial killer to wear scrubs. You don't expect death to clock in for a shift, grab a clipboard, and ask how you're feeling today. But that's exactly what Donald Harvey did. Donald Harvey is known as the Angel of Death. He pled guilty to 37 murders. He admitted to closer to 70 and somehow even knowing that the most disturbing part isn't the number. Donald Harvey was born April 15, 1952 in Hamilton, Ohio and raised in Bloomfield, Kentucky. He described his childhood as semi-happy, which might be the most unsettling phrase in this entire story. Semi-happy, not safe, not okay, just survivable. He grew up in feminine, gay, and trapped in rural eastern Kentucky, a place where being yourself wasn't just a courage, it was dangerous. He was sexually abused by two different people, a neighbor abused him for about 13 years, threatening to hurt Donald's mother if he refused, and uncle also abused him. And somehow, Donald still believed in God and Satan. and forgiveness in reaping what you sow. Donald Harvey worked as a hospital orderly. He claimed to have killed between 15 and 17 people at the VA hospital over a 10-year period. As many as 20 more at Drake Hospital, most of his victims were patients, people who trusted him. He poisoned them. He suffocated them. He disconnected oxygen, injected air into veins, and injected poison. He used cyanide, arsenic, and plastic bags. One victim he killed by puncturing the bladder with a hanger inserted into a catheter. In interviews, Harvey described himself as nice, caring, compassionate. He said there was only cruelty in him when provoked. which is interesting because his first kill happened after a stroke patient rubbed feces in his face. Donald suffocated him, then cleaned the body, took a shower, and reported the death like it was just another task. Three weeks later, he disconnected an elderly woman's oxygen tank, and after that, the floodgates opened. He wrote detailed accounts of his murders in a diary. after he didn't get caught for the first 15 he decided it was his right he said to himself i appointed myself judge prosecutor jury and i played god some killings he called mercy others were personal he poisoned his roommate slowly because the man quote unquote roamed he poisoned his lover's friend by putting hepatitis in their coffee He poisoned Carl's mother with arsenic because she was demanding. He made a poisoned pie for an upstairs neighbor he felt threatened by. He poisoned Carl's father with arsenic pudding and fought at mercy. He admitted some killings were done out of anger, some he regretted, some he didn't. He still believed certain people deserved to die. In 1985, security searched his bag and found a gun. hypodermic needles, surgical scissors, gloves, a cocaine spoon, and a coat books. Still, he wasn't caught right away. Eventually, Donald Harvey pled guilty to murders in both Ohio and Kentucky. He received 28 consecutive life sentences. He wouldn't have been eligible for parole until he was 95. On March 28th, 2017, Harvey was found in his prison cell severely beaten. He died two days later from blunt force trauma. No mercy, no justifications, no control, just an ending he didn't get to choose. I want to share with y'all what this case did to me. A personal reckoning. I keep thinking about Donald Harvey and I don't like what that says about me. There's something about him that sticks. Not because he was clever or dramatic, but because he was ordinary. Because he sounded like every person who's ever said, I'm a good person, right before doing something unforgivable. He said he was nice, caring, compassionate, and maybe that's what scares me the most. He didn't look like a monster. He looked like help. Like someone you'd trust with your body when you were weak and scared and stuck in a hospital bed. He wore the uniform of safety while deciding who lived and who didn't. After the first 15, he said it felt like his right. Imagine messing up 15 times and calling it authority. He called it mercy. Poisoned pudding, poisoned coffee, poisoned pie. Nothing says compassion like arsenic baked into dessert. And somehow, he slept at night. Which makes it worse. It's how calmly he talked about it. The showers after, the notes, the belief that anger could justify death. Some people deserved it, some didn't. And he was qualified to decide which was which. The line keeps echoing. I played god nothing in a lightning bolt way in a clipboard way he believed in god believed in satan believed god was forgiving and maybe that's the sickest joke of all believing forgiveness is guaranteed while never offering it to anyone else when he finally died it wasn't poetic it was some it wasn't symbolic it was brutal and fast and final and part of me wonders if that's the only ending that makes sense for someone who's spent his life deciding endings for other people. Donald Harvey scares me not because he killed so many people, but because he explained it so easily. Because if evil can sound that reasonable, that calm, that convinced, then maybe the real horror isn't monsters, it's how human they are.
