Convicted killer gagged in sentencing hearing

The defendant has said he killed 40 people during a 16-year nursing career.
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- A former nurse who killed at least 29 patients in two states was gagged with a cloth and duct tape at his sentencing hearing Friday after he began loudly repeating the same words over and over.
Charles Cullen, who committed one of the worst murder sprees ever discovered in the U.S. health-care system, spent 30 minutes repeating the sentence, "Your honor, you need to step down," hundreds of times in court.
A judge ignored Cullen's outbursts and gave him six more life sentences, raising the total to 18.
Victims' relatives said they were appalled by Cullen's behavior.
"I feel very cheated," said relative Walter Henne, who had to raise his voice to be heard over Cullen. "Our last trump card was taken away from us by the childish behavior of Mr. Cullen."
Cullen, who was sentenced last week to 11 consecutive life terms in New Jersey, gave lethal overdoses to seven patients at nursing homes and hospitals in Pennsylvania, and tried to kill three others.
The confessed serial killer had tried to avoid showing up at his sentencing hearings in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. On Friday, he told Lehigh County President Judge William Platt he was upset over comments the judge made in a newspaper article in which Platt said he was inclined to make Cullen show up at sentencing.
Cullen then began repeating the statement and refused to stop.
Gagged
Platt ordered Cullen gagged, and sheriff's deputies wrapped a white cloth around Cullen's mouth, but it did little to muffle him. Deputies added two pieces of duct tape and tried repeatedly to tighten the gag, but Cullen still managed to drown out some of the four relatives and friends who gave victim-impact statements.
"We think you are a total waste of human flesh," Henne, 55, the son-in-law of victim Irene Krapf, told Cullen. "And you know what, Charles Cullen? God agrees with us, and we all hope you rot in hell."
Krapf, 79, of Tamaqua, died June 22, 2001, at St. Luke's Hospital in Fountain Hill. Krapf, who had eight children and 22 grandchildren, helped her husband run a taxi company out of the family's home.
Julie Sanders, 46, a friend of victim John Gallagher, said Cullen "intentionally meant to disrespect everybody in the courtroom."
"How dare he?" Sanders said. "I needed to talk to him today, and he didn't want to hear me."
Cullen was charged with the attempted murder of Gallagher, 90, of Bethlehem, on Feb. 8, 2001, at St. Luke's Hospital.
Cullen, 46, didn't attend an 11-minute hearing in Northampton County earlier Friday, where he was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 1998 death of Ottomar Schramm. A retired Bethlehem Steel worker from Nazareth, Schramm died from an overdose of heart medication three days after being admitted to Easton Hospital for treatment of seizures.
Schramm's daughter, Kristina Toth, who had previously confronted Cullen when he pleaded guilty in October 2004, said the sentence provided no closure.
"We live in a world touched by someone else's evil and that will never change," Toth said. "I wish someone would make Charles Cullen answer why he picked my dad."
Cullen escaped the death penalty after agreeing to help prosecutors in seven counties identify patients to whom he had given lethal drug overdoses. He will serve his sentence in New Jersey.
Why he killed
Cullen, who claimed to have killed 40 patients over a 16-year nursing career, has said he killed out of mercy. Many of his victims were old and very sick.
But Lehigh County District Attorney James Martin said in court Friday that Cullen, in a 2004 interview, told authorities that he also had a "compulsion" to kill.
"The characterization of Mr. Cullen as an angel of death is a rationalization that attempts to explain away the acts of a serial killer," Martin said. Cullen killed "to satisfy his own dark compulsions ... it may be as simple and as ugly as that," he said.
Cullen was arrested in December 2003 after Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, N.J., notified prosecutors about questionable lab results involving patients under his care.
Northampton County Judge Stephen Baratta criticized the hospitals, saying they were motivated by their own economic interests in letting Cullen move around without warning each other of their suspicions.
"It's appalling and unconscionable. ... It was just easier to pass Mr. Cullen to another hospital than to deal with their concerns and their suspicions," Baratta said.
The case prompted lawmakers in both states to pass legislation protecting hospitals and nursing homes from legal action when reporting disciplinary actions taken against employees.
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