Healthcare Horrors Episode 3 | Jane (Jolly Jane) Toppan | Atlas MedStaff

Healthcare Horrors podcast

When the hospitals won't take you anymore, why not just start your own practice as a private nurse?

Jane Toppan was actually born as Honora Kelley in Boston, 1857. Her parents were Irish immigrants. After her mother, Bridget, died of tuberculosis and her father, Peter, was admitted to an insane asylum and tried to sew his eyelids shut, Honora and her sisters were split up to different families. Honora was adopted by the Toppan family not as a daughter, but a live-in maid. Due to Irish immigrants getting a bad wrap, the Toppans changed her name to Jane.

Clearly, Jane had a rough up bringing and a lot of resentment. She channeled this into experimenting on and killing her patients, landlords, and even her own adopted sister. But do to her "sunny disposition" and the compulsive lies of what a great life she had, Jane Toppan was given the name "Jolly Jane". She was a pleasure to be around and told great stories until you, for some reason, didn't feel good and ended up dead.