Jolly Jane Toppan, Massachusetts’ Victorian Era Serial Killer

In keeping with the macabre mood of the Halloween season, this week’s blog revisits a subject from 2017: Jolly Jane Toppan, lifelong Massachusetts resident and first known woman serial killer in the United States.

From 1885 to 1901, Jane Toppan made her way from hospital to hospital, household to household, killing unsuspecting victims who hired her as a nurse based on excellent referrals. Toppan injected patients with lethal doses of morphine and atropine, having years of experimentation under her belt which started during her residency at Cambridge Hospital. 12 of Toppan’s victims are known and identified; however, she confessed to murdering 31 people and is suspected of claiming the lives of 70 or more people in total.

She finally came under suspicion and was apprehended in 1901 after killing an entire family of four in Barnstable County, one by one, over the course of five weeks. In June of 1902, Toppan was brought before the Barnstable Superior Court on the charge of murdering Mary D. Gibbs, one member of the family and Toppan’s last victim. Toppan was quickly found not guilty by reason of insanity. She was sentenced to an asylum in Taunton where she died in 1938 at age 84.

The transcript from the trial of Jane Toppan in the murder of Mary D. Gibbs, Commonwealth vs. Jane Toppan, can be found in our digital collections.

Alyssa Persson
Processing Archivist

Above portrait image: From the Boston Post, November 3, 1901. Image courtesy of Lowell Historical Society.