The most well-known moniker for the notorious American serial murderer Jane Toppan is Jolly Jane. She confessed to the murder of 31 people after being apprehended in 1901, and her claims that she intended to kill more people than anyone else ever had shook the country. She had a difficult upbringing in Boston, Massachusetts, where she was born and raised. Her father was a notorious drunkard who earned the moniker “madman” due to numerous rumors that claimed he was a sadist. She began residing in a female institution when she was nine years old, along with her younger daughter. Some accounts claim that the daughters were rescued from their home, despite the fact that many documents indicate that the father brought them there himself. She began working as a maid in a wealthy Boston home when she was 11 years old, taking on their last name Toppan. She began her schooling as a nurse in the late 1800s and experimented on some of her most defenseless patients by overdosing them. She poisoned the family of her landowners in 1885, and by the time she was apprehended, she had used poison as a weapon in 31 other homicides. She was diagnosed as crazy and given a life sentence in the Taunton Insane Hospital, where she passed away in 1938 at the age of 84.
Early Youth & Life
Honora Kelly was given the name Jane Toppan on August 17, 1854, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her family was of the lower middle class. It has been stated that Jane’s mother Bridget Kelley passed away when Jane was still an infant, despite the fact that the details of her early life are largely hazy. According to the documents, she died from tuberculosis, which at the time was reportedly incurable. Jane’s father was a part-time tailor, and her parents were Irish emigrants. She was raised in a home with three other girls.
Peter Kelley, her father, became crazy after her mother passed away. He gradually gained notoriety in his neighborhood and became known as “Kelley the Dope.” He severely abused alcohol and made life miserable for all of his daughters. He once attempted to sew his own eyelids, according to one of the most well-known stories of his madness. Jane and Delia, two of Peter’s youngest children, were taken to the Boston Female Asylum because Peter somehow had enough common sense to realize that he was a very bad impact on his kids.
The administration, however, had a different account of how she entered the hospital. According to official accounts, they saved the girls from an abusive, alcoholic, and eccentric father. It was said that Delia, Jane’s elder sister, began working as a prostitute while they were in the asylum. Jane found a way to work as a housekeeper at a nearby home. She had just turned nine at the time.
Although Ann C. Toppan, the home’s proprietor, raised Jane as more or less her own daughter, she never legally adopted her. In addition, Jane took on the last name of her sponsor, Toppan, and developed a strong relationship with Elizabeth, Ann’s daughter. They were practically sisters because they attended the same school and shared a home.
She began to feel attracted to a guy during her senior year of high school and their relationship began. But things didn’t work out, and she got the shock of a lifetime when the guy abandoned her at the altar. As a result, Jane developed depression as a young lady. Her belief that she wasn’t deserving of love from men stemmed from a number of other failed relationships and subsequently gave rise to her strange sexual behavior.
Jane Toppan’s Crimes
She began her nursing education at the Cambridge Hospital in 1885, where her patients and coworkers adored her. She acquired the moniker Joyful Jane due to her affectionate personality. But for a long time, nobody knew what happened behind closed doors. Jane conducted her experiments on some of the most vulnerable cases. When they fell asleep, she lay in bed with them and administered them larger doses of morphine than usual.
It is unknown if she engaged in sexual activity with her patients, but she did acknowledge that she experienced sexual gratification while cuddling up to dying males in the bed. She tended to her patients when other people were present and spent a lot of time alone with them. She was still popular with her supervisors and coworkers as a result of this. She was then moved to Massachusetts General Hospital in 1889 as a result.
But she could not continue her strange behavior for very long in a facility the size of MGH. After being fired in less than a year, she briefly attempted to return to the hospital in Cambridge. She managed to return to her previous position, but unknowingly, due to her problematic history with MGH, she came under intense examination. She was discovered red-handed overdosing on a patient as a result, and a few months later, she was fired from the hospital.
Jane began working as a private nurse soon after being let go from Cambridge, and after gaining some respectable experience with the position, her career took off. She was frequently arrested at the beginning of her new career for engaging in petty thefts, but all accusations against her were later dropped.
Jane Toppan’s Murders
Her impulses grew more and more gruesome as she got to work. Israel Dunham and his wife, her landlady, became her first victims in 1895. When the pair was causing her problems, she killed them by poisoning them. She left a two-year pause between her second and third murders, and the name of her third victim was quite shocking.
Elizabeth Brigham, her foster sibling, was poisoned by her. It was subsequently revealed that Jane was envious of Elizabeth and in love with her husband at the time she was married to a man. She made an unsuccessful attempt to seduce her spouse after Elizabeth passed away. This demonstrates that her unstable mental health was significantly influenced by erotic resentment.
She poisoned Mary McNear, one of her elderly patients, to death in 1899, and a string of horrific killings ensued. By the year 1900, she had already poisoned 30 people, and the way she plotted the killings made it hard for the police to catch her. She did, however, make errors, and she did so in August 1901, just like every other criminal.
Detention in the Future
An elderly pair named Mattie and Alden Davis were cared for by private nurse Jane Toppan. She poisoned Mattie and Alden before killing them both. She also murdered the couple’s infant daughter, Minnie. However, this family was not going to let it go, so they requested a thorough toxicology analysis of Minnie. When the authorities learned that she had been poisoned, Jane was taken into custody right away. After an inquiry, Jane was arrested on October 29, 1901.
She admitted to killing 31 individuals by the beginning of 1902, but the official records indicate that the actual number of deaths was much higher. In order to have a chance of being released, she requested her attorney to show the court that she was insane.
She argued, however, that she was not crazy in court. Nevertheless, despite the allegations, she was deemed crazy and told to live out the remainder of her days in Taunton Insane Hospital, where she passed away on October 29, 1938, at the age of 84.
Estimated Net Worth
Jane Toppan has an approximate net worth of $6 million and earns her primary living as a serial killer and nurse. About Jane Toppan’s lifestyle and cars, we don’t have enough proof.