Who is Charles Cullen? Eddie Redmayne stars as a serial killer in movie filming in Stamford

STAMFORD — At the Somerset County Courthouse in New Jersey in 2005, Charles Cullen avoided eye contact with the families in front of him.

“I still can’t really comprehend it, a registered nurse who is supposed to be a caretaker, took the life of my brother, for his own personal, selfish, and twisted gain,” Melissa Strenko said, choking on her words. Her brother — Mike — was only 21 when he died at Cullen’s hands. “Charles Cullen, you are a coward, I am very brave for standing here today, but you yet cannot even look me in the eye and face me.”

Cullen didn’t flinch. His eyes stayed down. Sometimes, they even looked closed while he sat at the table, listening to victims’ families.

Prosecutors in the Garden State would go on to sentence Cullen to 11 consecutive life sentences in state prison.

A decade and a half later, actor Eddie Redmayne is stepping into Cullen’s life — and crimes — in an upcoming film adaptation being filmed in Stamford. Redmayne stars alongside actress Jessica Chastain, who plays the co-worker and friend that helped take Cullen down alongside two homicide detectives.

As a critical care nurse in hospitals scattered across sleepy towns and cities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Cullen quietly murdered patients for almost two decades at nine hospitals. From 1987 until 2003, Cullen flitted from one intensive unit to the next, even when the going got tough and superiors got suspicious, as journalist and author Charles Graeber writes in his book “The Good Nurse,” on which the forthcoming movie is based.

Before the world knew Cullen as an angel of death, or as the subject of a Netflix movie starring big Hollywood names, he was just nurse, and a talented one at that, Graeber writes.

He worked at big-name hospitals and tiny rehabilitation facilities alike. According to Graeber’s book, Cullen’s former bosses called him an “excellent team player,” said he was calm and gentle, and described him as “always willing to come in” for extra shifts. Somerset Medical Center, the final facility where Cullen worked, even emblazoned his face on promotional materials for the hospital.

Graeber, is his book, describes Cullen as a fastidious employee who minded his work obsessively. But behind the image created by an exacting work ethic, Cullen tinkered with his patients’ lives with the help of powerful pharmaceuticals.

Cullen became famous for using digoxin — a powerful medication used to treat heart conditions — to murder patients, but he used what he could, Graeber writes. Other times, he overdosed victims with insulin coming straight from IV bags, ultimately starving their blood and brains of oxygen.

While his own personal life and mental state spiraled into disarray (Cullen was prone to suicidal bouts and sought psychiatric care often), work provided him with a modicum of control, Graeber writes.

In the end, Cullen pleaded guilty to killing 29 people in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Cullen told prosecutors that he killed about 40 patients during his time as a nurse. But those with intimate knowledge of the Cullen case call both figures a low-ball estimate. Certain investigators think Cullen actually killed about 300 people, which would make him one of the most dangerous known serial killers.

On top of the 11 life sentences in New Jersey, Cullen faces another six life sentences for his crimes in Pennsylvania. As New Jersey abolished the death penalty in 2007, Cullen will remain in New Jersey state prison until at least June 10, 2388, according to NJ.com.

veronica.delvalle@hearstmediact.com