Nurse Pleads Out of Death Penalty

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Charles Cullen, 44, would provide "truthful, full and complete cooperation" with authorities in their continuing investigation. Cullen also admitted to two counts of attempted murder and agreed to plead guilty in another murder in Pennsylvania.

Soon after he was arrested in December, Cullen told detectives that he had killed dozens of people during his 16 years as a nurse.

He faces two consecutive life terms in prison, with no possibility of parole. No sentencing date has been set, but plans called for Cullen to be imprisoned in New Jersey.

"Is the plea agreement acceptable to you?" Somerset County Superior Court Judge Paul W. Armstrong asked Thursday.

"Yes, your honor," Cullen answered.

In a calm voice, Cullen -- dressed in a sport shirt and khaki pants, also answered "yes" to questions posed by his lawyer, Johnnie Mask, about how he had killed his victims at the Somerset Medical Center.

The pattern was the same: Cullen admitted to injecting a variety of drugs into the patients and said that he sometimes tried to hide the fact that he took medications and syringes from the hospital's supply system.

Some of the victims' relatives wept when the names of the dead were read aloud in court.

Prosecutors said the case probably represented the largest mass murder in New Jersey history.

Over the years, Cullen worked in several hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He was fired from five nursing jobs and resigned from two others. Prosecutors said he sometimes filed false applications in order to find new employment.

He was arrested Dec. 12 on charges of killing Father Florian J. Gall, 68, with an overdose of the heart medication digoxin and of attempting to kill Jin Kyung Han, 40, also a Somerset patient. In that case, staff members managed to administer an antidote.

The hospital has turned over to prosecutors records of approximately 137 deaths that occurred in its critical care unit while Cullen was on duty or soon afterward. He was employed at the medical center from Sept. 9, 2002 through Oct. 31, 2003.

"This is just the beginning," said New Jersey Atty. Gen. Peter C. Harvey at a news conference after the plea procedure was completed.