In the early 1900s, Amy managed a nursing home in Connecticut. Authorities learned that at least 48 people died while she was caring for them and that many of the patients had chosen her as the beneficiary of their insurance policies.
Gilligan murdered her many victims with arsenic, yet she was only charged with one homicide. She was sentenced to prison in 1917, although she was later sent to a mental institution. At the age of 89, she died in 1962.
The case received a lot of attention at the time, and it was used as inspiration for the play Arsenic and Old Lace, which was eventually made into a film. Some have even suggested that hers was the country’s first for-profit nursing facility.
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