October 1, 1868 - Amy Archer-Gilligan
Operating a private nursing home gave her sustained, unsupervised access to a vulnerable population, and the deaths she caused were for years absorbed into the ordinary arithmetic of an institution caring for the elderly and infirm. At least five murders were confirmed by authorities, though the total count of suspicious deaths at the Archer Home ran to 48. The case prompted enough public attention to leave a cultural trace, later cited as an influence on the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace — a fact that underscores how thoroughly the gravity of what happened there was, for a time, repackaged into something else entirely.
From Wikipedia
Amy Duggan "Sister" Archer-Gilligan (October 31, 1873 – April 23, 1962) was a nursing home proprietor and serial killer from Windsor, Connecticut. She murdered at least five people by poisoning them. One of her victims was her second husband, Michael Gilligan; the others were residents of her nursing home.
It is possible that Archer-Gilligan was involved in more deaths. The authorities counted 48 deaths in her nursing home, the "Archer Home for the Elderly and Infirm."
The case attracted wide publicity at the time and has been cited as an inspiration for the play Arsenic and Old Lace.
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