He Looked Like a Caring Nurse’s Aide—But Donald Harvey Was a Prolific Serial Killer

At first sight, Donald Harvey could appear harmless.

The nurse’s aide was a friendly face to those he crossed paths with at Drake Memorial Hospital in Cincinnati in 1986.

“He was very personable, very kind,” Juawana Kinnard tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “Dark eyes, big old hair. He seemed to have a personality. He would offer us food off the meal trolley and was always nice.”

Kinnard was 21 years old when her father, Leon Nelson, was admitted to Drake for a tumor that sent him into a coma.

She, her siblings and their mother would visit Nelson, 64, at his bedside nearly every day for about eight months, where they would often see Harvey making his rounds with the food cart.

One evening, hospital staff called to tell the family Nelson died.

“When he did pass away, we thought, ‘God is merciful and took him,'” Kinnard recalls.

A year later, the family received startling news: Nelson didn’t succumb to his illness, rather he was one of up to 87 victims killed by Harvey, who targeted patients in hospitals he worked at and acquaintances in the community.

“I remember thinking, ‘How could such a kind face do such heinous crimes?’” Kinnard says. “Unfortunately, there is evil in the world, and this is proof positive.”

By chance, Harvey’s surreptitious reign of terror came to an end in April 1987 when an autopsy revealed one of his latest victims, John Powell, died from cyanide poisoning.

Powell, 44, was originally admitted to the hospital that March after a motorcycle accident.

The coroner performing his autopsy detected the scent of cyanide emanating from his stomach and alerted authorities.

Investigators zeroed in on Harvey, and he subsequently agreed to confess to dozens more murders in addition to Powell’s, provided the death penalty would be off the table.

“Harvey told us he’d slip it [cyanide] into their gastric tube at the end of his shift and he'd leave, and they’d be found dead later,” Joe Deters, an assistant prosecutor for Hamilton County at the time, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “He was very much hands-off.”

Deters, now an Ohio Supreme Court Justice, would go on to prosecute another four serial killer cases. Still, he recalls, “We never had anything like Harvey before."

Harvey sat down with investigators for nearly 15 hours to describe the slayings.

“His ability to remember minute details of each murder was stunning,” Deters says.

Harvey claimed he murdered victims—mostly comatose hospital patients—to put them out of their misery. He was later dubbed the “Angel of Death” by coworkers and the media.

“That was total b------t,” Deters says, shooting down the idea that they were mercy killings. “He just liked to kill people.”

The prosecution brought in a forensic psychiatrist, the late Emanuel Tanay, to evaluate Harvey’s competency.

One night while discussing the case over dinner, “Tanay got very serious with me and he said, ‘Harvey is not crazy. He has a compulsion to kill people. It's not sexual, but it's similar in that there's a building of an urge to kill. And once he kills, he's okay for a while,’” Deters remembers.

The investigation confirmed Harvey would typically strike every few weeks to appease his purported desire.

As part of a plea agreement, Harvey pleaded guilty to killing 21 patients at Drake Memorial between 1986 and 1987, and 13 patients at Marymount Hospital in London, Ky., in 1970 and 1971, per the Times, though he likely killed dozens more, authorities say.

Harvey mostly used cyanide, arsenic and rat poison to carry out the murders, but he suffocated one patient and refrained from refilling another’s oxygen tank.

During a jailhouse interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1987, Harvey seemingly expressed no remorse.

“Some of those [patients] might have lasted a few more hours or a few more days, but they were all going to die,” he told the paper. “I know you think I played God, and I did.”

At the time, Harvey mulled over the idea of securing a book deal.

“If I ever do get a book done, I will not describe the details of how the people died, whether they were in pain or went peacefully. I would like to protect the families from all that,” he said. “After all, I’m not totally heartless.”

Before Nelson’s health declined, he worked at a toy distribution company and served as a deacon at the family’s church.

“He was a very good, decent man,” Kinnard, now a high school teacher, recalls. “He knew the bible backwards and forwards.”

When Nelson died, he left behind his wife, Sandra, and their eight children.

While most of their kids were grown, the couple’s youngest was 13 years old when Harvey smothered Nelson to death with a pillow.

“Why would he do such a thing? It made me angry, and it hurt,” Kinnard says.

Still, the family never let hate into their hearts.

“I don't think that ever crossed anyone's mind. We may not like you or the circumstances in which we were placed in, but I can honestly say that I don't think we hated him,” Kinnard says.

The only path was forward, and Kinnard says through her faith, she was able to forgive Harvey for the brutal killing of her father. It allowed her to move on.

“Forgiveness releases you,” she explains. “It allows you to live, and it takes away any power the person has over you.”

Instead, she’s chosen to focus on the memories she and her siblings were fortunate enough to create with their beloved dad.

“My mother used to play cards with some of the ladies from our church once a month on a Friday, and Daddy would take us to go riding or to get some pizza, which was a treat because they cooked all the time at home,” Kinnard remembers. "Those were some of the best times.”

In 1987, Harvey pleaded guilty to 37 counts of murder and was sentenced to 28 consecutive life terms in prison.

He died in March 2017 at age 64, two days after he was brutally beaten by an inmate in his prison cell at Toledo Correctional Institution.

“Karma happens,” Kinnard says. “God is not mocked. Whatever you sow, you will reap.”