Toppan, who admitted to have committed the murders to satisfy a sexual fetish, was quoted as saying that her ambition was "to have killed more people—helpless people—than any other man or woman who ever lived".

[1] Jane Toppan was born Honora Kelley on March 31, 1854, in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Irish immigrants.

[2] In November 1862, less than two years after being abandoned by her father, Honora was placed as an indentured servant in the home of Mrs. Ann C. Toppan of Lowell, Massachusetts.

Unlike her early years, where she was described as brilliant and terrible, at the hospital she was well-liked, bright, and friendly, earning her the nickname "Jolly Jane".

During her residency, Toppan used her patients as guinea pigs in experiments with morphine and atropine; she altered their prescribed dosages to see what it did to their nervous systems.

[citation needed] Toppan was recommended for the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital in 1889; there, she claimed several more victims before being fired the following year.

[5] Soon after the trial, one of William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, the New York Journal, printed what was purported to be Toppan's confession to her lawyer, claiming that she had killed more than thirty-one people, and that she wanted the jury to find her sane so she could eventually have a chance at being released.

[8] Toppan is often considered an "angel of mercy", a type of serial killer who takes on a caretaker role and attacks the vulnerable and dependent,[9] though she also murdered for seemingly more personal reasons, such as in the case of the Davis family.