When John Powell died at the Drake Memorial Hospital in Cincinatti, Ohio, of cyanide poisining, police targeted orderly Donald Harvey, who had been present at the March, 1987 poisoning of Powell and when many other patients had mysteriously passed away. Under questioning Harvey admitted to killing more than fifty people throughout his life.

Digging further police found that the hospitals Harvey had worked at all had very high fatality rates and that some of his aquaintances and homosexual lovers had also perished suddenly. For his part, Harvey claimed that he had been simply putting ill patients out of their misery. He could not offer an explanation for the other deaths.

Harvey eventually pled guilty to 24 hospital slayings, recieving 20 years-to-life in prison for each count, and collected a life sentence for the deadly poisoning of a neighbor. Tried in Kentucky, Harvey again pled guilty, this time to eight counts of murder and one count of manslaughter, and was sentenced to eight life terms and one twenty year term.