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'Angel of Death' serial killer severely beaten in prison

By Eric DuVall

March 30 (UPI) -- The former nurse's aide serial killer known as the "Angel of Death" after killing dozens of elderly patients in the 1970s and 80s was found severely beaten inside his Ohio prison cell on Tuesday, police said.

Donald Harvey, now 64, was found beaten in the head and unconscious in his cell at the Toledo Correctional Institution. A police report describing the incident does not list a suspect but state police are looking into the crime. He was transferred to a local hospital where he is in critical condition.

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WTVG-Toledo, the ABC News affiliate there, reported Harvey is on life support.

Harvey was apprehended in 1987 after a coroner discovered cyanide in a hospital patient who had been died and investigators traced it to him. He subsequently boasted of killing 87 people, most of them elderly. Police have said they believe that number to be lower, but given so many of the killings went undetected there was little evidence to support his claim.

Harvey pleaded guilty to 28 counts of murder in Ohio in a deal that spared him the death penalty. He is presently service multiple life sentences and will not be eligible for parole until 2043, when he would be 91 years old.

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