March 3, 2006
Media contact: Jeff Schrade (202)224-9093

(Washington, DC) Charles Cullen, a man who claims to have murdered as many as 40 patients during his career as a registered nurse, was sentenced in New Jersey Thursday to 11 consecutive life terms in prison for the murders of 22 people and three attempted murders. Under terms of a plea agreement, he will be eligible for parole in September of 2398 ? nearly 400 years from now. He faces additional sentencing in Pennsylvania for murdering 7 people and attempting to kill three more in that state.

Cullen is a Navy veteran and until last year he would have been eligible for burial in any of the nation's cemeteries for veterans. But thanks to legislation sponsored by U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Cullen and other disgraced military veterans are now prohibited from having their remains placed at any national or state cemeteries for American veterans.

While Cullen has not publically expressed his preferred burial site, Craig's legislation removes any possibility that any VA cemetery, or Arlington National Cemetery, could be that location.

"Last year we closed the ?parole loophole' that allowed certain capital offenders to receive military burial and funeral honors. Clearly we need to honor all veterans, but when their post-military actions include murder, they dishonor themselves and lose the right to be buried with the nation's heroes," said Craig, who chairs the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Until last year, federal law prohibited veterans who had received a sentence of death or life in prison "without parole" from being buried in veterans' cemeteries.

The original prohibition was targeted in large part at Timothy McViegh, a military veteran, convicted for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. But that law had a loophole which allowed military burial rights and honors for veterans who received a life sentence, but who were also eligible for parole at some future date ? even if only theoretically.

That loophole received the spotlight last September at a Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing

which focused on the case of double-murderer, Russell Wagner. He was an honorably discharged Vietnam-era veteran who was convicted for the savage slayings of Daniel Davis, 84, and Wilda Davis, 80, and had been sentenced to two life terms in the state of Maryland. He died in prison but because he was eligible for parole, Wagner's remains were legally placed at Arlington National Cemetery.

"Now brutal killers no longer have that honor," said Craig.

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