Serial Killing Nurse Charles Cullen Recants Mercy Claim

At sentencing hearings in 2006, serial killer nurse Charles Cullen did not explain why he killed at least 29 hospital and nursing home patients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

He had told investigators they were mercy killings. But a prosecutor said Cullen was driven by a "compulsion" to kill and was no "angel of death."

In an interview to be broadcast Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," Cullen at first says he thought he was helping people by ending their suffering. Many of the victims of his lethal drug overdoses were old or gravely ill.

But Cullen tells a different story when reminded some victims were not close to death or in great pain. He says there was "no justification" and "I felt overwhelmed at the time."

Cullen is serving multiple life terms at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.