Jane Toppan was an American serial killer, nicknamed "Jolly Jane". After her arrest in 1901, she confessed to 31 murders. She is quoted as saying that her ambition was "to have killed more people-helpless people-than any other man or woman who ever lived". In 1885, Toppan began training to be a nurse at Cambridge Hospital. While she was there she had a lot of friends, and was well liked. Unlike her early years, where she was described as brilliant and terrible, at the hospital she was well liked, bright and friendly, evoking the nickname 'Jolly Jane'. Once Toppan became close with the patients, she picked her favorite ones. The patients were normally elderly, and very sick. During her residency, she used her patients as guinea pigs in experiments with morphine and atropine; she would alter their prescribed dosages to see what it did to their nervous systems. However, she would spend considerable time alone with patients, making up fake charts and medicating them to drift in and out of consciousness and even getting into bed with them.
She was recommended for the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital in 1889; there, she claimed several more victims before being fired the following year. She briefly returned to Cambridge but was soon dismissed for administering opiates recklessly. She then began a career as a private nurse and flourished despite complaints of petty theft. She began her poisoning spree in earnest in 1895 by killing her landlord, Israel Dunham and his wife. In 1899, she killed her foster sister Elizabeth with a dose of strychnine. In 1901, Toppan moved in with the elderly Alden Davis and his family in Cataumet to take care of him after the death of his wife, Mattie (whom Toppan herself had murdered). Within weeks, she killed Davis, his sister Genevieve, and two of his daughters, Minnie and Edna.
In the US, the average spent on an engagement ring is $6,351 but how do these figures compare with our favorite celebrities? The answer: they don't. As the diamonds increase in size, obviously the price tag appreciates handsomely. Well, we've compiled a list of some of the most expensive celebrity engagement rings.
This list would be nothing without Kim Kardashian's rock from Kanye, which clocked in at around a cool $4 million when he presented it to her at his stadium proposal in October 2013. Unfortunately, though, the 15-carat sparkler was among the jewelry stolen during Kim's infamous Paris robbery in 2016.
Jennifer Lopez's husband Alex Rodriguez popped the question to the singer, and he really had to step it up to outshine her previous engagement rings—and wow, did he deliver. The baseball star proposed with a reported 15-20 carat emerald cut stunner set on a platinum band that was estimated at $5 million. It's getting harder and harder not to be fooled by the rocks she's got...
It should come as no surprise that Beyonce herself totes one of the world's highest-valued diamonds. Weighing in at 24 carats, Jay reportedly paid around $5 million (now worth $6,047,013) for Bey's flashy emerald-cut ring back in 2008.
Anna Kournikova's relationship Latin music artist Enrique Iglesias since the early '00s has been one of the most lowkey celebrity relationships to date. That is with the exception of her $5,400,000 engagement ring that made headlines in 2004. Now, worth a whopping $7,443,596, the giant yellow stunner was spotted on Kournikova even during her tennis matches. (Pssst! It's rumored she got two rings from Iglesias. Prior to this, she sported an equally giant pink pear-shaped ring.)
Clocking in as the most expensive celebrity engagement ring, Mariah Carey's 35-carat bling from ex-fiancé James Packer reportedly cost a cool $10 million. And the "Obsessed" singer seemed to be a bit, well, obsessed with the jewel. She continued to wear the ring over a year post-breakup, and didn't part ways with the bauble until May 2018, selling it to a Los Angeles jeweler for $2.1 million.