I. Kathleen Hagen

Who is I. Kathleen Hagen?

Dr. Idella Kathleen Hagen is a former medical doctor who gained notoriety for being accused of murder by asphyxia of her parents, Idella Hagen, aged 92, and James Hagen, aged 86, with a plastic bag and a pillow as they slept in their home in Chatham Township, New Jersey, in August 2000. A month earlier, she had returned to her parents' house from her home in the Virgin Islands because of their age and deteriorating health. Dr. Hagen, a woman of considerable means, had previously cut short a medical career in urology in 1987 to move to the Virgin Islands to operate an inn with her second husband.

A 1973 graduate of the Harvard Medical School, she became the first woman appointed a resident in urology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She was appointed chief of urology at the Rutgers Medical School in New Jersey in 1982.