Cullen will be the first serial killer interviewed on the program in its 45-year history. Watch a preview of the show.
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Charles Cullen, a former nurse who claims to have killed 30 to 40 patients since 1987, is currently serving life sentences in New Jersey. "60 Minutes" will air a jailhouse interview with Cullen on Sunday.
"But like I said, I don't know if I would have stopped," says Cullen, who was interviewed by newsman Steve Kroft and will be featured 7 p.m. Sunday on the CBS program.
Cullen, 52, will become the first serial killer to appear on the newsmagazine show in its 45-year history.
According to cbsnews.com, Kroft interviewed Cullen for more than an hour last month at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. He told Kroft he knew what he was doing was wrong then and now.
Asked by Kroft what his motivation was, Cullen said he was easing pain, according to cbsnews.com.
"I thought that people weren't suffering anymore. So, in a sense, I thought I was helping," Cullen says.
When Kroft points out that several people Cullen murdered were not close to death nor in great pain, he replies, "There is no justification ... the only thing I can say is that I felt overwhelmed at the time," CBS said.Pressed for an explanation for the families of his victims, Cullen says, "It felt like I needed to do something and I did. And that's not an answer to anything."
The program will air portions of Cullen's confession tape to investigators as well as the first interviews with key figures in his arrest, according to CBS.
Cullen, formerly of Bethlehem and Palmer Township, is serving consecutive life sentences in New Jersey after admitting he killed at least 29 people at hospitals there and in Pennsylvania. The hospitals included Warren Hospital, Easton Hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital and St. Luke's University Hospital.
Cullen killed the patients with lethal drug overdoses over a 16-year nursing career. He has claimed many of the victims were old and very sick and that he killed them out of mercy.
Lucille Gall's brother Florian, a Hunterdon County priest, was among those killed by Cullen at Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey. Gall said she plans to watch but isn't sure how she'll react.
"I want people to know that my brother was a priest and he was a very good priest. He was getting better (in the hospital). I don’t understand how a nurse would intentionally kill somebody. For me, that’s the bottom line.
"As far as my brother goes, he was a very kind person and he probably would be saying ‘I forgive you Charles.’ I just want people to remember my brother. After all these years he’s still remembered as a wonderful person."
Cullen has tried to commit suicide many times, CBS said on its website.