Prosecutors have charged a doctor in Berlin – suspected of administering lethal amounts of medications to palliative patients – with 15 counts of murder.
They also want a lifelong professional ban for the 40-year-old suspect, detained since August 2024, who had been active in several German states.
The suspect, not officially named in line with German privacy laws, has not admitted the charges.
Reuters reports that he was initially suspected of being involved in four deaths last year, which prosecutors said he had tried to cover up by setting fire to the victims’ apartments.
However, ongoing investigations have turned up more suspected deaths, dating back to 2021, and that number could rise even further.
The doctor is accused of administering an anaesthetic and then a muscle relaxant to palliative patients under his care who were not actively dying and without their knowledge or consent.
Most of the patients, aged 25 to 94, were using a nursing service the doctor worked with, and died between September 2021 and July 2024.
An investigative team set up specifically for the case is evaluating his patient records and more exhumations are planned.
Serial murders
Berlin police and prosecutors said they have examined 395 cases, and suspicion was “confirmed” in at least 95. Another 75 more investigations are still ongoing.
At least 12 bodies have been exhumed, and five of those cases were included in the indictment.
A German nurse, Niels Hoegel, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for murdering 85 patients. At one of his first trials, Hoegel said he intentionally put his patients in cardiac arrest because he liked the feeling of resuscitating them.
NBC reports that at the time of his sentencing, he was believed to be the worst serial killer in German history.
Reuters article – German palliative doctor charged with 15 counts of murder (Open access)
NBC article – German doctor charged with murders of 15 patients (Open access)
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