BERLIN DOCTOR SUSPECTED OF KILLING EIGHT ELDERLY PATIENTS STILL IN CUSTODY – GERMAN PROSECUTORS
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Prosecutors said Thursday that German detectives believe a doctor in Berlin killed eight elderly patients in his care and set fire to part of their homes to hide his crimes.
The 40-year-old suspect, whose name has not been made public, was employed for an at-home nursing agency providing palliative care.
Prosecutors in Berlin have now connected him to four further deaths of men and women aged 61 to 83. He was held in custody in August on suspicion of killing four women aged 72 to 94.
The individual was under investigation for four counts of manslaughter, one case of arson, and three counts of attempted arson, according to police in August.
Berlin prosecutors said they were now treating the alleged killings as murder cases.
“The accused appears to have had no motive for killing the people other than the act of killing itself,” they said, accusing him of a “lust for murder”.
Police in August said the man was suspected of killing four female patients in the care of his nursing service in Berlin between June 11 and July 24.
In one case, an 87-year-old woman was resuscitated after emergency services arrived, but died later in hospital.
In another, the suspect allegedly started a blaze but the fire went out.
“When he realised this, he allegedly informed a relative of the woman and claimed that he was standing in front of her flat and that nobody was answering the doorbell,” police said.
The suspect in the four additional cases, which span June 2022 to April 2024, is charged with the murders of two men and two women in Berlin.
He is suspected of giving a 70-year-old woman a combination of drugs at her Tempelhof flat in Berlin and then setting the flat on fire.
A neighbour alerted the fire brigade, and they were able to stop the fire from spreading to the remainder of the building.
In addition, he is charged with giving lethal drugs to a 61-year-old lady and two men, ages 70 and 83.
The situation is similar to that of Niels Hoegel, the infamous German nurse who killed 85 patients while under his care and was given a life term in jail in 2019.
Between 2000 and 2005, Hoegel, who is thought to be Germany’s most prolific serial murderer, used deadly injections to kill hospital patients before being apprehended.
In a more recent instance, a male nurse, 27, was found guilty of killing two patients by purposefully giving them illegal medications and was given a life term in jail in 2023.
Mario G., the nurse, was also convicted of six counts of attempted murder.
Mario G. acknowledged during his trial that he worked in the recovery area of a hospital in Munich and had injected patients with sedatives and other chemical mixtures.
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