German nurse gets life in jail after killing 10 to reduce work
Getty ImagesA palliative care nurse in Germany was convicted of killing 10 patients and attempting to kill 27 people and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Prosecutors alleged the man, whose name has not been publicly released, injected painkillers or sedatives into his mostly elderly patients to ease his workload during night shifts.
The crimes were committed between December 2023 and May 2024 at a hospital in Wuerselen in western Germany.
Investigators have reportedly investigated other suspicious cases throughout his career.
According to media outlet Agence France-Presse (AFP), the unnamed man had been working at the hospital in Wuerselen since 2020 after training as a nurse in 2007.
Prosecutors told a court in Aachen that he showed “irritability” and a lack of empathy towards patients who needed a higher level of care and accused him of playing the role of “master of life and death”.
He injected patients with high doses of morphine and the muscle relaxant midazolam to reduce his workload during night shifts, the court was told.
He was arrested in 2024.
In handing down the life sentence, the court said the man’s crimes carried a “special criminal gravity” that prevented him from being released early after 15 years.
He/she can appeal the decision.
Prosecutors told AFP that exhumations were being carried out to identify other potential victims, which could lead to the man’s retrial.
The case is similar to that of former nurse Niels Högel, who was convicted of killing 85 patients at two hospitals in northern Germany in 2019 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The court found he administered lethal doses of heart medication to people in his care between 1999 and 2005.
He is believed to be the most prolific killer in Germany’s modern history.
