German palliative care doctor jailed for life over 15 murders

BERLIN: A German court sentenced a palliative care doctor to life in prison on Wednesday after convicting him of murdering 15 patients with lethal doses of sedatives during home visits, while investigators continue examining dozens of other suspected deaths.

The Berlin court found the 41-year-old, identified in court records only as Johannes M., guilty of killing 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024. Presiding judge Sylvia Busch said the case was both extraordinary and unfathomable, and described the defendant as a serial killer. The court also ruled that the crimes carried a particular gravity of guilt, a finding that makes any future release significantly harder, and permanently barred him from practising medicine.

Murders committed during home visits

According to the court, all of the victims were under his medical care at the time and ranged in age from 25 to 94. The court found that he deliberately administered an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant that paralysed the respiratory muscles and caused respiratory arrest, leading to death within minutes.

The judges said the killings were not driven by compassion or any mistaken form of assisted dying, but by a desire to exert power over victims. During the trial, prosecutors said he had a lust for murder and no motive beyond the act of killing itself. Judge Busch said the 15 convictions could represent only a fraction of the crimes linked to him, while prosecutors told the court he was suspected in more than 70 additional deaths.

Confession and alleged cover-up attempts

On Monday, Johannes M. admitted before the court that he had killed people.

He also said he had only now come to understand the extent of the suffering he had caused, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily.

The court heard that on at least five occasions he is alleged to have set fire to victims’ apartments in an attempt to conceal the killings. In one instance cited by the court, he killed two patients on the same day. On the morning of July 8, 2024, he murdered a 75-year-old man at his home in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, and later that day killed a 76-year-old woman in neighbouring Neukoelln. Prosecutors said an attempt to burn the second crime scene failed because the fire did not properly catch.

Investigation widened after suspicions emerged

Suspicions about his conduct were first raised by care services, prompting a police investigation. He was remanded in custody in August 2024. Investigators initially examined four cases, but the number of suspicious deaths later increased and further cases remain under review.

The case has drawn comparisons with other major medical murder cases in Germany. Nurse Niels Hoegel was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for killing 85 patients. In a separate case, a palliative care nurse was given a life sentence in November for murdering 10 patients and attempting to murder 27 others using lethal injections.