This Wednesday (8), a German palliative care doctor was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 15 patients with large doses of sedatives, and is suspected of numerous other murders, a Berlin court announced.
German doctor sentenced to life in prison for killing 15 patients
This Wednesday (8), a German palliative care doctor was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 15 patients with large doses of sedatives, and is suspected of numerous other murders, a Berlin court announced. The...
The judge, who analyzed the case, cited the exceptional seriousness of the crime and described the doctor as a "serial killer".
Accused of killing 12 women and 3 men between September 2021 and July 2024, using lethal sedative cocktails, the 41-year-old doctor, identified as Johannes M., is suspected of a significantly greater number of murders in ongoing investigations.
The doctor was accused of giving his victims a sedative followed by a muscle relaxant which, when combined, caused paralysis of the respiratory muscles, respiratory arrest and death "within minutes".
The victims, all under his medical care at the time, ranged in age from 25 to 94.
On at least five occasions, he set fire to the victims' apartments to cover up the murders.
According to the German weekly Die Zeit, the alert was given in July 2024, when the supervisor of a home care service in Berlin found it strange that so many of Johannes M.'s patients had died suddenly and that so many apartments were on fire at the time of their deaths.
The doctor was arrested at the beginning of August, when he returned from vacation, initially for the murder of four patients, but the list of his alleged victims quickly increased: it rose to eight in November, 10 in February and 15 in April.
In 2025, prosecutors stated that the accused appeared to have "no other reason to kill these people other than the act of killing itself" and on Monday the doctor admitted in court to having "killed people", stating: "I despair of myself".
According to the German press, Johannes M. scientifically studied homicides as part of his doctoral thesis in medicine, completed in February 2013, at the age of 28.
This case refers to another that also involved a healthcare professional in the early 2000s and also shocked German society.
Former nurse Niels Högel, who suffered from "severe narcissistic personality disorder", according to psychiatrists, was sentenced in June 2019 to life in prison for the murder of at least 85 patients in two hospitals in Lower Saxony, northwest Germany.
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Source: Noticias ao Minuto - Ultima Hora
This story was originally published by Noticias ao Minuto - Ultima Hora. Visit the original publication for further details.
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