German nurse sentenced to life for killing 10 patients to ease workload

A German palliative care nurse has been sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of murdering 10 patients and attempting to kill 27 others in an attempt to lighten his workload during night shifts.

According to court findings, the nurse, whose name was withheld under German privacy laws, administered excessive doses of painkillers and sedatives to mostly elderly patients at a hospital in Wuerselen, western Germany, between December 2023 and May 2024.

Prosecutors told the court in Aachen that the defendant routinely injected patients with large quantities of morphine and midazolam, a muscle relaxant, to make them easier to manage during his shifts.

They described him as someone who displayed “irritation” and a lack of empathy toward patients requiring intensive care, accusing him of behaving like a “master of life and death.”

The court ruled that his crimes carried a “particular severity of guilt,” effectively ruling out the possibility of early release after the minimum 15-year prison term.

The nurse, who had been employed at the facility since 2020 after qualifying as a professional nurse in 2007, was arrested in 2024 following a series of suspicious deaths.

Investigators are now reviewing other unexplained deaths linked to his tenure, and exhumations have begun to determine whether additional patients may have been victims.

Prosecutors have indicated that new findings could lead to further charges.

The case has drawn comparisons to that of Niels Högel, a former German nurse sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019 for murdering 85 patients with lethal doses of heart medication between 1999 and 2005, making him one of Germany’s most notorious serial killers.