A German palliative care doctor has been accused of killing at least 15 of his patients and is suspected in at least 95 more cases.
German prosecutors said this week they will charge a 40-year-old palliative medicine specialist, “Johannes M,” for the murder of 15 people who were in his care at the time of their deaths, broadcaster NTV reports.
The doctor, who was in a Berlin-based nursing service focused on mitigating the pain of patients with serious illnesses, is alleged to have used his position to gain access to his victims, whom he is accused of having dosed with an anesthetic in combination with a muscle relaxer to spark paralysis of their respiratory systems which led to them to “stop breathing and dying within a few minutes”.
In some instances, the doctor is accused of having started fires in the patient’s homes to cover up the alleged murders. He is alleged to have attempted to further conceal guilt by calling emergency services himself while claiming to have tried to resuscitate the patients.
Prosecutors said that the 15 murders are believed to have occurred between 2021 and 2024. The alleged victims, 12 women and three men, were aged between 25 and 94 years old at the time of their deaths.
The doctor was first detained in August of last year, but prosecutors said the “arrest warrant issued was repeatedly expanded to include new allegations in the course of the investigation.”
They have now gathered enough evidence to charge the doctor with 15 murders. In total, prosecutors said that 395 deaths were examined and “in 95 of these cases, initial suspicion was confirmed and investigations were initiated. In five cases, the initial suspicion has not been confirmed.”
A further 75 cases are still being examined, and authorities currently plan to exhume at least five more bodies to assist their investigation after having dug up 12 people already during the course of the probe.
On top of a prison sentence, prosecutors are planning to seek a lifetime ban against the doctor from the medical profession in Germany.
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