Japan searching for culprit in deaths of up to 48 elderly hospital patients

As Ontarians grapple with one of Canada’s worst alleged serial killings, Japanese authorities are investigating their own string of suspicious elderly deaths — involving as many as 48 victims and a culprit still at large.

A month before Elizabeth Wettlaufer was charged in the deaths of eight nursing-home residents in Ontario, a police investigation was triggered in Japan after two 88-year-old patients died at a hospital in Yokohama, the country’s second-largest city.

According to news reports, an autopsy found that a patient named Sozo Nishikawa had been fatally poisoned by a hospital disinfectant on Sept. 18. Two days after his death, a second male patient from his hospital room, Nobuo Yamaki, died after his heart rate dropped and triggered an alarm.

Both patients died shortly after their drip bags were replaced. Police suspect the deaths could be the work of a mercy killer, or a so-called “angel of death.” Police searched 50 unused IV bags at the hospital, local media reported, and ten had small holes pierced into the rubber seal connecting the IV bag and tube. The bags were all stored in the nurses’ station.

There could be many more victims. According to reports, 46 other patients on that floor died between July and September.