German nurse killed ‘at least 90 patients’

A MALE nurse jailed for life two years ago for killing two hospital patients with lethal drug overdoses, murdered at least 90 patients in total, and possibly twice as many, police said yesterday, calling it post-war Germany’s worst killing spree.

Niels Hoegel, 40, was jailed in February 2015 for two murders and four counts of attempted murder or causing bodily harm to patients at the Delmenhorst hospital near the northern city of Bremen.

Police said forensics experts had since exhumed and analysed more than 130 bodies and found evidence of a vastly higher death toll at two hospitals where Hoegel had worked between 1999 and 2005.

“The insights we were able to gain are terrifying, they surpass what we could have imagined,” Johann Kuehme, police chief in the city of Oldenburg, where the other hospital is located, said.

The death toll was unique in the history of the German republic, the chief police investigator, Arne Schmidt, said.

He said Hoegel killed without a discernable pattern and preyed especially on those in critical condition.

There was evidence “for at least 90 murders, and at least as many [suspected] cases again that can no longer be proven”, he told a news conference.

Hoegel has admitted to injecting patients with drugs that can cause heart failure or circulatory collapse so he could try to revive them and, when successful, shine as a saviour before his medical peers.

He testified earlier that he felt euphoric when he managed to bring a patient back to life, and devastated when he failed.

After the revelations, police and prosecutors three years ago launched a special forensic commission dubbed “Kardio” (Cardio) to look into other patient deaths.

Presenting their findings, police said yesterday 134 bodies had been exhumed and tested for traces of the deadly drugs. Police reviewed scores of medical records and questioned hundreds of witnesses.

The cause of death in many cases could not be determined because the bodily remains had been cremated, Kuehme said.

The grisly revelations date back to June 2005, when a woman nurse witnessed Hoegel trying to inject a patient.

Hoegel was arrested and, in June 2008, sentenced to 7½ years in jail for several cases of attempted murder.

Amid the publicity, a woman contacted police, voicing suspicion that her deceased mother had also fallen victim to the killer nurse.

The authorities exhumed several patients’ bodies and detected traces of the drug in five of them.

By the time Hoegel was jailed for life in 2015, it was clear he had murdered many more patients. Investigators admitted they may never know the true number. – AFP