German Court Sentences Nurse to Life Imprisonment for Killing 10 Patients, Attempting 27 Others in Wuerselen Hospital
The Regional Court in Aachen, Germany, has sentenced a palliative care nurse to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of the murder of 10 patients and the attempted murder of 27 others at a hospital in Wuerselen, Western Germany.
According to court findings, the unnamed nurse administered excessive doses of morphine and sedatives to mostly elderly patients between December 2023 and May 2024. Prosecutors argued that the acts were committed to reduce his workload during overnight shifts, describing him as a man who acted like a “master of life and death.”
Court documents revealed that the convict, who qualified as a nursing professional in 2007 and joined the hospital in 2020, consistently displayed irritation and lack of empathy toward patients requiring intensive care.
The court ruled that the offences carried a “particular severity of guilt”, a designation under German criminal law which bars eligibility for early release after 15 years, the usual threshold for life sentences. The convict, however, retains the right to appeal the verdict.
Authorities arrested the nurse in 2024 after investigators noticed patterns of suspicious deaths. Subsequent exhumations are ongoing to determine whether additional patients may have been killed, raising the possibility of further charges.
This case has drawn comparisons to the notorious prosecution of Niels Högel, a former nurse sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019 for the murder of 85 patients in northern Germany, widely regarded as the country’s most prolific medical serial killer.
