German doctor on trial for allegedly murdering 15 patients in his care
Prosecutors have charged the 40-year-old defendant with '15 counts of murder with premeditated malice and other base motives', and are seeking a life sentence, which in Germany usually amounts to 15 years in prison.
They aim, however, for the Berlin state court to establish 'particularly serious guilt', which would result in the doctor being detained on a preventative basis even after that sentence is up, as well as receiving a lifetime ban on practising medicine.
As the trial opened on Monday, prosecutor Philipp Meyhoefer said the doctor had arranged the house calls with the intention of killing his patients 'without their knowledge or consent' using 'a deadly mix of various medications'.
'He acted with disregard for life … and behaved as the master of life and death,' Meyhoefer told the court. Two of the killings are believed to have taken place on the same day in 2024.
Authorities are still investigating dozens of other suspected killings possibly committed by the defendant, identified only as Johannes M. in accordance with German privacy rules. He was arrested last August.
The doctor worked for a mobile nursing service offering palliative at-home care to terminally ill patients. His alleged victims – 12 women and three men – ranged in age from 25 to 94, and died between September 2021 and July 2024.
He is believed to have given his unwitting patients an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant, incapacitating their respiratory muscles and leading them to asphyxiate within minutes. While all were gravely ill, none had been expected to die imminently.
A suspicious co-worker called attention to the fact that at least five of Johannes M.'s patients had purportedly died in fires, leading authorities to open a criminal investigation.
The Berlin prosecutor's office said another 70 cases potentially linked to the defendant were still being examined, including the death of his mother-in-law in Poland in early 2024. She had been suffering from cancer.
The defendant declined an opportunity to address the court as his trial opened as well as a psychiatric evaluation. His alleged motive remains unclear.
The trial is scheduled to run until at least late January 2026, with about 150 people expected to be called as witnesses, news agency DPA reported. Thirteen relatives of the dead patients have joined the proceedings as co-plaintiffs.
The case recalls that of German nurse Niels Högel, who received a life sentence in 2019 for murdering 85 patients in his care with lethal injections between 2000 and 2005. Högel is often called postwar Germany's most prolific serial killer.
The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
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