A nurse who worked in palliative care at a German hospital has been given a life sentence for killing 10 patients and trying to kill 27 more. The crimes happened between December 2023 and May 2024 at a hospital in Wuerselen, a town in western Germany. The nurse had been working at this hospital since 2020.
Prosecutors said the man, whose name was not made public, gave his patients, who were mostly elderly, painkillers or drugs that made them sleep. According to TMZ, he did this to make his job easier during the night shifts. The court heard that he gave patients big amounts of morphine and midazolam, which is a drug used to sedate people, so he would have less work to do.
Prosecutors told the court that the nurse found a disturbing solution to his heavy workload, and 10 patients paid the ultimate price. They said he got annoyed with patients who needed more help and did not show any care for them. Prosecutors also said he acted like he was the “master of life and death” over the people he was supposed to be looking after.
This isn’t the first time Germany has seen such a case
Police arrested the nurse in 2024 after they started to wonder why so many patients were dying at the hospital. When the court gave him the life sentence, they said his crimes were so serious that he should not be allowed to get out early after 15 years, which is something that usually happens in Germany.
He can appeal against the decision if he wants to. Right now, prosecutors have said that bodies are being dug up to see if there are more victims. They are also checking other strange cases from when he worked at different places.
He finished his nursing training back in 2007, so he has been working in healthcare for many years. If they find more victims, he might have to go to trial again, similar to other cases where suspects’ criminal pasts revealed they should never have been in certain positions.
This case is a lot like what happened with Niels Högel, another nurse who got a life sentence back in 2019. He killed 85 patients at two different hospitals in northern Germany. Between 1999 and 2005, he gave people in his care deadly amounts of heart medicine. People think he is the worst killer in Germany’s recent history.
What happened in Würselen raises serious concerns about patient safety in hospitals and whether proper checks are in place for healthcare workers.
The nurse was able to commit these horrific acts for five months before being caught, prompting questions about how the hospital was being managed. In another recent tragedy that highlighted failures in protection, investigators found that warning signs had been missed.
Published: Nov 6, 2025 03:45 pm