German Serial Killer Nurse gave patients cardiac arrest and then would revive them, Held guilty for 85 deaths
OLDENBURG: A German nurse believed to be the most prolific serial killer in the country’s post-war history was handed a life sentence Thursday for murdering 85 patients in his care.
Judge Sebastian Buehrmann called Niels Hoegel’s killing spree “incomprehensible”. In his hunger for finding praise, the nurse would first induce arrhythmia in his patients through injection ajmaline and then show his heroic act to revive them. The 42-year-old murdered patients selected at random with lethal injections between 2000 and 2005, when he was caught in the act.
Hoegel has already spent a decade in prison following a previous life sentence he received for six other murders.
The exhumation and autopsy of more than 130 bodies were necessary to build the case for the prosecution.
Police suspect that Hoegel’s final death toll may be more than 200.
But the court was unable to say for sure because of gaps in Hoegel’s memory and because many likely victims were cremated before autopsies could be performed.
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