A German palliative care doctor has been sentenced to life imprisonment for killing 15 of his patients.
A court in Berlin found the 41-year-old doctor, identified only as Johannes M. in accordance with German privacy laws, guilty of murdering 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024.
Authorities believe the killings could be just the tip of the iceberg. Prosecutors are currently investigating dozens of other cases linked to the doctor.
His victims were aged between 25 and 94. The court heard that although all of them were critically ill, none was believed to be at imminent risk of death.
Prosecutors said the doctor administered a lethal combination of medications to his patients during home visits without their consent.
They also said he set fires on several occasions in an attempt to cover up the killings.
In July 2024, shortly before his arrest, prosecutors said the doctor killed two patients in a single day: a 75-year-old man at his home in central Berlin and, a few hours later, a 76-year-old woman in a neighbouring district.
They said the doctor attempted to set fire to the woman’s home but failed.
For much of the year-long trial, the doctor remained silent. However, last month he admitted to having “killed people,” acknowledging the deaths of 12 of his seriously ill patients.
He told the court he had convinced himself that he was doing the right thing by sparing them “suffering and infirmity.”
“Throughout it all, I thought this was the best thing for everyone,” he said.
He also apologised for the suffering he had caused.
Authorities suspect the doctor may have killed more patients. Prosecutors are currently investigating 76 additional cases.
German media report that if those cases are proven and he is convicted, the doctor could become one of the country’s most prolific serial killers.
The doctor told the court he would “get involved much earlier in the forthcoming proceedings.”
Earlier in the trial, relatives of the victims told the court they were still struggling to come to terms with what had happened.
The mother of the youngest victim, a 25-year-old woman who died in 2021, broke down in tears.
“She never said she didn’t want to live anymore,” she told the court.
The son of a 72-year-old woman who died in 2024 said his mother had been planning a trip to the Baltic Sea with her sister.
“My mother wanted to keep on living,” he said.
The court ruled that the doctor’s guilt was particularly severe. It ordered that he be placed in preventive detention after serving his prison sentence and imposed a lifetime ban on him practising medicine.
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