FRANKFURT, Aug 28 (Reuters) - A German nurse jailed for murdering two patients is suspected of killing at least 84 other people, police said on Monday.

The man, identified only as Niels H. under reporting rules, has "confessed in many of those cases", a police statement said, but could not remember all the details of his actions. If confirmed, the death toll would be among the worst ever compiled by a German serial killer.

In past hearings, Niels H. admitted deliberately injecting patients at two clinics in northern Germany with deadly drugs and then trying to revive them in order to play the hero, German broadcaster NDR said.

He was convicted of two charges of attempted murder and two counts of murder by an Oldenburg court in 2015.

Police said on Monday that they had investigated additional deaths at hospitals in the northern German cities of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst after exhuming the remains of 134 people with links to Niels H.

They said he had used five different drugs on the patients, including alkaloid ajmaline and arrhythmia drug sotalol, between 1999 and 2005.

Toxicological reports for 41 people have not been completed, which means the number of victims could rise, police said.

Prosecutors have also charged six people who worked with Niels H. at the Delmenhorst hospital on suspicion of failing to stop the killing even though they were aware of it.

Ten years ago, a German nurse was convicted of killing 28 elderly patients. He said he gave them lethal injections because he felt sorry for them. He was sentenced to life in prison.

In Britain, Dr. Harold Shipman was believed to have killed as many as 250 people, most of them elderly and middle-aged women who were his patients. Known as Dr. Death, Shipman was sentenced to 15 life terms in 2000; he died prison in 2004, apparently a suicide. (Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Larry King) </s> Police said on Monday that a German nurse who was jailed for murdering two patients, is suspected of killing 84 others.

Oldenburg police chief Johann Kuehme told journalists that the additional murder cases arose after investigations dug up the remains of 134 people with links to the man.

Kuehme said the number of victims could be even higher as some of the deceased had been cremated.

If convicted, the man identified only as Niels H. under reporting rules, would be one of Germany’s most prolific serial killers.

German broadcaster, NDR, said in past hearings, he admitted deliberately injecting patients at two clinics in northern Germany with deadly drugs and then trying to revive them in order to play the hero.

The man, now aged 40, was convicted in the northern city of Oldenburg of two charges of attempted murder and two counts of murder in 2015.(Reuters/NAN) </s> BERLIN — A German nurse serving a life sentence for murdering two of his patients is believed to have killed at least 86 people entrusted to his care, officials said Monday, in what they described as an imagination-defying series of crimes.

The nurse, identified as Niels Högel, was sentenced to life in prison in February 2015, after he confessed and a court in the northern town of Oldenburg found him guilty of administering overdoses of heart medication to some patients in an intensive care ward in Delmenhorst. He was convicted of two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and causing bodily harm to patients and is serving his sentence.

During his trial, the former nurse had also confessed to intentionally inducing cardiac crises in 90 of his patients, 30 of whom he said had died. That prompted officials to launch an investigation into the deaths of some 130 of Mr. Högel’s former patients. The results were presented on Monday in Oldenburg.

At least 84 of the convicted killer’s former patients were found to have died after suffering from injections of five different forms of medication, Johan Kühme, the chief of police in Oldenburg told reporters. </s> Serial killer nurse Niels Hoegel sentenced to life for murdering 85 patients in Germany

Serial killer nurse Niels Hoegel sentenced to life for murdering 85 patients in Germany

Niels Hoegel's victims were aged between 34 and 96

A former nurse has been given a life sentence for murdering 85 patients in the worst killing spree in Germany's post-war history.

Niels Hoegel, 42, injected people with lethal drugs and then played the hero by appearing to struggle to revive them, a court heard.

"Your crimes are impossible to grasp," judge Sebastian Buehrmann reportedly told him.

"The human mind struggles to take in the sheer scale of these crimes."

Hoegel - whose victims were aged between 34 and 96 - was already serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders.

He worked at a hospital in the northwestern city of Oldenburg between 1999 and 2002 and another hospital in nearby Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005.

He was charged with committing 100 murders between 2000 and 2005. He admitted 43 of them, disputed five and said he could not remember the other 52.

Hoegel was acquitted of 15 of the charges due to a lack of evidence.

There are no consecutive sentences in the German court system and under the country's law he could be released after 15 years.

However, a ruling on the seriousness of the crimes all but ensures he will remain in the jail after the standard 15-year term is up.

The court also banned Hoegel from practising nursing for life.

During his first trial, Hoegel said he intentionally brought about cardiac crises in some 90 patients in Delmenhorst because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them.

He later told investigators that he also killed patients in Oldenburg.

Authorities subsequently investigated hundreds of deaths, exhuming bodies of former patients.

In his closing statement to the court on Wednesday, Hoegel apologised and said he realised how much pain and suffering he had caused with his "terrible deeds".

"To each and every one of you I sincerely apologise for all that I have done," he said. </s> A German nurse who's already serving a life sentence for two murders has been charged with 97 more.



Niels Hoegel was jailed in 2015 for killing two patients, and the attempted murder of two others.



In those cases he gave them overdoses of several different heart medications, leading investigators to look into the deaths of hundreds more.



The allegations cover his time at two German hospitals between 1999 and 2005 - in Delmenhorst and Oldenburg.



It's thought he may be Germany's most prolific serial killer. </s> German public prosecutors on Monday said they had brought new charges against a killer nurse already serving a life sentence for murdering two patients, accusing him of killing another 97 people with lethal injections.

BERLIN: German public prosecutors on Monday said they had brought new charges against a killer nurse already serving a life sentence for murdering two patients, accusing him of killing another 97 people with lethal injections.

If found guilty, it would make him Germany's deadliest serial killer.

The man, identified only as Niels H. under reporting rules, has admitted to deliberately injecting patients at two clinics in northern Germany with deadly drugs and then trying to revive them in order to play the hero.

Prosecutors in the northern German city of Oldenburg said an investigation and toxicology reports showed that the accused also gave 35 people at a clinic in Oldenburg and 62 at one in nearby Delmenhorst life-threatening medicines.

Prosecutors said Niels H. should have been aware that the drugs he was giving his patients could cause ailments ranging from possible cardiac arrhythmia, ventricular fibrillation to hypotension.

"From the prosecutorial point of view, the accused Niels H. accepted, at least tacitly, in all cases the death of the patients due to the effects of the drugs," the prosecutors said in a statement.

The new charges come in addition to two counts of murder for which an Oldenburg court sentenced him to life in prison in 2015.

Ten years ago, a German nurse was convicted of killing 28 elderly patients. He said he gave them lethal injections because he felt sorry for them. He was sentenced to life in prison.

In Britain, Dr. Harold Shipman was believed to have killed as many as 250 people, most of them elderly and middle-aged women who were his patients. Known as Dr. Death, Shipman was sentenced to 15 life terms in 2000; he died prison in 2004, apparently a suicide. </s> In 2015, former nurse Niels Högel was convicted of killing two patients and sentenced to life in prison. On Monday, Reuters reports, police formally charged him with 97 other murders.

Högel worked at clinics in Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, Germany in the early and mid-aughts, where his M.O. was to inject patients with lethal drugs and then attempt to revive them — allegedly because he was “bored.”

Per an article in The Guardian during that trial:

He said he felt great when he managed to resuscitate a patient, and devastated when he failed. Each time a patient died, he vowed to never play his lethal game again, but this determination would then slowly fade, he said.

Högel also claimed to have killed 30 other patients but, over the years, police came to believe that number was much higher. If found guilty of the 97 murders, local sources say he would be “the worst serial killer in German post-war history.” </s> A male nurse convicted of murdering patients with overdoses is facing new charges that would make him Germany’s most prolific serial killer since the Second World War.

Niels Högel was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for murdering two patients in his care by deliberately administering them with overdoses.

Police said on Monday they now have evidence to charge him with the murder of another 84 patients — and they believe the actual number he killed could be even higher.

Prosecutors said the 40-year-old, who is currently serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for 15 years, would face trial on the new charges some time in 2018.

Högel told his 2015 trial he had administered the lethal overdoses so he could show off his resuscitation skills by saving the patients. </s> OLDENBURG, Germany — A former nurse who confessed to killing more than four dozen patients was found guilty on Thursday in Germany of murdering 85 people and was sentenced to life in prison, with the judge calling his crimes “incomprehensible.”

It was the third conviction for the nurse, Niels Högel, who is believed to be the most prolific serial killer in peacetime Germany, and perhaps the world. But for the families of the 100 people he was accused of killing while in his care, the trial had aimed to serve as a form of belated justice by trying to find answers to why they had died.

The judge, Sebastian Bührmann, said of his findings, “Despite all of our attempts, we could only lift part of the fog.”

In court, Mr. Högel sat with his head in his hand. The judge directly addressed him, repeatedly telling him that the scope of his crime was “incomprehensible.” </s> German Nurse Suspected Of Murdering At Least 86 Patients In His Care

A German police investigation has found evidence that a former nurse murdered at least 86 people in his care.

"The realization of what we were able to learn is horrifying," Johan Kühme, chief of police in the northern German city of Oldenburg told news outlets, including the The New York Times. "It defies any scope of the imagination."

The nurse, Niels Högel, was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 on two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. But during his trial, he said he had killed many others.

Högel admitted he had intentionally induced cardiac arrest in 90 of his patients by administering overdoses of heart medication. He said he enjoyed trying to revive his patients, the Times reports, but sometimes failed.

These admissions led police to launch an investigation into other times patients had died in his care.

"The special commission, launched in October 2014, combed through evidence that included more than 500 patient files," according to the Times. "It based its conclusions in part on toxicology tests on the remains of 134 possible victims, who were exhumed to see if they contained traces of the chemicals the nurse had confessed to using."

Police await toxicology reports in 41 cases. The actual number of those he killed may be greater still and never known, as the bodies of some of his former patients were cremated and could not be exhumed.

"The death toll is unique in the history of the German republic," said the chief police investigator, Arne Schmidt, according to The Guardian. There was "evidence for at least 90 murders, and at least as many [suspected] cases again that can no longer be proven," he said, adding that Högel had chosen his victims at random.

Högel's career as a nurse was ghastly throughout, as the Guardian reports:

"Police believe that the man whom the Bild newspaper is calling 'Germany's worst serial killer' carried out his first murder in February 2000, when he was still employed at a clinic in Oldenburg in Lower Saxony, close to the Dutch border. "After killing at least another 35 patients, he moved in 2002 to a hospital in Delmenhorst near the north-western city of Bremen, where he resumed his grisly practice within a week of starting his new job. "Högel would inject patients' veins with a cardiovascular drug in order to orchestrate medical emergencies that would require him to step in and resuscitate them in the hospital's intensive care unit. "The nurse used five different drugs including ajmaline, sotalol, lidocaine, amiodarone and calcium chloride, police said on Monday. Overdoses can lead to life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia and a drop in blood pressure, causing a rapid decline in an already ill patient."

Also troubling is that Högel's lethal practices went unreported by fellow hospital staff. Though others noticed that the number of deaths in the intensive care unit at Delmenhorst doubled during his time there, nothing was done.

In 2005, a colleague saw Högel injecting a patient with ajmaline, but management didn't do anything about it for two days, during which Högel killed his final patient. Six employees at the hospital at Delmenhorst are now charged with negligent manslaughter for their failure to act. An investigation into neglect at Oldenburg is ongoing.

"The murders could have been prevented," Kühme told the Guardian, noting that Högel was given a clean reference which allowed him to move to the Delmenhorst hospital and continue killing people. "People at the clinic in Oldenburg knew of the abnormalities."

Though Högel is already serving a life sentence, he is expected to be tried on additional charges based on the investigation's findings.
Investigations concerning Niels Högel, a German nurse already convicted for murdering two of his patients, revealed that the number of people killed while in his care is significantly higher, reaching at least 84, with some estimates being even higher. This makes Högel the serial killer with the highest known victim count in modern German history.