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> 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> 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> 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> 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> OLDENBURG, Germany — A former nurse who confessed to killing more than four dozen patients in Germany was found guilty Thursday of murdering 85 and was sentenced to life in prison, with the judge calling the scope of 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 nearly 100 people whom 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 presiding judge, Sebastian Bührmann, had emphasized that the purpose of the trial went beyond a determination of guilt: It was to try to find answers about how and why the patients had died. But he acknowledged that in 15 other cases, the court had failed to find enough evidence to support a murder conviction.

“Despite all of our attempts, we could only lift part of the fog that hangs over this trial,” the judge said. “That fills us with a certain sadness.”

Högel had been accused of administering overdoses of drugs that caused cardiac arrest so that he could try to revive patients heroically.

Under German law, a person convicted of murder can be sentenced only to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 15 years, depending on the severity of the crime. Högel is already serving a life sentence for other murders, and the judge made clear that his record would ensure he is not eligible for early parole.

Officials believe Högel killed as many as 300 patients while working at two clinics in northern Germany between 2000 and 2005, although the true number may never be known. </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> 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> Convicted serial killer Niels Högel was charged with 97 further counts of murder in the northern German city of Oldenburg on Monday. The former nurse is already serving jail time for murdering other patients.

In court, Niels has admitted to acting "out of boredom" and to impress his colleagues — by giving patients medicine to cause heart failure or circulatory collapse and then trying to revive them.

Police investigator Arne Schmidt called the killings "unique in the history of the German republic."

Initially convicted of attempted murder in hospitals in Oldenburg and the nearby city of Delmenhorst, Högel's subsequent statements to a psychologist about 30 killings prompted authorities to exhume scores of bodies buried between 1999 and 2005 and test them for the killer's drug cocktails.

Högel was first sentenced in 2008 to seven and a half years for attempted murder, before being handed a life sentence in 2015 over six counts of murder.

In the course of the investigation, police found that hospital authorities failed to report the disturbing increase in fatalities when Högel was working.

"If the people responsible at the time, particularly at the Oldenburg clinic but also later in Delmenhorst, hadn't hesitated to alert authorities — for example police prosecutors — Högel could have been apprehended sooner," Oldenburg Police Chief Johann Kühme said.

Two former physicians in Delmenhorst are also facing charges in connection with patient deaths.

es/rt (AFP, dpa)
German convicted serial killer and former nurse Niels Högel begins his third trial (previous convictions were in 2008 and 2015), this time in Oldenburg, for additional patient murders by administering fatal doses of medication between 1999–2005 which may include his assignment as one of Germany's worst serial killers since World War II. At the beginning of the trial, Högel confesses to the murder of 100 of his patients.