German serial killer nurse murdered at least 33 patients, say police

German investigators say they have uncovered the country’s worst-ever serial killer case: a nurse who killed at least 33 patients in his care while his employers allegedly looked the other way.

The 39-year-old nurse, identified only as Niels H, was sentenced last year to life in prison for killing two patients with heart medication that causes cardiac arrest. During his trial, however, he claimed to have killed many more patients. After exhuming 99 bodies of former patients, investigators found suspicious traces of the same medication in the remains of 33.

Police say they may never know how many people the nurse killed and criticised his formers employers for not acting on their suspicions, rather giving him a good reference and encouraging him to move on.

“The horror just doesn’t end,” said Johann Kühme, police chief in the city of Oldenburg, one of two cities where the nurse worked. “There are many indications that the murders of Niels H . . . could have been prevented,”

In 33 postmortem examinations, investigators found traces of Gilurytmal, a medication that can cause cardiac arrest and death unless a patient is immediately reanimated. Seven further test results are pending while confirmation could be reached in 65 further cases.

Police fear the man may have been responsible for more than 200 deaths in total, but, because of the frequency of cremation in Germany, they no longer have bodies to exhume in at least 101 cases of suspicious death.

‘Rescue Rambo’

Asked about his motivation in last year’s trial, the nurse said he injected the patients so he could be on hand to reanimate them, with a frequency that earned him the name “Rescue Rambo” among colleagues. But some were suspicious, noticing a pattern between his presence and unexplained patient deaths.

Rather than investigate complaints and missing medication, however, hospital authorities in Oldenburg gave the nurse an excellent reference and encouraged him to move on. A week after starting in another hospital in Delmenhorst in 2002, the first cardiac arrest took place under his care.

He continued as before until 2005, when a colleague caught him in the act of injecting a patient with the unprescribed heart medication. The patient survived and the nurse went on trial and was jailed for the first time in 2008 for attempted murder.

After last year’s conviction – on two further counts each of murder and grievous bodily harm – the nurse admitted he had lost count of how many patients he had injected and was addicted to the feeling of “having done something good”.

Families of patients who died in the nurse’s care pushed for the postmortem examinations, have welcomed the results and are now pushing for the nurse to go on trial again. Among those who died suddenly in his care: an 81-year-old woman who rode a motorbike.

Relatives are also pushing for prosecutions against the hospitals managers where the nurse worked for failing to act on their suspicions.