German Police: A Nurse Has Likely Taken the Lives of At Least 90 Patients

German police announced on Monday, September 6, after three years of investigation into the allegations against a male nurse who killed several patients at a hospital in northern Germany, that the number of patients killed by this man is likely to reach at least 90. According to Agence France-Presse, 'Niels Högel' is the male nurse who worked in the emergency department of two hospitals in northern Germany. Now 40 years old, between 2003 and 2005, while working at a hospital in the small town of 'Delmenhorst' near the city of 'Bremen' in northern Germany, he put six patients into a dangerous state by injecting drugs such as 'potassium', resulting in two deaths. This nurse was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2015 for killing two people, attempting to kill two others, and severely injuring two more. His motivation was to inject inflammatory heart drugs into patients, putting their physical condition in a dangerous state, and after their condition deteriorated and they convulsed, he would save them to present himself as a hero who rescued patients at the moment of death, although this heroism was not always successful, and patients died due to these injections. However, this nurse had previously worked at another hospital in the city of 'Oldenburg' in northern Germany. The police chief of this city announced on Monday that after three years of investigation and exhuming 130 bodies, they found remnants of drugs that this nurse injected into patients in 84 of the bodies. The police simultaneously announced that the number of those killed by this nurse is likely much higher than 84, as many patients from these two hospitals were cremated after death, and the possibility of exhuming and investigating their bodies has been lost. In 2014, this nurse told a fellow inmate that he stopped counting his victims after reaching over 50. Another inmate reported to the police that this nurse claimed he was probably the largest serial killer in Germany since World War II. Although the police and judicial authorities did not believe this nurse's confessions about killing several patients from the beginning of the investigations, they now say they are astonished by the scale of his crimes. The police also expressed surprise at the negligence of the hospital officials, who, despite the fact that most patient deaths occurred during this nurse's shifts, the management and doctors of these hospitals were indifferent and effectively left him free to kill patients for years.