German Doctor Faces Trial for Killing 15 Patients

A Berlin court has opened trial proceedings against a 40-year-old doctor accused of murdering 15 patients under his care.

The doctor, identified as Johannes M., allegedly injected his victims with deadly drug cocktails between 2021 and 2024.

Prosecutors said Johannes M. targeted 12 women and three men, aged between 25 and 94.

He carried out the killings during home visits, pretending to offer medical care.

Some victims died from a combination of anaesthetics and muscle relaxants that paralyzed their lungs, causing rapid death.

Shockingly, prosecutors said he also tried to cover up his crimes by setting five victims’ homes on fire after killing them.

“He behaved like the master of life and death,” prosecutor Philipp Meyhoefer told the court on Monday. “He exploited patients’ trust to commit cold-blooded murders.”

A colleague raised suspicions in July 2024 after noticing an unusual number of deaths linked to fires. Police arrested Johannes M. the following month.

Initial investigations linked him to four deaths, but further evidence uncovered 11 more, prompting 15 murder charges in April.

Authorities are now reviewing 96 other suspicious deaths, including that of his mother-in-law in Poland. She died during a family visit in 2024.

The doctor allegedly studied radiology and general medicine before focusing on palliative care. In 2013, he wrote a thesis titled “Why do people kill?”, analyzing the motives behind serial killings.

In one day, July 8, 2024, Johannes M. allegedly killed two patients just hours apart.

He injected a 75-year-old man in Kreuzberg in the morning. By evening, he had killed a 76-year-old woman in Neukoelln and tried to burn her home.

When the fire failed, he alerted her family, pretending he had just arrived.

In another incident, he falsely claimed he had begun CPR on a 56-year-old man.

Rescuers found the patient alive but unable to recover. He died three days later in hospital.

Prosecutors insist the doctor had no motive beyond killing. They are demanding a life sentence.

The court has scheduled 35 sessions, with hearings expected to run until 2026.

This case draws parallels with that of Niels Hoegel, a German nurse convicted in 2019 for murdering 85 patients.

Since then, German authorities have tried multiple healthcare workers for patient deaths.

In 2023, another nurse received life in prison for killing two patients with unauthorized medication.

In March 2025, a nurse went on trial in Aachen for allegedly causing nine deaths by overdosing patients.

Just last week, police opened a new investigation into another doctor suspected of killing elderly patients near Hamburg.

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