Berlin court sentences palliative care doctor to life for murdering 15 patients
A Berlin court convicted a palliative care doctor of murdering 15 of his patients and sentenced him to life in prison. Prosecutors said the 41-year-old physician, identified under German privacy rules only as Johannes M., killed 12 women and three men with lethal combinations of sedatives between September 2021 and July 2024, and in several cases set fire to victims’ apartments to conceal the deaths.
Prosecutors described a defendant acting from a “lust for murder” with no motive beyond killing, and said he is suspected in connection with dozens of additional deaths still under investigation. The case, one of Germany’s most serious medical killing prosecutions in years, is likely to sharpen scrutiny of oversight in home and palliative care, where a single practitioner can administer powerful drugs with little independent check.