Nurse admits killing 30 patients

A German nurse who is on trial for three hospital murders admitted to a psychologist that he killed 30 patients in all, and nearly killed an additional 60 with drug overdoses, a court has heard.

Prosecutors say his motive was to recklessly create intensive-care emergencies in which he could impress and win gratitude with his talent for saving people from the brink of death.

The gravely ill patients are believed to have been injected with overdoses of heart medication.

Prosecutors had earlier decided to limit the trial to just three killings to make the case easier to prove.

A court spokesman said, however, that the alleged admission did not amount to a formal confession, as the accused had not made a statement directly to the court.

The court-appointed psychologist told the court in the northwestern city of Oldenburg the man admitted he had used overdoses of a cardiac drug on “about 30” seriously ill people from 2003 to 2005 at Delmenhorst Hospital. The other 60 survived the injections.

The accused, 38, insisted he had not tried to kill anyone at other hospitals during his career, or while he had worked as an ambulance crewman.

His name has been withheld under German media privacy guidelines.

At a trial that began last year, he is charged with three murders and two attempted murders.

He is already serving seven and a half years in prison on a 2008 conviction for attempted murder.

A colleague caught him red-handed in summer 2005 as he was injecting a patient in intensive care with an overdose.

Her accusation set the series of cases going, but more deaths a decade ago only gradually emerged in reviews of patient files.

Police and state prosecutors are undertaking an investigation of all deaths in which the man could have been involved as part of his professional work.

If necessary, bodies are to be exhumed to determine the cause of death.