Swiss serial killer gets life

A criminal court today sentenced a male nurse to life imprisonment for the murder of 22 people between 1995 and 2001.

Roger Andermatt, 36, poisoned his elderly victims – who were residents of care homes in central Switzerland – using tranquilisers or smothered them with a plastic bag or a cloth.

His victims were suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or were in need of high levels of care.

Andermatt was also found guilty of attempting to murder five more people. All of his victims were aged between 66 and 95.

He was also ordered to pay 75,000 Swiss francs (€48,500) compensation to dependants of four of his victims and court costs of 191,000 francs (€123,500).

Andermatt – nicknamed the “angel of death” by Swiss media – is the country’s worst serial killer.

Police said he was a Swiss citizen who moved to Germany after his parents’ divorce, but returned to Switzerland in 1990 and trained as a nurse assistant.

There have been a number of cases of killings in Europe’s nursing homes in recent years.

Between August 1994 and January 1997, 22 mysterious deaths from a morphine-based drug were reported at a Copenhagen nursing home. Nobody was ever convicted. There also have been cases in Germany and France.

In the United States, Charles Cullen has claims to have killed more than 40 patients while working as a registered nurse at hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.