German prosecutors are investigating more than 120 suspected cases linked to a 45-year-old former nurse who was convicted in November 2025 of killing 10 patients at a hospital near Aachen.
DR reports that German authorities disclosed the scale of the new investigation, citing the news agency dpa. Prosecutors in both Aachen and Cologne are examining separately whether the man was involved in further deaths during his work as a nurse.
The man was sentenced to life imprisonment last year for the murder of 10 patients and the attempted murder of 27 others. According to DR, he repeatedly gave seriously ill patients excessive doses of sedatives, and in some cases painkillers, during night shifts at a hospital close to Aachen. The court found that he acted in order to have peace and quiet on his shifts.
He denied the charges during the trial. As reported by Welt, he said he acted because sleep is the best medicine. A life sentence in Germany means a minimum of 15 years, but the court placed particular weight on the severity of his guilt, which German media note usually rules out release.
46 bodies exhumed
The killings covered by the verdict took place between December 2023 and May 2024. Prosecutors are now examining whether he caused deaths before that, with the investigation reaching back to September 2022. He had worked at the hospital since 2020.
A total of 46 exhumations have been carried out so far for forensic examination, according to Bild. Politiken reports that 39 of the exhumations took place in Aachen and seven in Cologne. The German wire coverage carried by Süddeutsche Zeitung also puts the number of further cases under investigation at more than 120.
Prosecutors in Cologne are looking into possible cases at a clinic in the city where the man worked before moving to the hospital outside Aachen. A spokesperson for the Cologne prosecution service said the very complex investigation will take a long time, according to Bild. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger has reported that investigators there are examining whether he committed further offenses.
It remains unclear whether the review will lead to new charges against the 45-year-old. A spokesperson for the prosecution service said further charges will probably come during the next year, DR reports. The current wave of exhumations and file reviews follows the conviction handed down in November 2025.
The hospital near Aachen where the offenses took place is located in Würselen. Earlier court coverage from WDR documented the original verdict and the life sentence at the Rhein-Maas Klinikum. That case forms the basis for the investigations now underway in Aachen and Cologne.
