A Berlin doctor goes on trial, accused of murdering 15 patients
[July 14, 2025]
By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER
BERLIN (AP) — A German doctor went on trial in Berlin Monday, accused of
murdering 15 of his patients who were under palliative care.
The prosecutor’s office brought charges against the 40-year-old doctor
“for 15 counts of murder with malice aforethought and other base
motives” before a Berlin state court. The prosecutor’s office is seeking
not only a conviction and a finding of particularly serious guilt, but
also a lifetime ban on practicing medicine and subsequent preventive
detention.
Murder charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. If a court
establishes that a suspect bears particularly severe guilt, that means
he wouldn’t be eligible for release after 15 years as is usually the
case in Germany.
Parallel to the trial, the prosecutor’s office is investigating dozens
of other suspected cases in separate proceedings.
The man, who has only been identified as Johannes M. in line with
Germany privacy rules, is also accused of trying to cover up evidence of
the murders by starting fires in the victims' homes. He has been in
custody since Aug. 6.
The doctor was part of a nursing service’s end-of-life care team in the
German capital and was initially suspected in the deaths of just four
patients. That number has crept higher since last summer, and
prosecutors are now accusing him of the deaths of 15 people between
Sept. 22, 2021, and July 24 last year.
The victims’ ages ranged from 25 to 94. Most died in their own homes.
The doctor allegedly administered an anesthetic and a muscle relaxer to
the patients without their knowledge or consent. The drug cocktail then
allegedly paralyzed the respiratory muscles. Respiratory arrest and
death followed within minutes, prosecutors said.
The doctor did not agree to an interview with a psychiatric expert ahead
of the trial, German news agency dpa reported. The expert will therefore
observe the defendant’s behavior in court and hear statements from
witnesses in order to give an assessment of the man’s personality and
culpability.
So far, it is unclear what the palliative care physician’s motive might
have been, dpa reported. The victims named in the indictment were all
seriously ill, but their deaths were not imminent.
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From left, defendant lawyers Klaudia Dawidowic, Ria Halbritter and
Christoph Stoll, presiding judge Sylvia Busch, center, and public
prosecutor Philipp Meyhöfer, second right, as a doctor has gone on
trial over the alleged murder of 15 patients under palliative care,
at Berlin Regional Court, Germany, Monday July 14, 2025. (Bernd von
Jutrczenka/dpa via AP)
The defendant will not make a statement to the court for the time
being, his defense lawyer Christoph Stoll said, according to dpa.
The court has initially scheduled 35 trial dates for the proceedings
until January 28, 2026. According to the court, 13 relatives of the
deceased are represented as co-plaintiffs. There are several
witnesses for each case, and around 150 people in total could be
heard in court, dpa reported.
An investigation into further suspected deaths is continuing.
A specially established investigation team in the homicide
department of the Berlin State Criminal Police Office and the Berlin
public prosecutor’s office investigated a total of 395 cases. In 95
of these cases, initial suspicion was confirmed and preliminary
proceedings were initiated. In five cases, the initial suspicion was
not substantiated.
In 75 cases, investigations are still ongoing in separate
proceedings. Five exhumations are still planned for this separate
procedure, prosecutors said.
In 2019, a German nurse who murdered 87 patients by deliberately
bringing about cardiac arrests was given a life sentence.
Earlier this month, German investigators in the northern town of
Itzehoe said they were examining the case of a doctor who has been
suspected of killing several patients.
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