BERLIN : A German doctor will go on trial Monday for killing 15 patients with lethal injections, in what investigators fear may just be the tip of a deadly iceberg.The 40-year-old palliative care specialist, named by German media as Johannes M., is accused of killing 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024 while working in Berlin.
He allegedly injected the victims, aged between 25 and 94, with a deadly cocktail of sedatives and in some cases set fire to their homes in a bid to cover up his crimes.A co-worker first raised the alarm about Johannes M. last July after becoming suspicious that so many of his patients had died in fires, according to Die Zeit newspaper.
He was arrested in August, with prosecutors initially linking him to four deaths.But investigations threw up a host of other suspicious cases, and in April prosecutors charged Johannes M. with 15 counts of murder.
A further 96 cases are still being investigated, a prosecution spokesman told AFP, including the death of Johannes M.’s mother-in-law.She had been suffering from cancer and mysteriously died the same weekend that Johannes M. and his wife went to visit her in Poland in early 2024, according to media reports.
The suspect, dubbed “doctor death” by German media, reportedly trained as a radiologist and a general practitioner before going on to specialise in palliative care.According to Die Zeit, he submitted a doctoral thesis in 2013 looking into the motives behind a series of killings in Frankfurt, which opened with the words “Why do people kill?”
Prosecutors say that in all 15 cases, Johannes M. “administered an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients… without their knowledge or consent”.The relaxant “paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes”.
In five cases, Johannes M. allegedly set fire to the victims’ apartments after administering the injections.On one occasion, he is accused of murdering two patients on the same day.
On the morning of July 8, 2024, he allegedly killed a 75-year-old man at his home in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg.”A few hours later” he is said to have struck again, killing a 76-year-old woman in the neighbouring Neukoelln district.
German 'doctor death' goes on trial for 15 murders
Published: July 14, 2025 | Updated 13 hours ago
German 'doctor death' goes on trial for 15 murders
Published: July 14, 2025 | Updated 13 hours ago
BERLIN : A German doctor will go on trial Monday for killing 15 patients with lethal injections, in what investigators fear may just be the tip of a deadly iceberg.The 40-year-old palliative care specialist, named by German media as Johannes M., is accused of killing 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024 while working in Berlin.
He allegedly injected the victims, aged between 25 and 94, with a deadly cocktail of sedatives and in some cases set fire to their homes in a bid to cover up his crimes.A co-worker first raised the alarm about Johannes M. last July after becoming suspicious that so many of his patients had died in fires, according to Die Zeit newspaper.
He was arrested in August, with prosecutors initially linking him to four deaths.But investigations threw up a host of other suspicious cases, and in April prosecutors charged Johannes M. with 15 counts of murder.
A further 96 cases are still being investigated, a prosecution spokesman told AFP, including the death of Johannes M.’s mother-in-law.She had been suffering from cancer and mysteriously died the same weekend that Johannes M. and his wife went to visit her in Poland in early 2024, according to media reports.
The suspect, dubbed “doctor death” by German media, reportedly trained as a radiologist and a general practitioner before going on to specialise in palliative care.According to Die Zeit, he submitted a doctoral thesis in 2013 looking into the motives behind a series of killings in Frankfurt, which opened with the words “Why do people kill?”
Prosecutors say that in all 15 cases, Johannes M. “administered an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients… without their knowledge or consent”.The relaxant “paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes”.
In five cases, Johannes M. allegedly set fire to the victims’ apartments after administering the injections.On one occasion, he is accused of murdering two patients on the same day.
On the morning of July 8, 2024, he allegedly killed a 75-year-old man at his home in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg.”A few hours later” he is said to have struck again, killing a 76-year-old woman in the neighbouring Neukoelln district.