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German Court Sentences Palliative Care Nurse to Life for Murdering 10 Patients in Würselen

An Aachen court convicted the unnamed 44-year-old of 10 murders and 27 attempted murders by injection on hospital night shifts in 2023 and 2024.

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Illustration: attorney's desk with stacked legal binders and files

On November 5, 2025, a court in Aachen, in western Germany, sentenced a 44-year-old palliative care nurse to life in prison for murdering 10 patients and attempting to murder 27 others at a hospital in nearby Würselen between December 2023 and May 2024.

The court also found a "particular severity of guilt," a finding that bars him from the early release after 15 years that German law normally allows a life prisoner to seek. His defense had asked for an acquittal at the trial, which began in March. He has not been publicly named.

Prosecutors said he injected his mostly elderly patients with large doses of painkillers and sedatives, including morphine and midazolam, for one reason: to lighten his workload on night shifts. They accused him of playing "master of life and death" over the people in his care. Patients who needed more attention drew only irritation from him, they said, and he worked "without enthusiasm" and "with no motivation." Prosecutors told the court he had a personality disorder, had never shown compassion for the patients and had expressed no remorse during the trial.

He trained as a nurse in 2007 and worked for several employers, including in Cologne, before joining the Würselen hospital in 2020. He was arrested in the summer of 2024. According to Nurse.org, the case came to light that July, when hospital management noticed a sharp drop in patient deaths while he was on vacation, and he was first charged with five murders and 25 attempted murders before the charges grew.

The verdict may not be the end of it. Prosecutors told AFP that bodies had been exhumed in the search for further victims and that he could be tried again.

The nurse has not been publicly named, in keeping with German privacy practice, and neither have the patients. No court or prosecution release could be opened; this account rests on CBS News, reporting with AFP, and on Nurse.org. Whether the verdict has become final on appeal is not stated in those reports.

Sources