Roger Andermatt was a nurse in central Switzerland who, over six years, killed elderly and ill people in his care. He was arrested in Lucerne at the end of June 2001, after a suspicious death at the nursing home where he was working. He first admitted killing nine patients there. By September 2001 he had confessed to 27 killings in all, and the investigating magistrate announced the figure at a news conference in Lucerne. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2016 the Swiss newspaper Blick put the number of people he killed between 1995 and 2001 at 22 and described him as the serial killer with the most victims in Swiss history.
The Associated Press, reporting the confession in September 2001, wrote that the deaths appeared to be the worst serial killings in Switzerland. The agency gave his age as 32 and noted that Swiss media had identified him by name.
Andermatt's working life began in Sarnen, the main town of the canton of Obwalden. Before he trained as a nurse, Blick reported in July 2001, he worked at a home for elderly people in Sarnen and for the home nursing service there. He later returned to the same home and served as deputy to the ward sister.
A former colleague from Sarnen spoke to Blick soon after his arrest, on condition that her name not be printed. She said that Andermatt had cared only for women, at his own request, and that meeting the request sometimes forced changes to the duty rota. His favorite shift was the night shift. When the team discussed active euthanasia, she said, his position was the most extreme of anyone's, and he would ask, "Why not?" She told the paper that he had always unsettled her. He could talk at length, she said, yet at times he seemed absent.
The colleague was not surprised that police had begun to look at deaths at the Sarnen home. Many people died there at that time, she said.
Outside work Andermatt was known in the region as a sociable and self-assured man. Blick described him as fun-loving and confident. He was a skilled dancer: about ten years before his arrest, the former colleague said, he had won a major title in couples dance, and he gave dance lessons himself. He also worked as a disc jockey under the name R.O-Gee, playing in a bar in Lucerne and in a club in Sachseln, a village near Sarnen.
People who knew him from that side of his life told Blick they had never expected anything of the kind from him. "We would never have thought him capable of such a thing," one friend said.
At the time of his arrest Andermatt was working at the Eichhof, an old people's and nursing home in Lucerne. According to Blick, the nine people he first confessed to killing were elderly women at the Eichhof, and the killings there dated from December 2000.
The Associated Press reported that he was arrested at the end of June 2001 after a suspicious death at the nursing home, and that he then admitted killing nine patients there. He told investigators that he had acted out of pity. In July 2001 the police said the investigation would take several more months. Blick reported at that point that it was not yet known how the women had died.
Investigators did not stop at the Eichhof. Police extended the inquiry to the other homes where Andermatt had worked, among them the home in Sarnen, to find out whether deaths there had also been suspicious.
Under questioning he confessed to 18 more killings, the Associated Press reported, 12 of them at a home in Sarnen. That brought the number he admitted to 27, all elderly or ill patients, over a period of six years. The investigating magistrate, Orvo Nieminen, set out the findings at a news conference in Lucerne on September 11, 2001.
According to that account, Andermatt killed his patients with drug overdoses or by smothering them, in some cases after first sedating them. Psychiatric tests were ordered.
From the start Andermatt presented the killings as acts of mercy. He told investigators in Lucerne that he had killed out of pity, Blick reported. At the September 2001 news conference the magistrate said that he had consistently given his motives as sympathy, compassion and a wish to end the patients' suffering.
He also conceded, according to the Associated Press, that in some cases he had simply been overwhelmed by the stress of the work. In 2016 Blick summarized his claim as having killed people dependent on care in central Swiss nursing homes out of pity.
Andermatt was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. In May 2016, listing the most serious murderers in Swiss history, Blick wrote that he had killed 22 people between 1995 and 2001, which made him the Swiss serial killer with the most victims. He was 47 at the time of that report.
That count of 22 is lower than the 27 killings he had confessed to in 2001.
His own count and the later published count differ. In September 2001 he confessed to 27 killings over six years. Blick's 2016 figure was 22 killings between 1995 and 2001. The cases beyond the 22 are known from his confession.
His motive was contested. He described the killings as mercy for suffering patients, but he also admitted that in some cases he had acted because he was overwhelmed by work.
The first reports differed on where the Sarnen deaths took place. Blick described the Sarnen workplace as a home for elderly people, while the Associated Press called it a home for invalids.
About ten years before his arrest: Wins a major couples-dance title, by a former colleague's account to Blick in 2001.
1995: Start of the period of the 22 killings counted by Blick in 2016.
Before his nursing training: Works at a home for elderly people and for the home nursing service in Sarnen.
Later: Deputy to the ward sister at the Sarnen home.
December 2000: Start of the killings at the Eichhof home in Lucerne, according to Blick.
End of June 2001: Arrested in Lucerne after a suspicious death at the nursing home; admits killing nine patients there.
July 7, 2001: Blick publishes his name and a colleague's account of his years in Sarnen; police say the inquiry will take months.
September 11, 2001: Investigating magistrate Orvo Nieminen announces that he has confessed to 27 killings over six years, 12 of them at a home in Sarnen; psychiatric tests are ordered.
2001: End of the period of the 22 killings counted by Blick in 2016.
Later: Convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
May 13, 2016: Blick, listing Switzerland's most serious murderers, describes him, then 47, as the Swiss serial killer with the most victims.