Niels Högel was initially jailed for life in 2015 after admitting to killing some 30 people at two clinics. If found guilty of the latest charges, he would be one of the worst serial killers in German post-war history.
Following a three-year probe into all patients under Niels Högel’s care, investigators revealed on Monday that the former nurse was responsible for 84 more deaths than initially thought.
Högel, who is already serving two separate prison sentences, was found to have injected patients with cardiovascular medication at hospitals in the northern towns of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst between 1999 and 2005. His aim was to induce heart failure or circulatory collapse before successfully resuscitating his patients to impress his colleagues.
He was sentenced in 2008 to seven-and-a-half years for attempted murder after he was discovered trying to give an overdose to a patient. He was then jailed for life in 2015 after being found guilty on six counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and one charge of battery after his “trick” failed to work. However, prosecutors alleged that he had likely killed many more people but kept the charges low to make their case easier to prove.