German investigators suspect a Berlin doctor of murdering eight elderly patients under his care and setting fire to some of their homes to cover up his crimes, prosecutors said Thursday.
The unnamed suspect, a 40-year-old man who worked in palliative care for a nursing service, was remanded in custody in August on suspicion of murdering four women aged between 72 and 94 and setting fire to their homes.
He said prosecutors in Berlin have now linked the suspect to four more deaths of men and women aged 61 to 83.
Police had said in August that the man was being investigated on four cases of murder, one case of arson and three cases of attempt to arson.
Berlin prosecutors said they are now treating the alleged killings as murder cases.
They accused him of a “lust for murder”, saying, “It appears that the accused had no motive for killing people other than the act of killing himself.”
Police said in August that the man was suspected of killing four female patients in the care of his nursing service in Berlin between June 11 and July 24.
In one case, an 87-year-old woman was revived after emergency services arrived, but later died in hospital.
In the second, the suspect allegedly opened fire but the fire was extinguished.
“When he realized this, he allegedly informed a relative of the woman and claimed that he was standing in front of her flat and no one was answering the doorbell,” police said.
In the four new cases, which cover the period from June 2022 to April 2024, the suspect is accused of murdering two men and two women in Berlin.
In one case, he is suspected of giving a cocktail of drugs to a 70-year-old female patient in her apartment in Berlin’s Tempelhof district and then setting her on fire to conceal his crime.
The fire department, called by a neighbor, was able to stop the flames from spreading to the rest of the building.
He is also accused of giving lethal drugs to two men aged 70 and 83 and a 61-year-old woman.
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