A nurse dubbed the ‘angel of death’ who killed 100 patients has told victims’ families ‘If there was a way to help you, I would do it’ as he addressed them in court today.
Speaking at a court in the north western German city of Oldenburg, Niels Hoegel said he was now convinced he owed an answer to the relatives of each victim.
The 41-year-old had earlier told the court he initially was not moved by the killings, which occurred over a decade ago at two hospitals in northern Germany.
Niels Hoegel, a nurse dubbed the ‘angel of death’ who killed 100 patients, has told victims’ families ‘If there was a way to help you, I would do it’ as he addressed them in court today (pictured)
Speaking at a court in the north western German city of Oldenburg, Niels Hoegel (left, entering court today) said he was now convinced he owed an answer to the relatives of each victim
The 41-year-old (pictured, today) had earlier told the court he initially was not moved by the killings, which occurred over a decade ago at two hospitals in northern Germany
He was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders for intentionally bringing about cardiac crises by injecting patients with medication because he enjoyed being able to resuscitate them.
‘If I knew a way that would help you, then I would take it, believe me,’ Niels Hoegel said at his trial, according to national news agency DPA.
‘I am fully convinced now that I owe every relative an explanation,’ said the bearded, heavyset defendant.
‘I am honestly sorry.’
Hoegel, Germany’s worst post-war serial killer, has already spent nearly a decade in prison on a life term for six other patient deaths but has now admitted to 100 more killings.
He has confessed to giving patients drug overdoses because he enjoyed the thrill of trying to reanimate them at the last moment.
Hoegel, Germany’s worst post-war serial killer, has already spent nearly a decade in prison on a life term for six other patient deaths but has now admitted to 100 more killings
He has confessed to giving patients drug overdoses because he enjoyed the thrill of trying to reanimate them at the last moment
Prosecutors say he was motivated by vanity, to show off his skills at saving human lives, and by simple ‘boredom’.
At the start of the trial last month in the northern city of Oldenburg, presiding judge Sebastian Buehrmann said the main aim was to establish the full scope of the murder spree that was allowed to go unchecked for years at two German hospitals.
Prosecutors say at least 36 patients were killed at a hospital in Oldenburg where he worked, and about 64 more at a clinic in nearby Delmenhorst, between 2000 and 2005.
More than 130 bodies of patients who died on Hoegel’s watch have been exhumed, in a case investigators have called ‘unprecedented in Germany to our knowledge’.
Investigators say the final toll could top 200 but fear they might never know because the bodies of many possible victims were cremated.