The Berlin state court has found the 41-year-old palliative doctor, identified under German privacy laws as Johannes M., guilty of the premeditated murder of 15 of his patients. Magistrates sentenced him to life in prison without parole due to the “particularly serious nature of the crime“, and a lifetime ban from practicing medicine. [1, 2, 3]
The investigation proved that between September 2021 and July 2024, during home visits, the doctor deliberately injected a lethal cocktail of anesthetic and muscle relaxant into 12 women and three men aged between 25 and 94. The drugs paralyzed the victims' respiratory muscles, causing suffocation and death within minutes. In at least five of the cases, the medic even set fire to the deceased's apartments to cover up his crimes. [1]
The presiding Judge Sylvia Busch described the defendant as a classic "serial killer" and stressed that his motives were not compassion or euthanasia, but pure "lust for power and murder". At the very end of the trial, Johannes M. made a partial confession and stated that he was "despairing of himself", assuring that he thought he was saving people suffering. However, the prosecutor's office announced that the investigation is continuing in full force - currently 76 more suspicious deaths are being investigated under his supervision, which could turn the case into one of the largest mass murders in German history.