German killer nurse murdered ‘90 patients’ 

BERLIN: A male nurse jailed for life two years ago for killing two patients with lethal drug overdoses murdered at least 90 patients in total, police said Monday, calling it post-war Germany’s worst killing spree.

Niels Hoegel, 40, was jailed in February 2015 for two murders and several attempted murders of intensive-care patients at the Delmenhorst hospital near the northern city of Bremen. 

Police said on Monday that investigators exhuming and analysing more bodies had since found evidence of scores of additional murders.

The death toll "is unique in the history of the German republic," said chief police investigator Arne Schmidt, adding that Hoegel killed randomly and preyed especially on those in critical condition. There was "evidence for at least 90 murders, and at least as many suspected cases again that can no longer be proven," he told a press conference, declaring himself "speechless" at the outcome.

Hoegel has admitted to injecting patients with a drug that can cause heart failure or circulatory collapse so he could then try to revive them and, when successful, shine as a saviour before his medical peers.