Berlin doctor detained for killing 4 elderly female patients in their homes

A 39-year-old doctor has been detained in Berlin on suspicion of four counts of manslaughter, police said on Wednesday.

The man, who works for a nursing service, is alleged to have killed four female patients in their homes in June, according to the Berlin police and public prosecutor’s office.

Police said the doctor, a specialist in palliative care, was brought before a magistrate earlier on Tuesday after being taken into custody. He was also alleged to have attempted to cover up the offences with arson, successfully starting fires in three of the flats.

The four victims were between 72 and 94 years old, police said. It is currently unclear how they were killed.

One 87-year-old woman was resuscitated by emergency services but later died in hospital. In one case, the man is alleged to have killed a 76-year-old woman in her flat in the Berlin district of Neukölln. He then failed to set fire to her apartment, before informing her relatives that he could not get in as she was not answering the doorbell.

The man is not the only doctor to have been detained in Berlin in recent months. In April, a former cardiologist at Berlin’s Charité hospital was convicted of killing two seriously ill patients with lethal overdoses in 2021 and 2022, according to the Berlin Regional Court.