Niels Högel, a former nurse in Germany, confessed that he killed more than 4 dozen patients, and during his case hearing, after pleading guilty of murdering 85 people, the Judge sentenced him to life in prison and called his crimes as “incomprehensible”.
Högel is considered as the most prolific serial killer in peacetime Germany, and many consider him as the most prolific serial killer in the world.
The 42-year-old murdered patients who he selected at random by injecting lethal injections from 2000 to 2005.
Högel has already spent a decade inside the prison, he was serving his previous life sentence that he received for murdering 6 other people.
The police believe that Högel may have killed more than 200 people.
But the court could not conclude this because of the gaps in Högel’s memory and because most of the victims were cremated before doctors could perform autopsies.
Sebastian Bührmann, the Judge of the case, said “Despite all of our attempts, we could only lift part of the fog.”
During a trial that began in October 2018, Högel was accused of killing 100 people. But, he was cleared of only 14 counts and Högel himself confessed to 43 murders.
Before Thursday’s hearing, Högel asked for forgiveness, he said, “I want to apologize wholeheartedly to every single one of you for what I have done over the years.”
Over the course of his trial, Högel said that he realized the amount of suffering his “terrible deeds” had caused.
Högel was caught in 2005, he was injecting an unprescribed medication into a patient in Delmenhorst.
After 3 years, Högel was sentenced to serve 7 years in prison for attempted murder.
His second trial started in 2014.
Högel was found guilty of murder and attempted murder of 5 other victims and the judge gave him a maximum sentence of 15 years, which is called as a life sentence in Germany.