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Niels Hoegel admitted to having committed 43 murders with certainty. (Representation)
The man accused of being Germany's most prolific serial killer in the postwar period was known to his colleagues as a "nice boy" who had not attracted much suspicion until he not started his killing.
According to the verdict expected Thursday, prosecutors said that Niels Hoegel, 42, a second-generation caregiver, was drunk on his sick patients, whom he had randomly selected by "boredom".
Hoegel admitted to injecting patients with drugs that lead to heart failure or circulatory collapse, to try to revive them and, if successful, to shine as a savior in front of his peers and superiors.
The dangerous game has left at least about 100 patients dead, according to the charges against him. However, police say the actual number could be over 200.
The current lawsuit is Hoegel's third since 2015 in relation to the deaths in the clinics where he worked.
He had been convicted in two previous trials and sentenced to 15 years in prison, but investigators continued to undergo toxicology tests on dozens of exhumed bodies.
Hoegel admitted to having committed 43 murders with certainty, but said that he had serious memory problems in dozens of other cases.
He apologized to the families of his victims during a long testimony.
"If I knew a way to help you, then I'd take it, believe me," Hoegel said as his trial began in November.
"I am fully convinced now that I owe an explanation to each parent. Honestly, I am sorry."
• Pretty normal & # 39;
The local daily Nordwest Zeitung is immersed in a character study of the defendant whose crimes have stunned the country.
Speaking to his former teachers and clbadmates, "friendly", "helpful" and "funny" were words that kept coming back to describe him.
"This is by no means a marginal one," said another person who had known him since adolescence.
A teacher called him "a rather normal student" who was more interested in football than in his clbades.
Born on December 30, 1972 in the coastal town of Wilhelmshaven, Hoegel grew up in a Catholic family which he described as "warm and stable".
At 16, he began his training as a nurse at the main hospital in his hometown, his father's vocation.
He failed to make a strong impression, but his colleagues and superiors remember him as "kind" during the few years spent at the clinic.
The truffled picture of what could become a so-called killing frenzy in the years 2000 to 2005, when he deliberately caused heart failure in several dozens of patients before trying to save them, the more often without success.
According to the depositions, he asked two trainee nurses that he was trying to impress to monitor him during such a rescue attempt.
Prosecutors say that he was motivated by professional vanity but also, quite often, by "boredom".
& # 39; Rambo Resuscitation & # 39;
Hoegel "acted out of pride," said the judge who found him guilty in 2015, adding that he "had used people as pawns".
"A sad guy who gave himself the powers of God," said Christian Marbach, whose grandfather was killed by Hoegel.
In a 200-page personality badessment, psychiatrist Konstantin Karyofilis stated that Hoegel had not seen his patients as "individuals". Another report identified a "serious narcissistic disorder".
The facade of the "kind boy" was broken in a hospital in Oldenburg, in the north of the country, where he started working in 1999.
The clinic had a good reputation, but Hoegel felt overwhelmed by work and started drinking a lot as he sank deeper into depression, with a panicked fear of his own death.
Emergency resuscitation and deaths began to skyrocket under his supervision at the hospital.
Hoegel has earned a reputation for being a little jinx and his colleagues have tried to avoid working with him.
He was encouraged to move on to something else in 2002, with a positive recommendation from management to ensure his early departure.
Despite the curious number of patients who died under his care, no internal investigation was opened against him.
Hoegel, who eventually married and had a daughter, was allowed to continue the carnage in the nearby town of Delmenhorst, where his colleagues dubbed him "Rambo Resuscitation".
Until he was caught in the act in June 2005.
When he managed to revive a patient, he was satiated but only a few days later, Karyofilis said, "For him, it was like a drug."
(With the exception of the title, this story was not changed by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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