THANKS to his kind bedside manner, Johannes M was considered the “best doctor in the world” by his devoted patients.
But their loved ones now face the horrific possibility that he wasn’t caring for his terminally ill charges – he was killing them.
Johannes M has now been charged with 15 counts of murder. His identity is obscured by the German authorities
NF/News XThe burning scene of one of his alleged killings in Berlin. The GP is accused of trying to cover his killing spree by setting fires[/caption]
AFPJohannes M’s court-appointed lawyers, (l-r) Klaudia Dawidowicz, Ria Halbritter and Christoph Stoll[/caption]
Police believe Dr M, 40, used a deadly cocktail of sedatives to asphyxiate them and, in some cases, destroyed evidence by torching their homes.
But officers remain baffled by his motives and suspect the GP simply relished his role as “the master of life and death”.
In a trial currently gripping Germany, Dr M – dubbed ‘Dr Death’ by the country’s media – is accused of being the country’s very own Harold Shipman.
He is accused of murdering 15 patients – 12 women and three men –aged from 25 to 94.
But just like Shipman, who was also accused– and convicted – of 15 murders, Dr M’s true tally of victims is feared to be far higher.
Investigators believe he could be responsible for at least 90 murders as they trawl through the records of 395 deaths which occurred on his watch.
If that proves to be the case, that would make him Germany’s – and one of the world’s – most prolific serial killers.
In a chilling twist, his alleged killing spree began nearly a decade after he wrote his doctoral thesis on the deaths of elderly people, in which he concluded: “Killings of dependent care patients are not easy to prove.”
After completing his medical degree at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Dr M took his first medical post in the city before moving to Cologne and then to Berlin, where he settled with his wife and their child.
In early 2024, he started a job with the newly formed palliative care team of a mobile nursing service based in the south of Berlin.
His new colleagues were impressed by his caring manner and dedication to his patients.
One woman he worked with said: “He seems like someone you just have to love.”
The palliative care physician liked to introduce himself to patients by saying: “I am the chubby doctor with the curly hair.”
He was such a hit that colleagues were soon speculating that he could end up as the boss of the unit, but within months, senior staff began to notice a disturbing trend.
AlamyM denies all the charges but has yet to utter a word in his defence at the Berlin trial[/caption]
GettyIt is claimed he used a deadly cocktail of sedatives to asphyxiate victims[/caption]
AFPThe courtroom has been packed to hear the case[/caption]
Victim jabbed with anaesthetic
It wasn’t that unusual for patients under any of their doctors’ care to die, as they were all terminally ill.
What was strange was the number of his patients’ homes that went up in flames on the day they died, sometimes with him still at the scene.
In June last year, he was attending an elderly patient called Ursula Tzschökel at her home in a five-storey apartment block on the corner of Niemetzstraße and Braunschweigerstraße in a southern district of Berlin.
Shocked locals noticed smoke coming from the 87-year-old’s flat and then spotted Dr M allegedly running out of the building.
Paramedics who raced to the scene found Mrs Tzschökel unconscious and lying face down in her hallway.
They resuscitated her, but she died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
He seemed like a completely normal guy.
Local at the scene
A businessman who runs a kiosk on the ground floor of the building and who spoke to Dr M as firefighters arrived at the scene told The Sun: “He had his backpack on and said: ‘That’s my patient in there.’
“He seemed like a completely normal guy.”
A few weeks later Dr M was called to another patient, 94-year-old Karin Hochmuth, who lived less than a mile away.
She was severely ill with cancer but still lived independently and had no suicidal thoughts, according to her family.
Her son said she loved watching sport on television and was looking forward to the Paris Olympics, which were due to start in a fortnight.
Her daughter-in-law added: “She was tough and cheerful, despite her illness. She was always very lively.”
Shortly before 6pm on July 15, neighbours heard her smoke alarm go off.
Unable to get any response at the door, they called 112 – Germany’s 999 – and alerted the fire service.
Firefighters wearing breathing equipment forced open the door and found Mrs Hochmuth lying on her kitchen floor with her walking stick next to her.
Paramedics tried to resuscitate her without success, and medical tests later revealed why – she had been injected with anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant which triggered fatal respiratory arrest.
Back at the head office for the mobile nursing service, Dr M’s recent record was sounding alarm bells.
Nora Meierkord, medical director of the palliative care team, said, “Between January and August 2024, we couldn’t keep up with the deaths. I no longer believed in coincidences.”
She called in the police, and Dr M was arrested on August 5, 2024, at Berlin Brandenburg Airport as he returned from a summer holiday with his wife and child.
Case grips nation
Detectives began exhuming patients who had not been cremated as they trawled through hundreds of medical files.
He was eventually charged with 15 murders, although the investigation into the care of many other patients continues.
In a 247-page indictment, the prosecution says there is a “particular severity of guilt,” and is calling for a life sentence with a minimum of 15 years.
Sebastian Büchner, of the Berlin Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, said: “It was striking that palliative patients had died, and in five of these cases, there was also suspected arson.
“Investigators determined that the doctor was always the same person.”
His trial is taking place in Courtroom A 700 in the grand Berlin Regional Court, where 150 witnesses will give evidence in a case set to last until next March.
The courtroom has been packed with journalists, lawyers and grieving relatives, all gripped by the proceedings.
He acted with disregard for life … and behaved as the master of life and death.
Philipp Meyhöfer
For his part, Dr M mostly appears disinterested, although his attention is piqued whenever discussion turns to technical medical matters.
Prosecutor Philipp Meyhöfer told the three judges trying the case that the doctor arranged house calls with the intention of killing his patients “without their knowledge or consent” using “a deadly mix of various medications”.
He added: “He acted with disregard for life … and behaved as the master of life and death.”
Dr M denies all the charges but has yet to utter a word in his defence.
He declined the opportunity to give a statement to the court at the start of the trial, as defendants can do in Germany.
And when The Sun approached his lawyer Christoph Stoll to discuss the case, he also refused to comment, and said he wouldn’t be doing so “as long as my client doesn’t want to speak”.
So, for now, the relatives of his victims who attend every court hearing will have to wait for an explanation for his alleged actions.
But one clue did emerge during the trial when colleagues revealed there had been a discussion at work about euthanasia, which is a grey area in Germany.
A patient is allowed to request assisted suicide, but it is illegal for a doctor to administer a lethal substance.
Bosses at the palliative care unit told staff in no uncertain terms: “We reject physician-assisted suicide.”
It appeared that Dr M agreed with that stance, but his trial heard that he allegedly later confided in one colleague: “I’ll do what I want.”
Who was Harold Shipman?
HAROLD Shipman was convicted in 2000 of murdering 15 women patients aged 49-81 while a GP in Hyde, Greater Manchester.
He injected them with fatal doses of diamorphine but never gave any explanation as to why he killed them.
His motive remains unclear but the most common theory is that he enjoyed playing the role of God, exercising the power of life and death over people.
A public inquiry estimated he killed 250 of his patients between 1971 and 1998.
Shipman, nicknamed ‘Dr Death’ just like Dr M in Germany, is the only British doctor to have ever been convicted of murdering his patients.
He hanged himself in his cell at Wakefield prison – dubbed Monsters’ Mansion because of the evil killers and rapists held there – in January 2004 aged 57.
AlamyDr.Harold Frederick Shipman was an English GP who is believed to be the most prolific serial killer in modern history[/caption]
AFPLawyer Christoph Stoll, right, refused to comment on the case[/caption]
YouTubeSebastian Büchner of the Berlin Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, called the case ‘striking’[/caption]
German cops arrested the GP after a series of suspicious firesAP / File pic Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
