Johannes M., a 41-year-old palliative care doctor in Germany, was sentenced to life imprisonment on July 8, 2025, for killing 15 patients during home visits from September 2021 to July 2024 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. The court also banned him from practicing medicine and ordered preventive detention to follow his prison sentence [1, 2, 3, 5, 6].
The victims included 12 women and 3 men aged between 25 and 94 years old [1, 2, 3, 7]. Johannes M. administered lethal doses of an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant, causing rapid respiratory muscle paralysis and death within minutes [2, 3, 5, 6]. Only one victim was terminally ill; others were seriously ill but not imminently dying [1, 8, 9].
In an attempt to conceal his crimes, Johannes M. set fires at victims’ homes at least five times. In July 2024, shortly before his arrest, he killed two patients in one day—a 75-year-old man and a 76-year-old woman—and tried unsuccessfully to set fire to the woman’s residence [1, 2, 5, 6].
The trial lasted about a year, during which the doctor remained mostly silent until June 2025, when he confessed to 12 of the murders in court. He said he believed he was sparing suffering patients but now feels despair over his actions, stating, “Throughout it all, I thought this was the best thing for everyone” and later, “I despair at myself” [1, 2, 3, 8, 5, 6].
Relatives of the victims testified that none expressed a wish to die. A mother said of her 25-year-old daughter, “She never said she didn't want to live anymore,” while a son said his 72-year-old mother “wanted to keep on living” [1].
An expert assessment found Johannes M. had full criminal responsibility and concluded the killings may have been driven more by a desire for power than compassion [2, 8, 5, 9]. Prosecutors accused him of having "no other motive... than the act of killing itself, displaying a lust for murder" [5].
The presiding judge, Sylvia Busch, called the case “an unfathomable and extraordinary” tragedy involving a serial killer. She said the conviction for 15 murders “may well be only a glimpse of his many crimes” [2, 5]. The investigation has implicated 76 additional suspected victims, and prosecutors continue to evaluate those cases [1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 5, 6, 9].
The case involved testimony from over 200 witnesses as authorities built their case against Johannes M. [8, 9]. His arrest followed an investigation triggered by caregiving agencies noticing irregularities [7, 6].
