• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Swiss nurse admits to killing 25 nursing home patients

Hospital Safety Connection, January 15, 2004

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Hospital Safety Connection!

Investigators concluded January 14 that a Swiss nurse killed at least 24 elderly and home care patients, the Associated Press reports.

The man gave his victims deadly doses of medication or smothered them with a plastic bag or a cloth, authorities in the central state of Lucerne said. The victims, between the ages of 66 and 95, suffered from Alzheimer's disease or were in need of high levels of care.

The deaths occurred between 1995 and 2001 in home care facilities in Lucerne and surrounding areas. Another three deaths were formally classified as assisted suicides; authorities could not establish whether the nurse's actions were the cause of death in those cases.

The 34-year-old man admitted to the killings, saying he acted out of sympathy and pity. He was arrested in June 2001 following a suspicious death in a Lucerne nursing home, and subsequently confessed to nine deaths in that home alone.

Although authorities have yet to officially identify the man, media reports at the time of his arrest named him as Roger Andermatt. Police said he was a Swiss citizen who moved to Germany after his parents' divorce, but returned to Switzerland in 1990 and trained as a nurse assistant.

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Hospital Safety Connection!

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive