BERLIN – German investigators suspect a Berlin doctor of killing eight elderly patients under his care, and setting fire to some of their homes to cover up his crimes, prosecutors said yesterday.

The unnamed suspect, 40, who worked in palliative care for a nursing service, was remanded in custody in August on suspicion of killing four women, aged 72 to 94.

Prosecutors in Berlin have now linked the suspect to four more deaths of men and women aged between 61 and 83.

Police in August said the man was being investigated on four counts of manslaughter, one count of arson, and three counts of attempted arson. The prosecutors said they were now treating the alleged killings as murder cases. “The accused appears to have had no motive for killing the people other than the act of killing itself,” they said, accusing him of a “lust for murder”.

Police in August said the man was suspected of killing four female patients in the care of his nursing service in Berlin between 11 June and 24 July.

In one case, an 87-year-old woman was resuscitated after emergency services arrived, but died later in hospital.

In another, the suspect allegedly started a blaze, but the fire went out.

“When he realised this, he allegedly informed a relative of the woman, claiming that he was standing in front of her flat, and that nobody was answering the doorbell,” police said. In the four new cases, which date back from June 2022 to April 2024, the suspect is accused of killing two men and two women in Berlin. In one case, he is suspected of administering a cocktail of medications to a 70-year-old female patient in her apartment in Berlin’s Tempelhof district, and then starting a fire to cover up his crime. The fire department, called by a neighbour, was able to prevent the flames from spreading to the rest of the building.

– Nampa/AFP