German prosecutors are investigating more than 120 additional suspected cases involving a former nurse already convicted of murdering 10 patients, the authorities said on Monday.
Prosecutors in the western German city of Aachen have so far ordered 39 exhumations, a spokeswoman told dpa, while prosecutors in Cologne have had seven bodies exhumed.
The Aachen regional court sentenced the former nurse to life in prison last November for 10 murders and 27 attempted murders. It also found the crime to be of particular severity, which generally rules out release after 15 years.
According to the court, the German nurse administered excessive doses of sedatives to seriously ill patients during night shifts at a hospital in the town of Würselen just outside Aachen, sometimes combined with painkillers and in some cases repeatedly. He said in court that he rejected the allegations.
The convicted offences took place between December 2023 and May 2024. The latest investigations concern suspected killings before that period.
The man had worked at the Würselen hospital since 2020, and investigators are currently looking back as far as September 2022. More cases could be uncovered, prosecutors said.
Aachen prosecutors had already said after the conviction that they were likely to bring further charges. A timeline was not yet clear, but prosecutors expected this to happen sometime next year, the spokeswoman said.
Cologne prosecutors are also investigating suspected killings because the man worked at a hospital there until 2020. The investigation is highly complex and will take considerable time, a spokesman said.