Ekstra Bladet reports that a 31-year-old nurse has been charged with killing three elderly patients at a hospital in the southern Danish city of Nykøbing Falster, along with the attempted murder of another.
Jury trial
The senior prosecutor from the Copenhagen Public Prosecutor’s office, Steen Saabye, confirmed the news to Ekstra Bladet today.
“She has been charged. It will be a jury trial,” he said.
She has been charged with killing Viggo Holm Petersen, 66, Anna Lise Poulsen, 86, and Arne Herskov, 72.
The case is scheduled for its first hearing on March 11 and its last on June 28.
Damning evidence
The nurse worked at the hospital in question for a handful of years prior to her arrest.
The charges relate to a night-shift at the hospital during which three patients died and another one, Maggi Rasmussen, survived what police believe was an attempted murder.
A colleague of hers testified in August that she had seen the accused trying to inject drugs into a female patient. According to the colleague, the nurse became so agitated at being discovered that she tried to hide the needle in her bosom.
A used needle found by police at the scene was confirmed to have traces of a variety of different drugs that are generally not administered together. Traces of the same drugs were also found in the deceased patients and the one that survived.
Ekstra Bladet also revealed that the woman has been charged with stealing drugs from her workplace as well as possibly drugging her seven-year-old daughter.
A psychiatric evaluation revealed that the woman may suffer from ‘Histrionic disorder’.
