Berlin’s regional court opened proceedings on 14 July against 40-year-old palliative care physician Johannes M., who is accused of murdering 15 patients while making home visits in the German capital. Prosecutors say the doctor injected a sedative followed by a muscle relaxant that paralysed the respiratory system, killing 12 women and three men aged between 25 and 94 from September 2021 to July 2024. In at least five cases he allegedly set the victims’ homes on fire to destroy evidence. Investigators are examining a further 96 deaths—among them the defendant’s mother-in-law—and warn the confirmed cases may represent only part of Germany’s largest suspected medical serial killing since the post-war period. The indictment describes the physician as having acted as a “master over life and death”. The prosecution is seeking a life sentence with a finding of particularly serious guilt, subsequent preventive detention and a lifetime ban on practising medicine. The defendant remained silent at the start of the trial. Thirty-five court dates are scheduled through 28 January 2026, and 13 relatives of the deceased have joined the case as co-plaintiffs.