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Prosecutors expect to charge German nurse with more killings

FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2014 file photo former nurse Niels Hoegel accused of multiple murder and attempted murder of patients, stands in the court room wearing handcuffs and covering his face with a file at the district court in Oldenburg, Germany. Niels Hoegel., accused of multiple murder and attempted murder of patients, covering his face with a file at the district court in Oldenburg, Germany. German authorities say Monday Aug. 28, 2017 they now believe that a nurse who was convicted of killing patients with overdoses of heart medication killed at least 84 people. Niels Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders at a clinic in the northwestern town of Delmenhorst.  Oldenburg police chief Johann Kuehme said Monday authorities have now unearthed evidence of 84 killings.  (Ingo Wagner/dpa via AP)
FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2014 file photo former nurse Niels Hoegel accused of multiple murder and attempted murder of patients, stands in the court room wearing handcuffs and covering his face with a file at the district court in Oldenburg, Germany. Niels Hoegel., accused of multiple murder and attempted murder of patients, covering his face with a file at the district court in Oldenburg, Germany. German authorities say Monday Aug. 28, 2017 they now believe that a nurse who was convicted of killing patients with overdoses of heart medication killed at least 84 people. Niels Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders at a clinic in the northwestern town of Delmenhorst. Oldenburg police chief Johann Kuehme said Monday authorities have now unearthed evidence of 84 killings. (Ingo Wagner/dpa via AP) FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2014 file photo former nurse Niels Hoegel accused of multiple murder and attempted murder of patients, stands in the court room wearing handcuffs and covering his face with a file at the district court in Oldenburg, Germany. Niels Hoegel., accused of multiple murder and attempted murder of patients, covering his face with a file at the district court in Oldenburg, Germany. German authorities say Monday Aug. 28, 2017 they now believe that a nurse who was convicted of killing patients with overdoses of heart medication killed at least 84 people. Niels Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders at a clinic in the northwestern town of Delmenhorst. Oldenburg police chief Johann Kuehme said Monday authorities have now unearthed evidence of 84 killings. (Ingo Wagner/dpa via AP)

BERLIN (AP) – German prosecutors say they expect to bring new charges against a male nurse already serving a life sentence for two murders after determining that he might have killed another 84 patients, if not more.

Oldenburg state prosecutor Martin Koziolek said Tuesday he expected his office would be bringing more charges by early 2018 against inmate Niels Hoegel. Additional convictions could affect Hoegel’s possibility of parole, but there are no consecutive sentences in Germany.

Hoegel, now 40, was convicted in 2015 of two murders at a hospital in the northwestern town of Delmenhorst.

As part of a wider investigation that included a second hospital in Oldenburg, authorities said Monday they’d unearthed evidence of 84 additional suspected murders, and were awaiting toxicology results on 41 other fatalities.