(The Daily Star) – A Belgian former nurse and Roman Catholic deacon killed several patients because he was stressed out by personal difficulties including renovations on his house, investigators told his trial Tuesday.
Ivo Poppe, 61, who has been dubbed the “Deacon of Death” by Belgian media, confessed on the first day of his trial to killing up to 20 people.
Poppe either gave his victims at a clinic in Menin, near the French border, the tranquilizer valium or injected air into their veins to cause a fatal embolism.
“Between 10 and 20 – 20 maximum.
That’s approximate but it’s around that number,” Poppe told the court in the scenic northern town of Bruges under initial questioning by the judge Monday, according to transcripts in Belgian newspapers.
“I wanted to end their suffering, these people weren’t really living any more.” CONTINUE