A former French anaesthetist who fatally poisoned 12 patients to ‘exhibit his resuscitation skills’ and ‘feed his thirst for power’ has been jailed for all times.
Frédéric Péchier, 53, has been found guilty of contaminating infusion bags with substances that caused cardiac arrests or hemorrhaging in several patients at two clinics in Besançon.
Prosecutors at a criminal court in Doubs, on the France-Switzerland border, described Dr Péchier as ‘Doctor Death, a poisoner, a murderer’ who ‘brings shame on all doctors.’
They’ve also asserted that he’s ‘one among the best criminals in history’ who ‘used medicine to kill’ and turned the ‘clinic right into a graveyard.’
There have been also regular comparisons with the late British serial killer Harold Shipman – a physician who commonly murdered vulnerable patients using medication.
Dr Péchier is claimed to have introduced potassium, local anaesthetics, adrenaline, or heparin into IV bags, which were then given to patients.
In total, he poisoned 30 child and adult patients, in an alleged try and discredit co-workers between 2008 and 2017.
His youngest alleged victim was four-year-old Teddy who survived two cardiac arrests during a routine tonsil surgery in 2016.
The oldest alleged victim was 89.
An investigation was launched in 2017, after there have been suspicious cardiac arrests during operations on patients otherwise considered low-risk.
The primary case that was looked into involved an otherwise healthy 36-year-old patient who had surgery on her spine, when her heart stopped beating.
Dr Péchier gave her an injection and she or he went right into a coma.
Prosecutors were alarmed when potassium concentrations 100 times higher than the expected dose were present in the intravenous drugs used to treat her.
The primary fatality was 53-year-old Damien Lehlen in October 2008, who died from cardiac arrest during a routine kidney operation.
Tests done after his death found a potentially lethal dose of the drug lidocaine.
Prosecutors said that Dr Péchier was the ‘common denominator’ in all the poisoning cases.
His trial lasted almost 4 months, and involved a series of highly technical hearings, in addition to harrowing testimonies from surviving victims.
He initially claimed that no person had the truth is been poisoned, but then admitted they’d been, but that he was not the killer.
On December 5, there have been tears from the defendant when he described his own suicide attempt in 2021.
He told the court: ‘It was the one technique to forget, and to sleep. Well, I had been drinking.
‘One evening, I did jump out of a window. I used to be hospitalized for 3 months. I used to be in intensive look after a month, but I don’t remember it.
‘I said that for my family, I’d go on. I’d go all of the technique to the tip of the trial. And that’s really what I desired to do. I do know I hurt them loads in 2021.’
During his time as a free man, living at home together with his family, he had used the media to try to clear his name, at one stage appearing on a morning chat show on RTL radio.
The anaesthetist, who previously insisted ‘I’m not a poisoner’ in court, appeared unmoved when the decision was read.
Judge Delphine Thibierge said: ‘You will likely be incarcerated immediately.’
His defence barrister, Randall Schwerdorffer, said there was no ‘irrefutable evidence’ and that his client would appeal the decision.
Dr Péchier was led all the way down to a cell for the primary time on Thursday, after being freed on bail following the beginning of the investigation.
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