A former French anaesthetist who fatally poisoned 12 patients to ‘show off his resuscitation skills’ and ‘feed his thirst for power’ has been jailed for life.
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 have also asserted that he is ‘one of the greatest criminals in history’ who ‘used medicine to kill’ and turned the ‘clinic into a graveyard.’
There were also regular comparisons with the late British serial killer Harold Shipman – a doctor who regularly murdered vulnerable patients using medication.
Dr Péchier is said 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 attempt to discredit co-workers between 2008 and 2017.
His youngest alleged victim was four-year-old Tedy Hoerter-Tarby.
In a note read out in court, Tedy wrote: ‘The years have passed – today I’m almost 14.
‘I understand that someone used me and my own life to achieve their goals – I was poisoned to create problems.’
On February 22, 2016, Tedy’s heart stopped for no apparent reason as he was about to have his tonsils removed.
There were 25 minutes of emergency resuscitation, and Tedy spent two days in a coma.
Tedy’s father, Hervé Hoerter Tarby, told the court: ‘I can still see his mother on her knees at the foot of his bed, crying her heart out, praying all she could, for her little boy to wake up.’
All the experts and doctors heard by the court confirmed that only malicious intent could have explained the cardiac arrest.
Tedy’s father said: ‘Targeting a child? It’s vile, inhuman.’
Prosecutor Christine de Curraize told him: ‘It’s an outrage. Poisoning had become a way of life, and a way to get revenge on those who thwarted him, often in trivial, even imperceptible ways.’
Another victim, Laurence Nicod, 50, injured her shoulder in a skiing accident and her operation was supposed to be a formality, but she was murdered before it took place.
The oldest alleged victim of Dr Péchier was 89.
An investigation was launched in 2017, after there were suspicious cardiac arrests during operations on patients otherwise considered low-risk.
The first 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 went into a coma.
Prosecutors were alarmed when potassium concentrations 100 times higher than the expected dose were found in the intravenous drugs used to treat her.
The first 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 of the poisoning cases.
His trial lasted almost four months, and involved a series of highly technical hearings, as well as harrowing testimonies from surviving victims.
He initially claimed that nobody had in fact been poisoned, but then admitted they had been, but that he was not the killer.
On December 5, there were tears from the defendant when he described his own suicide attempt in 2021.
He told the court: ‘It was the only way to forget, and to sleep. Well, I had been drinking.
‘One evening, I did jump out of a window. I was hospitalized for three months. I was in intensive care for a month, but I don’t remember it.
‘I said that for my family, I would go on. I would go all the way to the end of the trial. And that’s really what I wanted to do. I know I hurt them a lot in 2021.’
During his time as a free man, living at home with his family, he had used the media to try and 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 verdict was read.
Judge Delphine Thibierge said: ‘You will be incarcerated immediately.’
His defence barrister, Randall Schwerdorffer, said there was no ‘irrefutable evidence’ and that his client would appeal the verdict.
Dr Péchier was led down to a cell for the first time on Thursday, after being freed on bail following the start of the investigation.
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