More victims suspected in Oirschot care home deaths

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) suspects that Jelle D. (26), a care worker held on suspicion of involvement in the deaths of two residents of a care home in Oirschot, has probably or possibly claimed more victims. This emerged on Wednesday at a first public hearing at the district court in Den Bosch.

The two deaths under investigation took place on 15 and 19 August. The OM calls the deaths of other residents in the weeks before "very suspicious" and is investigating them.

D. worked as a nurse at the Sint Joris care home, run by Joris Zorg. He was arrested last summer after the unnatural death of one of the residents. The OM then opened an investigation, which uncovered a second death. D. is also a suspect in that case.

D. denies any involvement in the deaths. He told the court the OM has tunnel vision and that he was not the last person to be with the men on the evenings in question. "Something is being pinned on me that I did not do," he said. "There is no evidence, and in half a year there still won't be. I beg you to release me until the case is heard in full."

D. earlier appeared in the television programme De Bondgenoten. The episodes in which he features have been removed from streaming services.

The OM says the two residents who died on 15 and 19 August were men with advanced dementia who did not have diabetes. Puncture marks from insulin injections were found on both, and high concentrations of insulin were measured in their bodies. According to the OM, D. gave both men a fatal overdose of insulin.

The OM says footage shows D. entering the room of the man who died on 15 August on the evening of 14 August, after the resident had been put to bed and staff no longer needed to go in. He leans over the man three times and pushes the blanket aside. The OM says similar footage of the other man was found from a few days later. D. denies any involvement.