Germany: Ex-nurse convicted of killing 4 at disabled home

BERLIN (AP) — A former nurse at a home for the severely disabled in eastern Germany was convicted of murder and given a 15-year sentence on Wednesday for killing four residents.

The state court in Potsdam ordered the 52-year-old woman sent to a pyschiatric hospital, German news agency dpa reported. She also was convicted of attempted murder and ill-treatment of people in her care.

Judges found that the defendant fatally wounded the four residents, three of whom were completely and one partly paralyzed, with a knife in their rooms on April 28. Another resident survived after an emergency operation.

A psychiatric report found that the woman committed the attack in a state of reduced criminal responsibility, and the defense had called for the court to find that she wasn’t criminally responsible.

The defendant apologized to the victims’ relatives in a closing statement to the trial.