Nurse nicknamed 'Angel of Death' admits 'taking selfies with dead patients was wrong' but denies multiple murder charges before Italian judge
Daniela Poggiali, 42, had pictures on her phone of her grinning and laughing next to the bodies of dead patients at a hospital in Lugo, Italy
Has said the pictures were a 'mistake', but blamed a fellow medic for taking what were meant to be 'private' images between the pair
Poggiali was present at 93 deaths in just two years - double that of any other colleague. Suspicious fellow health workers called in police
Officers claim she drip-fed potassium chloride to patients - the chemical used in lethal injections in the U.S.
Poggiali: 'I haven't killed anyone. Rather, I always lived to help others'
Prosecutor said that she is a 'megalomaniac with a God complex'
An Italian nurse branded the 'Angel of Death' has admitted she was 'wrong' to take selfies with dead patients, but has blamed a colleague for the sick images.
Alleged serial killer Daniele Poggiali, 42, has said the shocking pictures were a 'mistake' and were meant to be kept 'private' between her and the fellow female health worker she accuses of taking them.
She told the Corriere della Sera newspaper: 'I was wrong and I recognize that.
'It wasn't my idea but that of my colleague, who took the photos. Also, I never could have imagined they would be circulated.
'It was something private between me and her. Anyhow, it was a mistake.'
If convicted of anywhere near 90 murders, Poggiali - who has been a healthcare worker for 17 years - would go down in history books as the most prolific serial killer nurse in the world.
The current holder of the dubious record is Charles Cullen. He is suspected in up to 400 deaths but only admitted to authorities that he poisoned up to 40 patients during his 16-year nursing career in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
In 2006 he was sentenced to six life sentences for what he claimed they were 'mercy killings'.
Detectives say Poggiali's alleged murders were not a twisted form of euthanasia but the power trip of 'a megalomaniac with a God complex.'
However, Poggiali has no history of mental illness and none of the traits of a psychopath, police said.
To add to the horrific list of accusations, police also suspect she stole cash and belongings from her vulnerable elderly patients as she plotted to kill them because they 'annoyed' her.
Poggiali, who was photographed laughing as she was hauled handcuffed into court last week, claims she is innocent of murder and is the victim of a plot by a colleague with a grudge. She is even suing the hospital for wrongful dismissal.
8 July 2017
A 45-year-old Italian nurse jailed for life for murdering a patient and widely suspected over the deaths of many others at the time has been acquitted on appeal, Italian media reported on Saturday.
Daniela Poggiali was arrested in October 2014 in Lugo, northern Italy, and sentenced to life behind bars in March last year. A court acquitted her on Friday.
Publication in the media of pictures of her smiling next to recently deceased patients had caused uproar in Italy, amid reports that she had given huge doses of drugs to sick patients she found "annoying".
At the emergency room where she worked she was always engaging and tireless with patients' families, but seems cold and unpleasant with colleagues.
And in the first three months of 2014, 38 of the 83 deaths registered in her department occurred when she was on duty, against an average of no more than 10 for her fellow nurses.
At the start of April a series of troubling coincidences alerted the authorities. And when a 78-year-old woman died shortly after being taken care of by the nurse, an investigation was launched.
The autopsy showed that she had been given a massive dose of potassium chloride. Prosecutors said it could not have been a mistake, and Poggiali was the only person who could have given the injection.
Potassium chloride is detectable in the body only for a few days after death, therefore the other suspicious cases raised by prosecutors -- around 10 over a period of a few months -- could not be added to the official file.
But an expert called by Poggiali's lawyers during the trial over the death she was convicted of found that, if the injection had occurred as claimed, the patient would have died in a matter of minutes, and not over an hour as was the case.
"The facts do not stand up," the Bologne appeal court ruled on Friday.
The former nurse was released on Friday evening, after nearly three years behind bars.
"They described me as someone who I am not, and now I am going to be able to get my life back again," she told reporters.
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