On July 25, 1998, Christine Malèvre, after attempting to kill herself, confessed to helping about 30 patients to die at François Quesnay Hospital in Mantes-la-Jolie on the outskirts of Paris. Since then nurse Malèvre, 29, has become a symbol for the growing civil movement in France in favour of joining The Netherlands in legalising euthanasia. However, the decision to press murder charges against her follows a psychiatric report which said the nurse had a "morbid fascination" with death and disease. Another report showed that patients were three times as likely to die when Mme Malèvre was on duty.
"The judge has realised that we are dealing with a serial killer more than with a Madonna of euthanasia," Olivier Morice, a lawyer for five patients' families told the newspaper Le Parisien. But Mme Malèvre, who recanted her first confession and now admits to only four cases, has received 5,000 letters of support.
The deaths date back to January 1997. Her alleged victims, aged between 72 and 88, were all in the terminal phase of incurable lung diseases, and had apparently been put to death at their own request or that of relatives. None of the patients' families has pressed charges. The sources said the nurse was questioned as the result of an inquiry by hospital officials surprised at the abnormal number of deaths in the pneumology department of the hospital.