A onetime "star anesthetist" in France will spend the rest of his life in prison. A court in Besançon on Thursday handed 53-year-old Frédéric Péchier a life sentence for poisoning 30 patients over nearly a decade, 12 of whom died after suffering cardiac arrest during surgery. The cases, involving patients aged 4 to 89 between 2008 and 2017, largely occurred during operations on people considered low-risk, per CBS News. "You will be incarcerated immediately," the presiding judge told Péchier, who has consistently denied wrongdoing and showed little visible reaction as relatives wept in the courtroom. His lawyer said he will appeal.
Prosecutors called Péchier a serial killer, per the Guardian. "You are Doctor Death, a poisoner, a murderer," they said, per the BBC. They argued the anesthetist tampered with IV bags, adding chemicals like adrenaline, potassium chloride, and an anticoagulant to trigger cardiac arrest or severe bleeding in patients treated by colleagues with whom he was feuding. Prosecutors said he then positioned himself as the rescuer, allegedly seeking to showcase his resuscitation skills and satisfy what they described as a desire for power.
At one clinic where Péchier worked, the average rate for fatal heart attacks under anaesthetic was six times the national average, per the BBC. The youngest victim, 4-year-old Teddy, suffered two cardiac arrests during a routine tonsil operation in 2016 but was revived. Still, "I'm afraid that traces of the poisoning will stay with me all my life," said the boy, now 14, per the Guardian. The poisonings stopped once Péchier was removed. But during the three-month trial, he argued most poisonings were the result of colleague errors. Colleagues, meanwhile, described Péchier as arrogant, manipulative, and convinced he was "the best."
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