A male nurse named, Niels Hoegel, who was convicted of killing patients in Germany with overdoses of heart medication is now believed to have killed at least 84 people – and the true scale of the killings could be even larger, investigators said.

Niels Hoegel, now 40, was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders at a hospital in the town of Delmenhorst, Germany.

Authorities have subsequently investigated hundreds of deaths, which included exhuming bodies of former patients in the clinics where Hoegel worked in Delmenhorst and Oldenburg in northwest Germany.

Oldenburg police chief Johann Kuehme said authorities have now unearthed evidence of 84 killings in addition to the ones for which Hoegel was convicted.

Hoegel is believed to be a serial killer.

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