Dutch monk may have killed psychiatric patients in 1950s

June 28, 2012

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Thirty-seven boys who died in the early 1950s in a Dutch psychiatric hospital run by the Catholic Church were probably killed by a monk in charge of their care, prosecutors said on Thursday.

It was the latest in a string of scandals to hit the church in the Netherlands, where an independent commission found last year up to 20,000 minors were sexually abused in Catholic orphanages, boarding schools and seminaries between 1945 and 1981.

In a report released on Thursday, prosecutors said the boys who died between 1952 and 1954 in St Joseph's psychiatric hospital in the southeastern town of Heel had likely been given morphine overdoses by Brother Andreas. the rest

Multiple deaths at boys’ home were no accident