A 27-year-old ambulance driver is currently under criminal investigation in the northern Italian city of Forlì over suspicions that he murdered at least five elderly patients while transporting them, according to a spokesman from the local prosecutor’s office.
Authorities said the victims were elderly individuals suffering from serious illnesses who required non-emergency ambulance transport between their homes or nursing facilities and hospitals or clinics.
Each of the five patients reportedly suffered cardiac arrest during or shortly after being transported.
Suspicion reportedly arose within the ambulance service after four patients who had been carried in the driver’s ambulance died between February and November 2025.
Concerned by the pattern, the service worked with the Carabinieri police force to install a hidden camera and recording devices inside the rear compartment of the vehicle.
Later that same month, another patient, an 85-year-old woman, died while being transported from a cardiac hospital to a rehabilitation center.
According to a spokesman for the Carabinieri, she suffered cardiac arrest during the journey and was pronounced dead while still inside the ambulance.
Officials subsequently conducted an autopsy on the woman, which prompted the case to be formally transferred to prosecutors for further investigation, the prosecutor’s office spokesman told CNN.
The driver, whose identity has not been officially disclosed and who has not been arrested, was part of a two-person ambulance crew responsible for alternating between driving the non-emergency vehicle and providing care to patients during transport.
According to his defense lawyer, Gloria Parigi, he had been employed by the ambulance service since 2023.
Parigi confirmed that her client has been suspended from his duties.
“He is shocked by what is emerging,” she told local media. “He proclaims his innocence in a matter that has turned his life upside down. He has made himself available to the judicial authorities because he has nothing to hide. This is why he has requested a hearing by the prosecutor’s office.”
Investigators said all five deaths occurred either during transportation or shortly afterward, while the suspect was attending to the patients in the back of the ambulance, according to the Carabinieri spokesman.
“The deaths may have occurred by means of poisonous substances or other insidious means,” the prosecutor’s spokesman said, adding that the suspect could be charged with voluntary multiple homicide this week.
