In 1983, he was convicted of poisoning 22 patients and sentenced to 21 years in prison.
Nesset was born in Trøndelag in 1936 out of wedlock and raised by his mother, living with her throughout his upbringing and adulthood at her childhood home.
[1] During the summer and autumn of 1981, a series of suspicious deaths were uncovered at the Orkdal nursing home that Nesset managed.
When questioned by police, Nesset initially confessed to the murders of 27 patients, whom he claimed to have killed by injecting them with suxamethonium chloride, a drug to paralyze muscles.
[1] The chief prosecutor at his trial, Olaf Jakhelln described Nesset as "an ambitious man, who wanted complete control over life and death [of his victims]."