Shocking selfies have emerged of a nurse, who allegedly murdered dozens of patients, posing with her thumbs up beside an apparently dead woman.

Italian nurse Daniela Poggiali, from the town of Lugo, in the Emilia-Romagna Region of central Italy, was arrested last month in connection with 38 deaths on her watch, some of which were described by prosecutors as 'very suspicious.'

An autopsy on a 78-year-old woman treated at the hospital near Ravenna in north-east Italy, revealed dangerous and abnormal levels of potassium chloride in her system.

Prosecutors allege Miss Poggiali murdered for pleasure, dosing 'annoying' patients or those with pushy family members with lethal amounts of potassium - which vanishes after 48 hours, making it an effective poison that is hard to detect.

It is the compound used in lethal injection executions in the U.S.

In sickening pictures leaked to the press the 42-year-old is seen grinning next to the seemingly dead body of an elderly woman. She stands over the hospital bed of an unconscious woman giving a thumbs up.

In another snap she is shown in a cruel imitation of an apparently deceased patient by lying next to her with her mouth wide open.

The photos were taken last January by a colleague of Poggiali - who says she was intimidated into doing so.

'She [Poggiali] was particularly euphoric and wanted to have a photo next to the dead body,' the nurse told police, Il Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

'I didn't have the courage to say no, as she is a vindictive person. She used to give laxatives to patients only to make life difficult for nurses on the next shift.'

Both nurses have been sacked. Miss Poggiali denies murder and says the patients were still alive when the pictures were taken.

(Daily Mail)