Elizabeth Wettlaufer
Born
Elizabeth Mae Parker

(1967-06-10) June 10, 1967
Zorra, Ontario, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Other namesBeth Parker
Betty Weston
EducationLondon Baptist Bible College (BA)
Conestoga College
(RN diploma)
Criminal statusIncarcerated
Spouse
Donnie Wettlaufer
​
​
(m. 1997; sep. 2007)​
[1]
Conviction(s)Murder
Attempted murder
Aggravated assault
Criminal chargeMurder
Attempted murder
Aggravated assault
PenaltyLife imprisonment (eligible for parole in 2041)
Details
Victims14 (8 killed, 6 attempted)
Span of crimes
2007–2016
CountryCanada
Location(s)Southwestern Ontario
Target(s)Elderly patients
WeaponsInsulin injection
Date apprehended
October 25, 2016

Elizabeth Tracy Mae "Bethe" Wettlaufer[2] (née Parker; born June 10, 1967)[3] is a convicted Canadian serial killer and former registered nurse who confessed to murdering eight senior citizens and attempting to murder six others in southwestern Ontario between 2007 and 2016.[4] With a total of 14 victims either killed or injured by her actions, she is described as one of the worst serial killers in Canadian history.[1]

Early life

Elizabeth Wettlaufer was born and raised in Zorra Township, a rural community near Woodstock, Ontario.[1] Growing up in a staunchly Baptist household,[5] she went on to earn a bachelor's degree in religious education counseling from London Baptist Bible College after graduating from Huron Park Secondary School in the mid-1980s. Wettlaufer then studied nursing at Conestoga College.[6]

Career

In 2007, Wettlaufer was hired onto the staff at Caressant Care, a long-term care home in Woodstock. She was initially regarded by co-workers as caring and professional. However, throughout her tenure, Wettlaufer struggled with substance abuse and alcoholism. She faced accusations of showing up to work drunk, and at one point was found passed out in the facility's basement during the night shift. Wettlaufer was suspended four times for "medication-related errors", then was finally fired in March 2014 over a "serious" incident in which she gave the wrong medication to a patient.[7]

After leaving Caressant Care, Wettlaufer had difficulty holding down a job. She was hired by the Meadow Park Care Center in London, but lost this job after checking herself into a drug rehab facility in Niagara. She took various temp jobs at other care homes. Wettlaufer admitted to a neighbour that she was fired from one of these jobs for stealing medication, and was fired from another job for making a medication error while high that nearly resulted in the death of a patient.[7] She also wrote poetry about her desire to kill.[8]

Murders and assaults

While she was a nurse at Caressant Care, Wettlaufer began injecting some of the patients she cared for with insulin. In some cases, the amount was not enough to kill the patient; she was charged with, and confessed to, aggravated assault or attempted murder for those cases. Wettlaufer's first assaults occurred sometime between June 25 and December 31, 2007. She confessed that she injected sisters Clotilde Adriano (age 87) and Albina Demedeiros (88) with insulin. While they later died, their deaths were not attributed to Wettlaufer. She confessed to two counts of aggravated assault.[9]

The first case in which Wettlaufer injected a patient with enough insulin to directly cause death was on August 11, 2007, when she murdered James Silcox (84), a World War II veteran and father of six. Through March 2014, Wettlaufer also murdered the following patients at Caressant Care:

  • Maurice "Moe" Granat (84)
  • Gladys Millard (87)
  • Helen Matheson (95)
  • Mary Zurawinski (96)
  • Helen Young (90)
  • Maureen Pickering (79)

While at Caressant Care, Wettlaufer also injected Michael Priddle (63) and Wayne Hedges (57) "with intent to murder". She confessed to two counts of attempted murder in these cases. She left employment at Caressant Care in 2014, but in part-time work at other facilities and at patients' homes, she injected three more people with insulin:

  • Killed Arpad Horvath (75) at Meadow Park facility in London, Ontario
  • Injected Sandra Towler (77) "with intent to murder" at a retirement home in Paris, Ontario
  • Injected Beverly Bertram (68) "with intent to murder" at a private residence in Ingersoll, Ontario

Confession, arrest, and conviction

Wettlaufer entered an inpatient drug rehabilitation program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), a psychiatric hospital in Toronto, on September 16, 2016.[5] There, she confessed to CAMH staff about killing or attempting to kill her patients, leading to CAMH notifying the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) and the Toronto Police Service.[6] She then emailed CNO to resign as a registered nurse because she had "deliberately harmed patients in [her] care and [was] now being investigated by the police for same", personally called an investigator from CNO, and had CAMH staff fax a four-page handwritten confession.[5] Wettlaufer had confessed to killing patients several times prior to her confession at CAMH, including to a lawyer who advised her to keep it a secret, and was not reported to police.[10] After providing police with a two-hour-long confession, she was formally charged with the eight murders on October 25. After further investigation, she was also charged with four counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault on January 13, 2017. Wettlaufer waived her right to a preliminary hearing and confessed to all charges in court on June 1. On June 26, she was sentenced to eight concurrent life terms in prison, with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

In her confession, Wettlaufer admitted that she "knew the difference between right and wrong" but she was visited by "surges" she could not control. She said, "God or the devil or whatever, wanted me to do it." After one murder, she felt "the surging ... And then [heard her own] laughter afterwards, which was really, it was like a cackling from the pit of hell." Wettlaufer told police she had tried to stop killing and she had told friends, a former partner and her pastor what she had done, but no one took her seriously.[11] During the police interview she described the "laughter" not as audible laughter, but as a feeling within her chest (visually using her hands), while the feeling prompting her to overdose and subsequently kill as coming from her stomach region. Wettlaufer never claimed to derive pleasure from the killings, stating that she felt horrible after murdering each victim.

Wettlaufer was held at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario.[12] In March 2018, she was transferred from Grand Valley to an unspecified secure facility in Montreal to receive medical treatment.[13]

Responses from government and regulatory bodies

Provincial government

Yasir Naqvi, the Attorney General of Ontario, and Eric Hoskins, the province's Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, jointly announced on the day of Wettlaufer's sentencing that the provincial government would commission a public inquiry into her case.[14] The full details of the inquiry were not given in the announcement, as the government had yet to determine the scope or an individual to lead the inquiry, with Naqvi and Hoskins instead saying that the inquiry would "get the answers we need to help ensure a tragedy such as this does not happen again."[15] The delay in establishing the inquiry was criticized by members of the opposition Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties toward the end of July 2017, as no progress had seemingly been made since the announcement and the Legislative Assembly had risen for its summer recess.[16]

The Public Inquiry into the Safety and Security of Residents in the Long-Term Care Homes System was formally established by the provincial government on August 1, 2017.[17] Justice Eileen Gillese of the Court of Appeal for Ontario was appointed commissioner of the inquiry.[18] The inquiry will include interviews with victims' families and public consultations in the community as it investigates the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Wettlaufer's victims and gaps in legislative or policy frameworks that allowed her to continue working as a nurse.[19] The inquiry's lead counsel stated that "anyone from Wettlaufer to Premier Kathleen Wynne" may be called to testify before the inquiry based on the evidence that is uncovered.[20]

College of Nurses of Ontario

Wettlaufer was charged with professional misconduct by a disciplinary panel convened by CNO on July 25, 2017.[21] Even though she had already been found guilty in a criminal trial and voluntarily surrendered her nursing license, the formal hearing was required by CNO to officially bar her from the profession.[22] Wettlaufer declined to participate in the hearing and was found guilty based on court documents from her criminal trial as well as her previous confession.[2] Her conduct was deemed "disgraceful and dishonourable" by the disciplinary panel and her nursing registration was formally revoked indefinitely, barring her from ever practising nursing in Ontario again. The chair of the five-person disciplinary panel that heard Wettlaufer's case said it was "the most egregious and disgraceful conduct this panel has ever considered".[23]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Lancaster, John (October 7, 2017). "Seeing Red: How did a mild-mannered nurse from small-town Ontario become one of Canada's worst serial killers?". CBC News.
  2. 1 2 "Wettlaufer's nursing registration revoked at discipline hearing". News & Announcements. College of Nurses of Ontario. July 25, 2017. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
  3. ↑ Baum, Kathryn Blaze; White, Patrick (25 October 2016). "Friends of former Ontario nurse charged with murder stunned by allegations". The Globe and Mail.
  4. ↑ Dubinski, Kate (1 June 2017). "Ex-nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer felt 'red surge' before killing elderly patients". CBC News. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 Contenta, Sandro (June 12, 2017). "Nurses college under fire over Wettlaufer case". Toronto Star. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  6. 1 2 Gillis, Wendy; Siekierska, Alicja; Goffin, Peter (October 29, 2016). "From caring nurse to accused serial killer: who is Elizabeth Wettlaufer?". Toronto Star. Retrieved June 3, 2017.
  7. 1 2 Siekierska, Alicja (March 23, 2017). "Unsealed court documents say ex-nurse suspended over medication errors". Toronto Star. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
  8. ↑ Goldenthal, Howard (27 June 2017). "View into minds of killers? Look at their writing, say professors". CBC News.
  9. ↑ "Timeline of events in case of former Ontario nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer". Global News. The Canadian Press. 1 June 2017. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  10. ↑ McQuigge, Michelle (June 2, 2017). "'If you ever do this again, we'll turn you in', pastor told killer nurse". Toronto Star. The Canadian Press. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  11. ↑ Fraser, Laura (June 2, 2017). "Here's what ex-nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer confessed about killing 8 patients". CBC News. Retrieved Apr 13, 2018.
  12. ↑ Flanagan, Ryan (September 26, 2017). "Life in prison: Behind the barbed wire at Grand Valley Institution". CTV News. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
  13. ↑ Flanagan, Ryan (March 8, 2018). "Elizabeth Wettlaufer transferred from GVI over medical issue". CTV News Kitchener. Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Ontario to hold public inquiry into Elizabeth Wettlaufer nursing home murders". Global News. The Canadian Press. June 27, 2017. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
  15. ↑ Ferguson, Rob (June 26, 2017). "Case of killer nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer to be subject of public inquiry". Toronto Star. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
  16. ↑ Bieman, Jennifer (July 21, 2017). "Elizabeth Wettlaufer: Critics impatient for details of province's killer nurse inquiry". London Free Press. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
  17. ↑ "About the Inquiry". Public Inquiry into the Safety and Security of Residents in the Long-Term Care Homes System. Archived from the original on August 8, 2017. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  18. ↑ Butler, Colin (August 1, 2017). "Ontario names Justice Eileen Gillese to lead Wettlaufer inquiry". CBC News. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  19. ↑ Lupton, Andrew (August 3, 2017). "Wettlaufer probe will include interview with families, public consultations". CBC News. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  20. ↑ "Wettlaufer could testify at inquiry; public hearings to start in 2018". CTV News Kitchener. August 4, 2017. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  21. ↑ McIntosh, Emma (July 22, 2017). "Serial killer Elizabeth Wettlaufer faces College of Nurses disciplinary hearing July 25". Toronto Star. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
  22. ↑ Bieman, Jennifer (July 24, 2017). "Elizabeth Wettlaufer: Nurses' regulatory body will hold disciplinary hearing Tuesday for the local health-care serial killer". London Free Press. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
  23. ↑ "Serial killer found guilty of professional misconduct by nursing college". National Post. The Canadian Press. July 25, 2017. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
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