Elizabeth Tracy Mae "Bethe" Wettlaufer 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.
24 Facts About Elizabeth Wettlaufer
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer was born and raised in Zorra Township, a rural community near Woodstock, Ontario.
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In 2007, Wettlaufer was hired onto the staff at Caressant Care, a long-term care home in Woodstock.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer was initially regarded by co-workers as caring and professional.
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However, throughout her tenure, Elizabeth Wettlaufer struggled with substance abuse and alcoholism.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer 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.
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Elizabeth 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.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer was hired by the Meadow Park Care Center in London, but lost this job after checking herself into a drug rehab facility in Niagara.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer took various temp jobs at other care homes.
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Elizabeth 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.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer confessed that she injected sisters Clotilde Adriano and Albina Demedeiros with insulin.
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The first case in which Elizabeth Wettlaufer injected a patient with enough insulin to directly cause death was on August 11,2007, when she murdered James Silcox, a World War II veteran and father of six.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer confessed to two counts of attempted murder in these cases.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer 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:.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer entered an inpatient drug rehabilitation program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, on September 16,2016.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer 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.
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Elizabeth 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.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer never claimed to derive pleasure from the killings, stating that she felt horrible after murdering each victim.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer was held at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario.
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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 Elizabeth Wettlaufer's sentencing that the provincial government would commission a public inquiry into her case.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer was charged with professional misconduct by a disciplinary panel convened by CNO on July 25,2017.
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Elizabeth 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.
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Elizabeth Wettlaufer's 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.
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The chair of the five-person disciplinary panel that heard Elizabeth Wettlaufer's case said it was "the most egregious and disgraceful conduct this panel has ever considered".