TORONTO (AP) — A former nurse pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree murder in the deaths of eight nursing home residents in one of the worst serial-killer cases in Canadian history.
Elizabeth Wettlaufer also pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault.
The 49-year-old, who appeared in a Woodstock, Ontario, courtroom, admitted to killing eight seniors and hurting six others in part because she said she felt angry with her career and her life’s responsibilities.
Wettlaufer acknowledged under questioning from the judge that she injected all 14 with insulin for no medical reason.
All the incidents allegedly occurred between 2007 and 2014 in three Ontario long-term care facilities where Wettlaufer worked as a registered nurse, and at a private home.
The prosecution read from an agreed statement of facts, saying that Wettlaufer told police she knew that “if your blood sugar goes low enough, you can die.” She also told police she had refrained from logging her use of insulin in order to avoid detection, court heard.
In at least one case, Wettlaufer was spurred to act by growing rage over her job and her life, which built up inside her until she felt an “urge to kill,” the prosecution told the court.
Wettlaufer deliberately injected James Silcox, an 84-year-old man with diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, with insulin the night of Aug. 11. 2007, “hoping he would die,” the prosecution said.
She also told investigators that afterwards, she felt, “like a pressure had been relieved from me, like pressure had been relieved from my emotions.”
Wettlaufer told police that dissatisfaction with her life led her to inject Clotilde Adriano, 87, with insulin, though Adriano survived.
The other victims were Maurice Granat, 84; Gladys Millard, 87; Helen Matheson, 95; Mary Zurawinski, 96; Helen Young, 90; Maureen Pickering, 79, and Arpad Horvath, 75.
