Canadian nurse killed 8 with insulin

WOODSTOCK, Ont. – A former Ontario nurse angry with her career and personal life believed she was an instrument of God as she used insulin to kill vulnerable seniors in her care over the course of nearly a decade reports Global TV

 About seven months after her arrest last fall, Elizabeth Wettlaufer pleaded guilty Thursday. June 1  to eight counts of first-degree murder, four counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault.

 The crimes – which took place in three Ontario long-term care facilities and at a private home – make Wettlaufer one of Canada’s most prolific serial killers.

 Emotional family and friends of her victims packed a courtroom in Woodstock, Ont., as the 49-year-old quietly said the word “guilty” 14 times before a judge and admitted she used insulin in every case.

 Prosecutors then laid out the details of each incident in an agreed statement of facts that included chilling revelations Wettlaufer made to police.

“Ms. Wettlaufer got that, ‘red surging feeling’ – and God telling her ‘this is the one,”‘ a Crown lawyer told the court.

In many cases, a growing rage over her job and her life built up until Wettlaufer felt an “urge to kill,” prosecutors explained. She said the feeling would only abate after she overdosed her victims.

Court heard that Wettlaufer was not intoxicated on drugs or alcohol when she killed or tried to kill. Many of her victims lived with dementia.

She told police she knew that “if your blood sugar goes low enough, you can die.” She also told police she refrained from logging her use of insulin in order to avoid detection, court heard.

 Wettlaufer is facing a life sentence without eligibility of parole for 25 years. By pleading guilty, she is waiving her right to trial.

In Aug. 11, 2007, Wettlaufer deliberately injected James Silcox, an 84-year-old man with diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, with insulin, “hoping he would die,” the Crown said.

“It was his time to go because of the way he acted,” the former nurse told police, according to the agreed statement of facts.

Silcox was later found without vital signs by a personal support worker, court heard. That was Wettlaufer’s first “successful” kill after two previous attempts failed.

Wettlaufer told investigators that afterwards, she felt “like a pressure had been relieved from me, like pressure had been relieved from my emotions.”

There were religious undertones to many of the killings, court heard, and in some cases, there was no motive other than “returning them to god,” the court heard.

“I honestly felt that God wanted to use me,” she told investigators at one point about her efforts to kill one elderly woman.