A photo from the Facebook page of Elizabeth Tracey Mae Wettlaufer of Woodstock, Ont. is shown. A Woodstock, Ont, nurse has been charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of eight nursing home residents. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Facebook MANDATORY CREDIT
Elizabeth Wettlaufer took pleasure in the fun parts of her job — including that she could wear colourful, cartoon-inspired scrubs to work. In a recent photo she posted online, she excitedly showed off her bright yellow Minions scrubs. “One of the perks of working in health care,” she wrote.
Nursing was a passion, an identity, for the 49-year-old Woodstock woman. She professed to have a particular affinity for the unglamorous yet fulfilling task of caring for the elderly, her specialty for the better part of a decade.
She put in catheters and changed diapers, yes, but found satisfaction in the patients.
“I love . . . their wrinkles, their frailties, even their smell,” reads a bittersweet ode to a nursing home job, among a collection of online poems copyrighted to Bethe Wettlaufer and written under the pen name Betty Weston.
“I love the finality, the resignation, the knowing this is their last home.”
It is Wettlaufer’s seeming dedication to her work, apparent to colleagues, friends and family, that has made this week’s accusations against her unthinkable to many — how to reconcile the cheery, bespectacled caregiver in the colourful scrubs with an accused serial killer?
“She was an everyday, happy-go-lucky person. She was a normal person who loved her job, loved her dog, and loved her cats,” said Nancy Gilbert, who lived in Wettlaufer’s apartment complex on a quiet Woodstock street, a tight-knit building where neighbours quickly turned into friends.
But Gilbert was among those who were aware of Wettlaufer’s troubles, and knew the woman had substance abuse problems. She also knew she had a recent stint in rehab. In recent weeks, she noted a frequent police presence at Wettlaufer’s 5th floor apartment, and began to suspect something more sinister was happening.
But not this.
“She was never a monster in front of us, and I want people to know that,” Gilbert told Torstar News Service.
Wettlaufer made international headlines Tuesday after a team of law enforcement services led by the Ontario Provincial Police announced allegations she had planned and executed eight homicides in two southwestern Ontario nursing homes over the span of seven years.
She now faces eight counts of first-degree murder in connection to nursing home deaths between 2007 and 2014, five women and three men.
Among them are beloved mothers and fathers, grandparents and spouses, a World War II veteran — all initially believed to have died naturally.
Police allege that while working as a nursing home employee, Wettlaufer gave a fatal dose of medication to seven residents at Woodstock’s Caressant Care and one resident at London, Ont.’s Meadow Park long-term-care home.
They have not revealed which drug she is alleged to have administered. But in a peace bond she signed three weeks before her arrest, she is explicitly prohibited from possessing insulin, a drug commonly used to treat diabetes.
When misused, it can be both lethal and difficult to detect.
Wettlaufer made a brief appearance in a Woodstock court Tuesday, and was remanded into custody until a hearing next week. Brad Burgess, her Toronto-based lawyer, did not respond to multiple requests for comment this week.
Investigators have not released any information about a possible motive in what has become one of Canada’s worst cases of alleged serial killing.
According to a source with knowledge of the investigation, the alleged string of homicides was discovered only after Wettlaufer made “concerning” comments about the deaths last month to staff at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, a psychiatric hospital in Toronto.
It is that information that has mental health experts stressing the principle of innocence before being proven guilty. The courts will have to closely examine the psychiatric issues that may have caused or influenced Wettlaufer’s alleged actions, said Steve Lurie, executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association Toronto branch.
“That will be a very important, fundamental piece of justice, whether her apparent mental health and addiction issues interfered with her ability to understand the impact of what she is charged with doing,” he said.
Early life
Torstar News Service
Photo of Wettlaufer, known then as Bethe Parker, at Huron Park Secondary School in Woodstock. This is from the 1986 yearbook.
Wettlaufer was born June 10, 1967 to parents Doug and Hazel Parker, and went to school in Woodstock, the small town about one hour west of Toronto.
In the mid-1980s, Wettlaufer, known then as Bethe Parker, attended Huron Park Secondary School, where she was a member of both the band and choir. In her graduating year, a poem she wrote, titled “a concert” was published in the yearbook.
According to her yearbook, she hoped to attend a university with a “good drama department” and was known for asking: “How many brain cells did you kill this weekend?”
She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in religious education counselling from the London Baptist Bible College, now known as Heritage Baptist College, according to her LinkedIn page. She then took nursing at Kitchener’s Conestoga College.
Faith and family appear to have been a strong components of Wettlaufer’s life. Recent and decades-old photos of holidays and outings with her parents populate her Facebook page. Last Father’s Day, she posted a photo of herself with her father, saying the holiday was “a great reminder of how blessed I am to still have my Dad alive.”
Speaking to a CTV news reporter outside their Woodstock home Wednesday, Wettlaufer’s parents said they had been instructed not to speak to the media. But an emotional Doug Parker described his daughter as kind, smart and compassionate, and said the family will look to God for guidance to help them through.
Wettlaufer went on to marry a long-haul truck driver, but their union appears to have dissolved around 2007, according to mortgage documents obtained by the Star. Her former spouse still lives in the little, white bungalow they once shared Woodstock. He declined to speak to the Star about the allegations.
Wettlaufer has since lived alone, save for her animals, and sometimes poked fun at her own single status or baited her friends online about her love life. “So much for the no dating vow. OOPS!” she wrote on 2010. Around that same time, she had a brief same-sex relationship.
Professionally, Wettlaufer’s early career appears to have been stable. In 1996, she began working as a support worker for Christian Horizons, an evangelical organization that helps support people with developmental disabilities.
A company spokesperson confirmed to the Star that Wettlaufer left her employment in June 2007, and said while the allegations she is facing are not connected to her employment, Christian Horizons is co-operating with police.
In 2007, Wettlaufer got a job at Woodstock’s Caressant Care, a nursing home that sits on a quiet street, just off Highway 401. According to police it was here that she began her killing spree, just two months into her job.
Homicide allegations
James Silcox, 84, was married to Agnes for 64 years, and had six children, 13 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. He was described by his family as a gentleman, a prankster and “a compassionate and loving human being and a man of deep abiding faith.”
A Second World War veteran, Silcox enlisted in the army in 1940 as a member of the Canadian Army Service Corps. He served in Italy, Belgium, France and Sicily, and was in Amsterdam at the liberation of Holland.
He died Aug. 17, 2007. Longtime friend Rev. David Joyce officiated at Silcox’s funeral. With the news this week, the family will be in pain all over again, he said.
“(Life) will be lived day by day for a while.”
Wettlaufer is accused of killing another Caressant Care resident four months later. Maurice Granat, an 84-year-old auto mechanic from Tillsonburg, Ont., died two days before Christmas in 2007.
“He was a great guy. He was slow, easygoing, nothing to worry about,” Sam Lamb told Torstar this week, after hearing his close friend was among the alleged victims. “Now I’m very sorry that’s the way he had to pass away.”
According to the timeline of Wettlaufer’s alleged crimes provided by police, nearly four years went by until Wettlaufer killed again.
Gladys Millard, 87-year-old native of New Glasgow, N.S., died Oct. 14, 2011.
Just 13 days later, Helen Matheson, a kind, smart and private woman, died at 95.
Eleven days after that, Mary Zurawinski died at 96.
Then, in the summer of 2013, police allege Wettlaufer took her sixth life. Helen Young, 90, died on July 14.
Nine months later, Wettlaufer took what investigators say was her final life at Caressant Care. Maureen Pickering died on March 28, 2014 at the age of 79.
That same year, Wettlaufer left Caressant Care and entered a bumpy period of unstable employment. (Caressant Care has declined to comment on the details of Wettlaufer’s employment because they are “determined to avoid compromising the police investigation.”)
Outside Caressant Care’s Woodstock nursing home, staff members refused to comment, saying management has said they are not allowed to.
Wettlaufer faces eight counts of first-degree murder in connection to nursing home deaths between 2007 and 2014, five women and three men.
In 2014, she began working at London, Ont.’s Meadow Park nursing home, where police allege she took her final and youngest victim, Arpad Horvath. The 75-year-old was remembered by friends as a hunter and a traveller who spoke his mind.
“I was kind of shocked with the way it took place,” said longtime friend Anthony Cuzzocrea. “Someone as good as him, generous as him. As the old saying goes, bad things happen to good people.”
Between February 2015 and August 2016, Wettlaufer worked temporary nursing contracts at three long-term care homes; Telfer Place in Paris, Ontario, Brierwood Gardens in Brantford, and Dover Cliffs in Port Dover.
Jennifer Arnott, a spokeswoman for Revera Homes, which owns all three locations, said the company is co-operating with the ongoing police investigation and would not comment on Wettlaufer’s performance while she worked there.
OPP Sgt. David Rektor would not say whether investigations are being carried out at those three locations. Police have identified all victims, and do not believe there are any more.
This summer, Wettlaufer joined Saint Elizabeth Home Health Care, an in-home care provider, on a part-time basis. Spokesperson Madonna Gallo said she worked for the company for six weeks in July and August, but could not provide any information concerning why Wettlaufer’s employment ended.
It was around this time that Wettlaufer is believed to have gone into rehab, according to Gilbert, Wettlaufer’s neighbour, and her son, Derek.
According to a source with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke to Torstar on condition of anonymity, Wettlaufer made the “concerning” comments about the eight deaths to staff at CAMH in September.
Staff at the psychiatric hospital then communicated the information to Toronto police, who alerted police in southern Ontario.
At their press conference Tuesday, police said they received information the alleged killings on Sept. 29. The next day, Wettlaufer gave up her nursing licence.
It was at this point that Derek Gilbert said he began noticing police officers regularly visiting Wettlaufer at her 5th-floor apartment. Earlier this month, when Nancy went for dinner with Wettlaufer, she learned she had a curfew but didn’t know why.
“We knew she had to be in by 7 p.m. because she had a curfew and she said she didn’t want to get into any trouble . . . . We all drank pop and we laughed and joked and had supper and didn’t have a clue,” she said.
Wettlaufer failed to mention that police had sought the peace bond because they believed she was at risk of committing “a serious personal injury offence.” Among the conditions of the bond was that she “continue any treatment for mental health.”
She was also banned from possessing or consuming alcohol and any insulin or medications, and could not attend any nursing home, long-term-care facility or retirement home.
In the days since Wettlaufer’s arrest, new meaning is now being drawn from her past actions, big and small. Some are now troubled by the five-year-old poem, “Inevitable,” written under the Betty Weston pseudonym.
It begins: “She watches some life drain/ from the notch in his neck vein. As it soothingly pools/it smothers her pain.”
In comments below the poem, one reader praises the poet for making the poem’s subject, a killer, female.
“Betty Weston” responded: “I felt it would make it more sinister to have the killer be a woman as it is unexpected. It also made me feel powerful.”
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