ACCUSED IN NURSING HOME DEATHS SENT OMINOUS TEXTS
Hospital tip led to police probe into murders
• Two weeks ago, while under a peace bond that banned her from possessing insulin and visiting nursing homes, Elizabeth Wettlaufer sent an ominous series of texts to a longtime acquaintance.
Wettlaufer, who had told the acquaintance she was in a mental-care facility, texted that she might be going to jail because she killed eight people and had told police.
“She said, ‘I am responsible for the deaths of eight people,’ ” said the acquaintance — a Woodstock, Ont., woman who spoke on the condition she not be named. “I didn’t believe her.” She knew Wettlaufer, 49, had suffered addiction and mental illness ... but murder?
About a week and a half later, Wettlaufer texted again to say she was being “escorted back to Woodstock” by police, the acquaintance said.
The woman assumed Wettlaufer made up the story. She even told a mutual acquaintance, expressing disbelief. It couldn’t be true, she thought. If someone confessed to eight killings, she certainly wouldn’t have access to her cellphone.
On Wednesday, in the wake of police charging Wettlaufer with eight counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of nursing home residents in Woodstock and London, Ont., the woman said she was still rattled.
When she heard about the charges, her reaction was, “Oh my god. Why didn’t I say something?”
“I keep thinking I should have gone to police ... but I really didn’t believe her,” she said.
By Wednesday, as questions swirled around the circumstances of the investigation — with families of the dead asking what led police to the conclusion their relatives had been killed years ago — reports surfaced that police had been tipped off by staff from a mental health centre in Toronto.
Officials from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) alerted Toronto police that Wettlaufer had shared information with hospital staff that caused them “concern,” a police source familiar with the investigation said Wednesday.
The source said Toronto officers then interviewed Wettlaufer.
Because the alleged crimes had occurred outside their jurisdiction, police passed the information to the Ontario Provincial Police and forces in Woodstock and London, said the source, who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
The investigation into the alleged murders was launched Sept. 29. Wettlaufer was arrested Monday and appeared in an Woodstock courthouse Tuesday where she was remanded into custody.
The nursing home residents have been identified as James Silcox, 84, Maurice Granat, 84, Gladys Millard, 87, Helen Matheson, 95, Mary Zurawinski, 96, Helen Young, 90, Maureen Pickering, 79, and Arpad Horvath, 75.
Police say they are confident there are no more alleged victims in the case.
While OPP investigators have encouraged anyone concerned about a loved one in care to contact police, evidence suggests there will be no more homicide charges.
“We are confident that there are no more,” OPP Sgt. Dave Rektor said Wednesday.
“We take every call seriously, but ... not everyone is going to be a victim,” he said of the deaths that occurred at Woodstock’s Carressant Care nursing home from 2007 to 2014.
Wettlaufer is accused of killing seven residents of that home and one resident of London’s Meadow Park, in 2014. The London resident, Horvath, had dementia, as did some of the others.
A peace bond Wettlaufer entered into on Oct. 6 required her to “continue any treatment for mental health” with any physician to whom she was referred by her family doctor or “representatives of CAMH.”
Wettlaufer was not allowed to possess or consume alcohol and was banned from having insulin or other medication. She had to obey a curfew and reside in either her apartment or with her parents in Woodstock between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m., except to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, according to terms laid out in the peace bond.
She was not allowed to work or volunteer as a caregiver and was not allowed to go into any nursing home or hospital unless seeking medical attention for herself.
The peace bond raised the spectre of a murder trial focused on insulin as a weapon.
But as effective as insulin can be in causing death, it can be just as difficult to prove as a method in a murder trial, says a scientist who is also an expert in criminal cases and co-author of a book called Insulin Murders: True Life Cases.
“It is a relatively simple way of killing people, providing you make sure nobody comes across them, or they don’t run away,” says Vincent Marks, a biochemist in England.
“That is why it is usually elderly, sick people who are killed in this way. This is a usual way because they just can’t resist. And when they go unconscious nobody finds them and they die.”
Wettlaufer is scheduled to appear in court by video on Nov. 2. None of the charges has been proven in court.
SHE SAID, ‘I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATHS OF EIGHT PEOPLE.’