Nurse’s murders difficult to detect, expert tells public inquiry

TORONTO — An Ontario nurse who murdered eight elderly patients in her care has provided great insight into the minds of health-care workers turned serial killers, an American researcher testified Wednesday at a public inquiry.

Beatrice Crofts Yorker, a researcher with California State University Los Angeles who has studied murders in the healthcare profession for decades, told the inquiry examining Elizabeth Wettlaufer’s conduct that the nurse’s admissions to authorities have been a boon to research in the field.

“Nobody has given as much detail as she has,” Yorker testified. “We have some information from family members, health care workers about personalities and about issues, but when it comes to premeditation, she’s given more insight than any other health-care serial killer.”

Wettlaufer is serving a life sentence after confessing to killing eight patients with insulin overdoses and attempting to kill four others at long-term care facilities and private homes in Ontario over nearly a decade.

The 51-year-old told police she killed her patients for various reasons, sometimes being triggered at work by an unruly patient or at other times being motivated by an internal “red surge” that would only abate after a murder, but there was never a lengthy period of planning.

Yorker’s research shows that since 1970, there have been 131 prosecutions and 90 convictions of health-care serial killers in the world, the inquiry heard.

The main difference between Wettlaufer and other serial killers, Yorker said, is that she turned herself in and confessed her crimes before she was scheduled to work with children.

A key takeaway from Wettlaufer is that she was able to avoid detection as she preyed on her victims, Yorker said.