Nurse expected to plead to murders
Ontario woman will appear in court today
LONDON, ONT. • Former Ontario nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer is expected to plead guilty Thursday to eight counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of elderly long-term care patients.
The London Free Press has confirmed Wettlaufer, 49, will make her pleas in a Woodstock, Ont., courtroom, followed by an agreed statement of facts from the Crown and the defence.
A video of Wettlaufer confessing is also expected to be filed in court, a source told The Canadian Press.
The anticipated guilty pleas mark the beginning of the end to one of the biggest mass-murder trials in Ontario’s history.
There was speculation there might be a plea deal in the works when earlier in May and during a brief video appearance, it was announced Wettlaufer would come to Woodstock in person June 1.
That date had been set aside for a judicial pre-trial hearing with Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas — a hearing that normally doesn’t require the accused to be present.
On Wednesday afternoon, at the judge’s direction, an email was sent to media across the province indicating “significant developments in this case are anticipated” Thursday.
The police investigation into Wettlaufer, 49, began last September after Toronto police became aware of information she had given to a psychiatric hospital in Toronto that caused them concern, a police source has told The Canadian Press.
In October Wettlaufer was charged in the deaths of eight seniors — seven at Woodstock’s Caressant Care Nursing Home and one at London’s Meadowpark Nursing Home between 2007 and 2014. She worked as a nurse at both facilities.
She also faces four charges of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault, also involving elderly and long-term care patients.
Court documents, including search warrants obtained by The Free Press, pointed to the administration of insulin overdoses to the patients.
Redacted court documents released in March — which were filed by police in an application to obtain records — have indicated Wettlaufer was fired in 2014 from a nursing home in Woodstock, where some of her alleged victims lived, after an alleged incident in which she incorrectly and overly medicated a resident who “experienced distress” as a result.