OTTAWA, Oct 25 2016 — A former nurse in Ontario was charged on Tuesday with murdering eight nursing home residents by injecting them with lethal drug doses.
The Ontario Provincial Police told reporters at a news conference in Woodstock, Ontario, that the victims ranged in age from 79 to 96.
The former nurse, Elizabeth Tracey Mae Wettlaufer, 49, was charged with eight counts of first-degree, or intentional, murder, committed between August 2007 and August 2014.
The police offered no motive for the killings, seven of which occurred at a nursing home owned by Caressant Care Nursing and Retirement Homes in Woodstock, which is about 80 miles southwest of Toronto. The eighth victim died in another of the company’s nursing homes in London, Ontario, about 20 miles away.
Caressant Care said in a statement that Ms. Wettlaufer had left its employment about two and a half years ago. She resigned from the College of Nurses of Ontario, the profession’s licensing board, at the end of last month; the police said that was around the time they started their investigation. The licensing board said it was also conducting its own investigation.
The police did not identify the drug or drugs used in the killings.
