A nurse charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of elderly patients worked at more than a half-dozen long-term care homes in southern Ontario in recent years.
Elizabeth (Bethe) Tracey Mae Wettlaufer, 49, was arrested and charged on Tuesday in connection with the deaths of seven patients at Caressant Care in Woodstock and one patient at Meadow Park in London between 2007 and 2014.
Though the charges only pertain to murders that are alleged to have taken place at Caressant Care and Meadow Park, CTV News has learned that Wettlaufer has also spent time at five other nursing homes in the province since 2007.
Wettlaufer worked at Telfer Place in Paris, Ontario on a temporary contract from February 2015 to April of this year. As well, Wettlaufer had temporary contracts at Brierwood Gardens Long Term Care in Brantford in August 2015 and in May 2016 and at Dover Cliffs Long Term Care in Port Dover in August of this year, according to the operator of those facilities, Revera Inc.
“As there is a broader police investigation, with which we are cooperating, it would be inappropriate for us to provide any further information,” the company said in a written statement.
Christian Horizons in Woodstock has also confirmed that Wettlaufer was employed at its facility but left the role in 2007. As well, Saint Elizabeth Home Health Care in Woodstock says that it employed Wettlaufer as a registered nurse for a six-week period this past summer.
The news of Wettlaufer’s recent employment history comes one day after CTV News received an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be a concerned employee at Caressant Care.
According to the letter, Wettlaufer had a “long list of disciplines,” and that “concerns of her nursing care” had been reported with “nothing done.”
So far police have not commented on a possible motive for the murders.
