Who is the former Woodstock, Ont., nurse charged in nursing-home deaths?
The woman accused of first-degree murder in the deaths of eight nursing-home residents is also under investigation by the College of Nurses of Ontario and is no longer entitled to practise.
Elizabeth Tracy Mae Wettlaufer, 49, has been charged in connection with the deaths that occurred between August 2007 and August 2014 in southwestern Ontario nursing homes, police said Tuesday morning. The victims were between 75 and 96 years of age.
The college said on Tuesday afternoon it is also investigating Wettlaufer and that she is "not entitled to practise."
"The college is also co-operating with the police investigation," the organization said in a statement.
Resigned last month
Wettlaufer's registration status is listed as "resigned" in her profile on the college's website. She first registered with the college — the governing body for nurses, practical nurses and nurse practitioners — on June 8, 1995, according to her profile, and resigned on Sept. 30, 2016.
The profile gives "Parker" as her previous last name.
Wettlaufer's profile also includes information about the charges against her, as well as the fact that she remains in police custody.
One of her most recent jobs appears to have been at Lifeguard Homecare and Nursing. A representative for the Brantford, Ont.-based company confirmed she had been employed part-time for just over a year.
The representative would not comment further, except to say that Wettlaufer has not worked for the company since the summer. Wettlaufer's Facebook profile still says she works at Lifeguard Homecare.
Neighbour Derek Gilbert, who lives in the same apartment building as Wettlaufer, called the news "shocking."
"We would chat and have laughs," Gilbert told CBC News on Tuesday. "She seemed like an everyday, normal kind of person."
The deaths occurred while Wettlaufer was employed by Caressant Care Nursing and Retirement Homes, which operates six facilities in southwestern Ontario. Seven victims died at the company's Woodstock location, police say. The other died at the Meadow Park Facility in London.
Her Facebook page, listed under the name Bethe Wettlaufer, also says she studied nursing at Conestoga College, as well as religious education and counselling at London Baptist Bible College.
Wettlaufer's Facebook profile shows pictures of her travelling, and numerous photos of her with her father, other family and her cats.
There are also several entries in which she writes about working as a nurse.
One post from Feb. 22, 2016, says "23 patients with a gastric bug combined with a full moon made for a crazy night last night. And that is an understatement."
Poem about death
She also appears to have written about her work online in a blog of poems attributed to her.
While the poem Working Happy, below, focuses on the author's care for the elderly, many others centre on unrequited love and desire.
Maybe it's the rye or the time of night but my day was not so bad.
Filled with work and satisfaction and old people.
See I work with old people and I love their candidacy,
their points, their wrinkles, their frailties their refusing to eat anything but ice cream, even their smell.
The poem Inevitable written about five years ago, however, rhapsodizes about what it might feel like to kill someone.
She watches some life drain from the notch in his neck vein.
As it soothingly pools it smothers her pain.
Sweet stiletto so sharp craves another cut.
Obeying a call she moves to his gut.
Blade traces a line from navel to spine
grating on rib bones slicing intestine.
