Nurse Had 'Laughing Feeling' After Killing Elderly Patients

Elizabeth Wettlaufer pleaded guilty Thursday to killing 8 seniors
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 2, 2017 1:25 PM CDT
Nurse Who Killed Elderly Patients Felt 'Red Surge'
Elizabeth Wettlaufer is escorted into the Provincial courthouse in Woodstock, Ontario, Thursday, June 1, 2017.   (Peter Power/The Canadian Press via AP)

Elizabeth Wettlaufer says she would get a "red surge" right before killing a nursing home resident with a lethal dose of insulin; afterward she would have a "laughing feeling." The 49-year-old former nurse pleaded guilty Thursday to 14 charges, including first-degree murder, in what the New York Times reports is one of the worst serial killing sprees in Canadian history. Prosecutors say Wettlaufer killed eight seniors at two nursing homes and seriously harmed six others between 2007 and 2014, according to CBC. They say she was angry about her life—her marriage had recently fallen apart and she may have had trouble getting a job—and that anger would turn into an "urge to kill" that had to be sated.

Wettlaufer told police she "honestly thought God wanted to use me" after her failed marriage, but "after a while, I started to really wonder ... if it was God or if it was the Devil." Wettlaufer confessed to giving a piece of pie to a 95-year-old victim who loved the dessert and then deciding she needed to die, the National Post reports. She also said a 75-year-old with dementia was a difficult patient and she thought, "Enough was enough." Wettlaufer said the man tried to stop the injection, but "eventually, I got it into him." Wettlaufer's mother says her daughter has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. A daughter of one of Wettlaufer's victims tells CBC: "I'm not going to forgive her. ... She knew what she was doing." Wettlaufer is scheduled for sentencing at the end of June. (More serial killer stories.)

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