Pod Insights Serial Killers & Murderous Minds The Angel of Death: Elizabeth Wettlaufer 1 About this episode Growing up in a strict religious household, Elizabeth Wettlaufer had to repress her sexual identity. The years of lies took a toll on her, and she turned to substance abuse to cope. As a nurse, Elizabeth had easy access to drugs -- and she spiraled out of control. Eventually, the dam burst and Elizabeth took out her anger on the patients she was trying to save... and became a serial killer known as "the Angel of Death." Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House Original. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @crimehouse for more true crime content.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Vanessa Richardson? Hi, everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus, Connor's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
0:36 Speaker 01 This is Crime House.
0:42 Vanessa Richardson? Faith in a higher power can be a wonderful thing. It can give our lives deeper meaning and provide hope during times of pain and suffering, and offer some form of a peaceful afterlife. For some people, the rules you have to follow to get this eternal reward are up for interpretation. There's a set of guidelines, but they can be adjusted to fit different lifestyles and situations. Others see religion through a narrower lens, in which righteousness is measured by how closely you follow the rules. But when the divide between good and bad becomes all-consuming, it can leave some people in limbo, struggling
1:27 Vanessa Richardson? to find their place. For those like Elizabeth Wettlaufer, that feeling of being on the outside looking in never quite goes away, and it can have deadly consequences.
1:54 Vanessa Richardson? The human mind is fascinating. It controls how we think, how we feel, how we love, and how we hate. And sometimes, the mind drives us to do something truly unspeakable. When that happens... People wonder, how could someone do such a thing? Well, on this show, that's what we're going to try and answer. This is Mind of a Serial Killer, a Crime House original. Every Monday, we'll be taking deep dives into the minds of history's most notorious serial killers and violent offenders. At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible.
2:36 Vanessa Richardson? Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following Mind of a Serial Killer wherever you get your podcasts. And to enhance your Mind of a Serial Killer listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad-free, and instead of having to wait for each episode of a two-part series, you'll get access to both at once, plus exciting bonus content. I'm Vanessa Richardson.
3:03 Tristin Engels? And I'm Dr. Tristin Engels. As Vanessa takes you through our subject's stories, I'll be helping her dive into these killers' minds as we try to understand how someone could do such horrible things.
3:15 Vanessa Richardson? Before we get into the story, you should know it contains descriptions of murder and abuse. Listener discretion is advised. This is the first of two episodes on Elizabeth Wettlaufer, a Canadian nurse and the country's first convicted angel-of-death serial killer, which refers to healthcare professionals who murder their patients. Elizabeth used the drugs at her disposal to kill eight of her elderly patients in southwestern Ontario between 2007 and 2014. In today's episode, we'll be exploring Elizabeth Wettlaufer's early life and descent into serial murder.
3:56 Vanessa Richardson? Next week, we'll follow Elizabeth's descent into madness as she wrestles with her actions. And as always, we'll be asking the question, what makes a serial killer?
4:15 Vanessa Richardson? More than anything else, Elizabeth Wettlaufer's childhood was defined by religion. She was born in 1967 to parents Doug and Hazel, who were studying at a Bible college in Toronto, Canada. But Doug and Hazel weren't interested in city life. When Elizabeth was four, they moved about two hours away to the small rural town of Woodstock, located in a farming community called South Zora. Doug and Hazel immediately established roots with the South Zora Baptist Church, a super-conservative fundamentalist group. Doug became a lay pastor there. Although he wasn't officially ordained, he led services when the regular pastor wasn't available.
4:58 Vanessa Richardson? The rest of Elizabeth's family, including her older brother and aunts and uncles, all belonged to South Zora Baptist too. And before long, Elizabeth's life revolved around the church.
5:12 Tristin Engels? I think it's important to understand more about the teachings of conservative fundamentalist religions before we can evaluate what role, if any, this has had on Elizabeth's development. It's also important to remember that everyone's experience in their religion, as well as their perception of what it's taught them, is different. So for some, their beliefs help them remain accountable and hopeful. For others, it can have a negative effect, especially if what they're learning is in direct conflict with their own personal experiences. So to answer a question about this and her development, we need to keep that in mind so we're not
5:51 Tristin Engels? generalizing an entire population. And what we do know about South Zora Baptist Church is that it's much smaller than other fundamentalist churches, like the Church of Latter Day Saints. But it also has a very strict set of rules. And given that her father, although not ordained, was a lay pastor, so there's also even stricter rules probably enforced on her family in terms of their reputation and how to show up in the community. If she's being taught that only her community of people are good...
6:28 Tristin Engels? And everyone else in the world is bad. That's teaching her to view the world in dichotomous ways. The indoctrination can affect someone's ability to create and maintain relationships, use critical thinking skills, and it can affect their ability to form their own independent opinions and views, like we talked about in our episode on Charlie Brandt.
6:50 Vanessa Richardson? That is a very precarious place to start one's life.
6:54 Tristin Engels? It is.
6:55 Vanessa Richardson? So in the 1970s, while other parts of the country were embracing the freedom and loose vibes of that time, Elizabeth was learning a very different set of values, as you just mentioned. Movies, dancing, and drinking were all strictly prohibited at South Zora Baptist. Basically, typical recreational activities of the time were off limits. As Elizabeth became a teenager, she struggled with body image and questions about her identity. Her body was changing, and her emotions were heightened as she tried to navigate high school. As if that wasn't enough, Elizabeth was on the chubbier side, and her classmates constantly made fun of her weight.
7:38 Vanessa Richardson? Her one close friend, Glenn Hart, also went to South Zora Baptist, and he was a lifeline for Elizabeth during this time, which was especially important because Elizabeth was dealing with another, more pressing issue: her sexuality. Around the time she was 13 or 14, Elizabeth realized she was attracted to women. She knew she couldn't tell anyone, except for Glenn, who was also coming to terms with being gay and didn't judge Elizabeth for her preferences. But her family and the church were another story.
8:13 Tristin Engels? She's being taught, probably, that homosexuality is bad, and that if you are of a different sexual orientation, that you are bad. And so how does she reconcile her being bad when she knows, hey, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing. How does that make me bad? So it creates a dissonance, a cognitive dissonance.
8:34 Vanessa Richardson? As you just said, same-sex relationships were absolutely strictly prohibited at South Zora Baptist. And since Elizabeth's dad was a pastor there, she was expected to set a good example for the other members. So Elizabeth had to keep her secret hidden. She was terrified of what might happen if...
8:53 Vanessa Richardson? Despite the internal struggle Elizabeth was going through, she was determined to follow the church's teachings, or maybe she was afraid not to. Either way, she finished high school without revealing her secret to anyone and kept her good standing at South Zora Baptist. And after graduating, Elizabeth followed in her parents' footsteps, pursuing a bachelor degree in religious counselling at Baptist Bible College in London, Ontario. But being away from the small town of Woodstock and the community of South Zora Baptist unleashed something inside of Elizabeth. For the first time in her life, she was free to explore her sexuality without prying eyes watching. So one day, she went with a girlfriend
9:38 Vanessa Richardson? to a gay-friendly church service in the area. It was a disaster. The school learned about her excursion and kicked Elizabeth out. Even worse, her family learned about it. Backed into a corner, Elizabeth was forced to come out to them. And just as she feared, her parents were livid. When Elizabeth came home to Woodstock, they sent her to gay conversion therapy.
10:05 Tristin Engels? Okay, let's discuss what conversion therapy actually is, because it sounds very misleading when you have the word "therapy" in the name. So I want to make it very clear that the mental health community has largely rejected this modality because it's not based in science and it causes harm to patients. And the number-one rule for any licensed mental health practitioner is not to cause harm. That being said, the practice is intended to change an individual's sexual orientation so it aligns with heterosexual and cisgender "norms." But it's harmful because it's not only degrading,
10:47 Tristin Engels? and it's shown to cause an increase in substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and suicide. They use shame, they use these coercion, they use guilt. And that's the idea is it's trying to shame somebody into denouncing that. And they also have this belief that sexuality is a choice. When it, in fact, it's not. So they're trying to enforce change in a patient on a topic that can't be changed. So imagine what that's doing to the patient when they cannot change their sexuality. As much as they would love to appease their families and their, their communities, they can't.
11:31 Vanessa Richardson? It seems like it's exacerbating the problem by pushing down who she really is even further.
11:36 Tristin Engels? Absolutely, and it's causing so much more trauma.
11:40 Vanessa Richardson? So as Elizabeth's friend Glenn Hart recalled, she spent weeks at a time at these programs. However, Elizabeth felt about her experience, the conversion therapy seemed to have its intended effect. After completing the program, Elizabeth said she was horrified that she'd considered being lesbian or bi and repented for her sins. The Bible college let her back in and her relationship with her family seemed to get back on track. Elizabeth put her head down and focused on school, graduating in 1991 when she was 24 years old. Although she'd studied religion, she decided not to pursue a religion-based career
12:23 Vanessa Richardson? like being a clergy member or a missionary. Instead, she enrolled in a nursing program at nearby Conestoga College. Elizabeth was a great student with excellent grades. And while she seemed to enjoy her classes and the new material she was learning, it wasn't enough to distract her from the battle she was fighting inside. Because despite the conversion therapy, Elizabeth was still thinking about women. But after everything she'd been through, she didn't dare act on her impulses. She tried bottling up her feelings. And when that didn't work, she turned to alcohol to numb the pain. She started drinking a lot, usually alone.
13:07 Vanessa Richardson? And maybe most surprisingly, she stopped going to church. It seemed like she wanted to block out all the noise as she tried to work through her emotions. Even with all the drinking, Elizabeth managed to keep her grades up. She earned her diploma and in 1995, when she was 28 years old, was offered a part-time job at a local hospital. Then she got a second job at an assisted living facility. The time commitment between the two jobs was brutal. Sometimes Elizabeth worked 20 hours straight. And pretty soon, things really went downhill.
13:56 Speaker 03 Hi, I'm Connor Tomlinson. You might know me from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing and I have been waiting my whole life for a show like this one.
14:05 Speaker 01 And I'm Carter Roy and this is What the Fact. Every week, three facts, each one with a whole story behind it. The worst years anyone has ever lived through. The golden age of pirates, the movies that almost never got made, the discoveries that rewrote everything we thought we knew.
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14:51 Speaker 01 Before today's episode, I want to tell you about The Unbelievable, a new podcast from the History Channel and Rewind Studios. Adapted from the hit TV show, each episode opens a cabinet of curiosities to uncover history's strangest but true stories. Like the woman who survived a two-mile fall by landing in a nest of fire ants. When it comes to history, the truth is always more unbelievable than you think. Follow The Unbelievable, available now on your favorite podcast app.
15:29 Vanessa Richardson? Whether Elizabeth Wettlaufer realized it or not, the effort of repressing her sexuality caused her to retreat away from the world and into herself. Even if she was spending time with friends, on a deeper level, she was still isolated. Pretty soon, that loneliness, coupled with her long work hours, sparked a deep depression. Before long, Elizabeth started stealing drugs from the hospital's medication room. She took anti-anxiety meds like Ativan and Valium, and even opiates like morphine. It all came to a head a few months into her nursing career in September of 1995, when she took 30mg of Ativan,
16:13 Vanessa Richardson? three times the maximum dose. According to an article from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Elizabeth was stumbling around the clinic, slurring her words. Eventually, one of her coworkers noticed and carefully guided Elizabeth to a bed meant for patients.
16:31 Tristin Engels? That is an extreme amount of Ativan.
16:33 Vanessa Richardson? Hmm.
16:34 Tristin Engels? Ativan, Valium, morphine, and alcohol are all depressants. They're all central nervous system depressants. And Ativan and Valium, if she becomes dependent on those two substances without a medical detox, it can become fatal with the withdrawals. A person's substance of choice tells us a lot about what's going on with them internally, emotionally. So when I see that somebody is reaching prominently for central nervous system depressants, I'm thinking that they're likely suffering from a lot of stress, some anxiety, some restlessness, and inability to relax,
17:18 Tristin Engels? which I think is pretty obvious given her very grueling work schedule, but also the inability for her to feel comfortable with who she is, causing her to isolate and not have any real support system. And I think that paints a picture into what's going on with her internally.
17:38 Vanessa Richardson? Regardless of what caused Elizabeth's addiction issues, after the hospital found out about Elizabeth's substance abuse issues, they fired her. Elizabeth got in touch with the Ontario Nurses Association, a powerful union in the area, and they arranged alcohol addiction treatment for her. They also helped Elizabeth reach a deal with the hospital. Instead of saying she was fired, her file was adjusted to say she resigned for health reasons. Elizabeth was allowed to keep her nursing license on one condition: she had to stay sober. The following year, in 1996, Elizabeth moved back to Woodstock, her hometown. She started seeing a counselor
18:23 Vanessa Richardson? and went to support groups for substance abuse issues. Things were looking up, and Elizabeth got a new job at Christian Horizons, a small group home for people with disabilities. She started out as a support worker, but quickly moved up the ladder as she helped other employees administer medication and worked closely with the hospital pharmacy. Since her file said she left her previous job because of health reasons, Christian Horizons had no idea about Elizabeth's history of substance abuse, and she was given free access to the pharmacy's drugs. So Elizabeth carried on working and slowly reintegrated into the community she'd once been a part of.
19:07 Vanessa Richardson? She even went back to the South Zora Baptist Church. During one service, she met a man named Donnie Wettlaufer. Seeing her chance to lead a life that the church would approve of, Elizabeth started dating Donnie. Within a year of meeting, they got married and moved into their own place in Woodstock.
19:27 Tristin Engels? At this point, we're really seeing the impact of the cognitive dissonance that Elizabeth is experiencing because she is a lesbian woman who was raised to believe that being a lesbian is immoral. And very wrong in her community. And I surmise that she said what she had to say to approve of the practitioners in the conversion therapy and gain favor again with her parents and her community. And now here she is, having been fired from her job. She's in recovery right now. And given the time period, it's 1996.
20:10 Tristin Engels? One of the biggest principles in AA is that you should not have a relationship within the first year of recovery. But Elizabeth meets a man in her community, in her religious community, and decides to marry him. And that seems to further support the cognitive dissonance. When you're in a state of internal conflict like that, you're going to choose one way or the other, and then you're going to stick with it. And so right at this point, she's like, I need to continue proving to everyone around me and myself that I am changed and I have gone to treatment. I'm in recovery and now I am married and I can show that I am living a, quote, "normal,
20:53 Tristin Engels? heterosexual, cisgender life." Now imagine what that's going to do to her mental health in the long term. This is not going to be fulfilling for her. Could build up a lot of resentment. No one is asking what Elizabeth wants and no one's affirming to her that she is allowed to have what she wants.
21:12 Vanessa Richardson? It seems pretty obvious that Elizabeth was doing her best just to fit in, no matter how painful it may have been. And it worked for a while, for the next nine years, to be exact. Elizabeth stayed sober and continued working at Christian Horizons and eventually returned to work as a full-fledged nurse. I don't know the details of her relationship with Donnie, but it seems like they were solid. Well, as solid as they could be. But all of that came crashing down in 2006, when Elizabeth was 39.
21:47 Vanessa Richardson? After years of stifling her sexuality, she started going on dating sites to meet other women, and she started using drugs again. At different points in her career at Christian Horizons, Elizabeth had received warnings about her conduct, including accusations that she was giving incorrect medication doses to her patients and was emotionally abusive to them. Those outbursts became more frequent as a concerning new sensation emerged. Elizabeth would later claim that she started hearing voices in her head, saying she needed to make things right with God. She would also tell lawyers this was also when she first began fantasizing about killing people,
22:31 Vanessa Richardson? her psychiatrist, coworkers, and patients. These were obviously conflicting ideas that only made Elizabeth get increasingly frustrated with her relationship to God. Elizabeth knew these voices were dangerous, so she tried to control them the best way she knew how. Any time a violent fantasy popped into her head, Elizabeth would sing Bible verses out loud, hoping to ward off her dark thoughts. But praying her urges away would only take Elizabeth so far. Her mind became a hostile place as she struggled to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
23:11 Vanessa Richardson? And it was just a matter of time until the line blurred beyond repair.
23:26 Vanessa Richardson? By July 2006, when Elizabeth Wettlaufer was 39 years old, her intrusive thoughts had become so severe she took a temporary leave from her nursing duties at Christian Horizons. She checked herself into a psychiatric hospital in Woodstock and spent two weeks at the facility. While there, she was diagnosed with depression and borderline personality disorder. They prescribed her with an antipsychotic sedative called Seracil and an antidepressant and anti-obsessional called Fluvaxamine.
24:01 Tristin Engels? So let's talk about what borderline personality disorder is and try to address it in a very ethical way because that condition has been largely stigmatized for reasons like Elizabeth, because this is a pretty extreme example. Somebody who has borderline personality disorder has a pattern of behavior in which they respond to real or imagined abandonment. They have poor emotional regulation. They feel feelings pretty extremely and they're prone to emotional outbursts that seem to somebody on the other end to come out of nowhere.
24:43 Tristin Engels? But all that to say, it's just this deep desire to feel secure, feel grounded, feel less empty. So what we know about the establishment of a borderline personality disorder is that there are a series of traumas. And usually those traumas are sexual in nature. From what we understand so far, it doesn't appear that Elizabeth had been a victim of any sexual trauma in that she hasn't been assaulted in any way. But her sexual trauma was a little bit different because she identifies as a homosexual woman and is not able to embrace that. And instead is married to a man.
25:28 Tristin Engels? So any sexual encounters she's having probably feel traumatic to her. So this actually fits into the borderline. And individuals who have borderline personality disorder are at a higher risk of having substance abuse issues as well. So this also is something that Elizabeth has been struggling with for a very long time.
25:53 Vanessa Richardson? These intrusive thoughts she's having, hearing God talking to her and telling her things.
25:57 Tristin Engels? Right.
25:58 Vanessa Richardson? We sometimes hear this in violent offenders and serial killers. Why do you think it's so common?
26:04 Tristin Engels? Well, it's interesting too, because hearing voices, we immediately think that must be auditory hallucinations. It must be secondary to some form of psychosis. And in Elizabeth's case, she's hearing command hallucinations, which are telling her to harm other people. It's unlikely that someone at 39 years old is going to develop any form of psychotic disorder at that age. It's not improbable, but it's highly unlikely. We usually start to see those symptoms in women much, much earlier on, like in their twenties is when you'll really start to see that emerge. But we're also looking at a lot of substance
26:44 Tristin Engels? use. She started reusing substances again, and she's not just misusing anti-anxiety meds. She was using morphine. She was using Ativan. She was getting some pretty strong substances from her job. That can also create a substance-induced psychosis. But what I'd really like to rule out for her are these actual disembodied voices secondary to a substance-induced psychosis, or is it her own internal critic that's talking to her because of this conflict she has between who she is and who she was raised to be
27:24 Tristin Engels? within her religious community? So I think it's a good thing for her to have recognized that and sought appropriate treatments. And hopefully, while she was at this facility, learned some really good grounding techniques and that the medication would be effective in reducing the intensity and the frequency of the emotional aspect that comes with borderline personality disorder.
27:50 Vanessa Richardson? Well, after her stay at the psychiatric hospital, Elizabeth returned to her nursing job at Christian Horizons. And while the new medications seemed to help quiet the voices in her head, they couldn't change her sexuality, obviously. Elizabeth was still chatting with women online. And in early 2007, her husband Donnie found out she was virtually dating a woman hundreds of miles away in the province of New Brunswick. Shortly after, Donnie and Elizabeth filed for divorce. Elizabeth was excited to finally be living her truth and dating a woman. Her new relationship moved fast, and after some back and forth about where to live,
28:33 Vanessa Richardson? her girlfriend decided to move to Woodstock. But Christian Horizons wouldn't employ people in same-sex relationships, so Elizabeth found a new job as a registered nurse at a local nursing home called Kressent Care in June 2007. Whether the medications stopped working, or Elizabeth stopped taking them, her fantasies came back in full force at Kressent. Although she wasn't thinking about killing anyone, she was still having thoughts about hurting them, specifically by experimenting on her patients. Elizabeth was especially interested in how someone would react to an overdose of insulin.
29:15 Vanessa Richardson? And so, two women, 86-year-old Clatilde Adriano and her sister-in-law, 88-year-old Albina Demaderos, caught Elizabeth's eye. Clatilde had dementia, and both women were physically frail, so Elizabeth knew they wouldn't be able to fight back. So Elizabeth loaded up two insulin pens and gave them unnecessarily high doses. Luckily, both women survived, but they were just guinea pigs in Elizabeth's experiment. Now, she was ready to take her fantasies all the way to their fatal conclusion.
29:55 Vanessa Richardson? In August of 2007, 40-year-old Elizabeth was working a double shift at Kressent. She started at 3:00 PM and wouldn't be done until 7:00 the next morning. No matter how many times she'd done them, double shifts were always stressful, especially when her patients were acting up. Elizabeth was still making the rounds when one resident, 84-year-old war vet James Silcox, became agitated and started yelling. He suffered from Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, and Elizabeth's patience was wearing thin as night turned into early morning. As he continued to yell, Elizabeth heard that voice in her head,
30:40 Vanessa Richardson? and it wanted her to do more than experiment on Mr. Silcox. It told her it was his time to go. Elizabeth knew just what to do. She walked over to the fridge where the staff stored medications and picked up a box of insulin cartridges. She expertly loaded them into an injection pen and strolled over to Mr. Silcox. She told him it was time for his daily insulin dose. As she inserted the needle, the voice in her head began to laugh. Elizabeth smiled and turned away from Mr. Silcox, moving on to her next task.
31:22 Vanessa Richardson? At 3 a.m. the next morning, Mr. Silcox took his last breath. The staff found him unresponsive and notified the on-call doctor. Mr. Silcox had recently had hip surgery and the doctor assumed Mr. Silcox had died of complications from it. Of course, Elizabeth knew the truth. She'd killed him. But she didn't mention that as she calmly filled out Mr. Silcox's paperwork.
31:51 Tristin Engels? Okay, I think we need to really talk about what's been going on in Elizabeth's head as she moved from experimenting on the two elderly women to actually administering a fatal dose on Mr. Silcox. So I'm not really surprised that Elizabeth's modus operandi, or her method, has been lethal injection of insulin because what we know about female serial killers is that they usually go towards poisoning of some kind as their method. So this tracks in that way. But why Mr. Silcox and why not these women? What was it about this moment? So we know that up until this point, she's been battling with these inner voices,
32:35 Tristin Engels? whether they're actually due to psychosis or if it's her own internal dialogue and the own internal conflict, sort of like what Freud would talk about with the id, the ego, and the superego. You know, and that's depicted in a lot of cartoons where you've got the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. Doesn't mean she's experiencing psychosis, but yes, intrusive thoughts certainly do fit the bill on that one. But why Mr. Silcox in this moment? So we know that he was agitated. We know that he was yelling. We know that he's a male. And I'm wondering if her trauma of being repressed in her sexuality was now being directed outward toward Mr. Silcox in this moment.
33:17 Tristin Engels? If I'm not allowed to be who I am, then I'm going to be what God wants me to be. And she convinced herself using in these intrusive thoughts or this internal voice of this is how I'm going to play that out. I'm going to be God in this moment and I'm going to take his life. She's now finally free. Let's talk about that, too. She's now divorced from her husband. She's finally free to be who she wants to be. She's free to date who she wants to date and she's dating a woman. So she's got this newfound control that she has long since been repressing. And so I think now with that newfound control, she's overcompensating with that to a very violent, very egregious degree.
34:00 Vanessa Richardson? Well, Elizabeth didn't dwell on her first murder for long. Her girlfriend and her two teenage kids had moved in with her and things at home were hectic. Pretty soon Elizabeth's nine years of sobriety went out the window. Part of Elizabeth's decision to start drinking again might have come from stress. Her girlfriend had Parkinson's disease and couldn't work, which meant Elizabeth was the sole provider for a family of four. All that pressure bled into Elizabeth's performance at Keresent. She started skipping shifts and messing up medication doses. And even after killing James Silcox, the voice in Elizabeth's head was still there.
34:43 Vanessa Richardson? She managed to ignore it for a couple of months, but in December of 2007, about four months after killing James Silcox, it overpowered her.
34:54 Tristin Engels? I'm wondering if this voice is really just that same drive that other serial killers have. It's not really a voice. It's the urge. And her way of describing the urge is by giving it an identity. With other serial killers, they have said this also. I think it's the urge that's coming up that they're telling themselves, that urge, that inner voice to keep going.
35:19 Vanessa Richardson? Well, Elizabeth was tending to an 84-year-old patient named Maurice Grenat. According to Elizabeth, he was being belligerent and acting inappropriately with the female staff. It made Elizabeth angry, angry enough to kill. So when nobody was paying attention, she injected Mr. Grenat with a fatal overdose of insulin. Whatever temporary relief killing Maurice Grenat might have given Elizabeth, it wasn't enough to ease the tension in her personal life. She and her girlfriend were both drinking heavily and fighting nonstop. Eventually, it all became too much, and within a year of moving in together, they decided to call it quits.
36:03 Vanessa Richardson? Elizabeth didn't waste any time getting back to online dating, and later that year, in 2008, she started seeing a woman named Sheila Andrews. Sheila lived nearly 2,000 miles away in Saskatchewan, another Canadian province. But Elizabeth was certain they were meant to be together. Three months into dating, Elizabeth flew to Saskatchewan to meet Sheila in person for the first time. Sheila took Elizabeth around town and introduced her to friends and neighbors. Elizabeth told everyone she met that she and Sheila were in love. Apparently, Elizabeth was planning to move to Saskatchewan to be near her,
36:45 Vanessa Richardson? which was news to Sheila, they hadn't even slept together yet. Once they were intimate, it only pushed Sheila further away. She told Elizabeth she just didn't feel the chemistry between them and wanted to hit pause. That wasn't what Elizabeth wanted to hear. She became angry and gave Sheila the cold shoulder.
37:09 Vanessa Richardson? Then, on the last night of Elizabeth's week-long visit, Sheila woke up in the middle of the night to find Elizabeth standing over her, just staring. She told Sheila she was a cold-hearted person, then went back to her side of the bed and went to sleep.
37:28 Tristin Engels? Not everybody who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder falls on the spectrum of severe in this way. But, well, as we talked about before, the pattern is really this fear of real or perceived rejection or abandonment. So, individuals with borderline personality disorder have what we know as an anxious attachment style. So, in Elizabeth's case, it's showing up in that she attaches quite quickly to Sheila, but she's anxious about the relationship ending prematurely, or her being rejected or abandoned. So, her way of ensuring that is by asserting outwardly to everybody they're in love and that she's going to be moving there,
38:13 Tristin Engels? even though she hadn't discussed this yet with Sheila. This behavior tends to alienate individuals with borderline personality disorder from others, because it can be a lot to some people. And it's obvious that Sheila felt very uncomfortable with the way in which Elizabeth had attached to her, having barely known each other.
38:37 Vanessa Richardson? Well, back in Woodstock, Elizabeth tried to move on from her relationship with Sheila. She started chatting with women online again, and soon, she was dating someone new. But the last year had taken a toll on her, and Elizabeth couldn't stop thinking about her two victims, James Silcox and Maurice Grenau. At some point in 2008, Elizabeth confided in her new girlfriend and confessed to the murders. Her girlfriend took it surprisingly well. She didn't tell anyone, but she did warn Elizabeth not to do it again. It was good advice, but Elizabeth wasn't interested in following it.
39:20 Vanessa Richardson? She just needed to share her secret with someone. Now, absolved of her guilt, Elizabeth felt free to kill again.
39:38 Speaker 04 Early morning on a Manhattan sidewalk. A shooting caught on surveillance video.
39:43 Speaker 05 It was an assassination-style killing, and everybody saw it.
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40:15 Vanessa Richardson? In the second half of 2008 and into 2009, 41-year-old Elizabeth Wettlaufer continued her downward spiral. After confessing to her girlfriend that she'd murdered two of her patients, Elizabeth targeted another, 60-year-old Michael Prittl. But somehow, Michael survived the insulin overdose Elizabeth gave him. The failed murder attempt gave Elizabeth pause. For the next three years or so, she laid low and tried to navigate her personal life. She and her girlfriend broke up, and Elizabeth struggled to form meaningful relationships. Her borderline personality disorder and substance abuse issues made it difficult for her to connect with people,
41:01 Vanessa Richardson? and the isolation enraged her. By late 2010, Elizabeth was teetering on the edge again. It was like she was hearing voices in her head, and they were screaming at her. A lot of the time, she thought she heard God telling her to make things right with Him. As the year was coming to an end, Elizabeth couldn't ignore the voices any longer. The anger she felt at the world welled up inside of her, and she lost control. What Elizabeth later described as a red surge of rage washed over her. And by the time 2011 rolled around, she'd given another three patients at Keresant,
41:44 Vanessa Richardson? fatal overdoses of insulin. When 87 year old Gladys Millard, 95 year old Helen Matheson, and 96 year old Mary Zurowinski died, no one but Elizabeth knew they'd been murdered.
42:01 Tristin Engels? So up until this point, Elizabeth's victims had all been men. Men who were initially very agitated, who were inappropriate with female staff because it was something she could rationalize probably to herself. But this red surge, which I think if we're going to really break it down from a psychological perspective, is a form of dissociative rage. At this point in her life, she's free to live how she wants to live, but she can't maintain the relationships that she's established, which we talked about earlier on with regard to her initial upbringing, how it can be hard for her with the black and white dichotomous views
42:43 Tristin Engels? to obtain and maintain relationships with others. So now she's free. She's out as a lesbian in her way. She's obtaining and trying to maintain these relationships, and they're all failing. And so it feels like a loss of control, I think, for her. And so this red surge is that dissociative rage where she can no longer ground herself. She doesn't have the emotional regulation skills that she needs. She doesn't have outlets. She's isolated. And so it all became sort of an impulsive killing spree. Because let's call that what it is. It's a killing spree, three or more.
43:28 Tristin Engels? And there are three victims here, all of whom were women. And so that tells me that this wasn't as premeditated as it might have normally been for her because I think she was very selective in the past of who she targeted. And in this case, I think it was opportunistic.
43:45 Vanessa Richardson? As Elizabeth's mental health continued to deteriorate and her substance abuse issues got worse, her social circle got increasingly smaller. By mid 2012, she spent most of her time at church or at home with her cats and Jack Russell terrier. It was a lonely existence, and Elizabeth was desperate for a deeper romantic connection. With the loneliness and isolation bearing down on her, Elizabeth started looking for connection in some questionable ways. There were groups of high school students who volunteered at Keresent, and Elizabeth quickly took an interest in them. It started out innocent enough.
44:27 Vanessa Richardson? Elizabeth was friendly, chatting with the students during her shifts and asking about their lives. But over time, some of the other nurses noticed Elizabeth was making sexual comments to the students. Sometimes the staff even heard Elizabeth ask these teenagers to come home with her. And her inappropriate behavior didn't stop at the volunteers. She also made sexually explicit comments to her coworkers. Elizabeth was reprimanded for her comments, but didn't receive any formal punishment. Mostly, her colleagues just gossiped about her behavior. Elizabeth had been at Keresent since 2007, and although there was no denying she was odd, for the most part, people enjoyed having her there.
45:12 Vanessa Richardson? She was kind to her coworkers and patients, at least on the surface, and brought in treats for people's birthdays.
45:19 Tristin Engels? So why this change in behavior with Elizabeth, with the sexual comments? I think that's more so fueled by this isolation that she was experiencing and the lack of connection and how desperately she wanted that.
45:36 Tristin Engels? Now she's seeing a group of students coming into her shifts, right? And this is a group or a population that's easily influenced in her mind. But I think because Elizabeth is already, as you said, odd and might struggle in forming and maintaining relationships, she's trying to figure out, how can I connect with this younger crowd? And maybe she felt that talking about sexuality or sex in general and inviting them home was a way to make friends with them. But how does somebody in their 40s connect with students?
46:13 Vanessa Richardson? Yeah.
46:14 Tristin Engels? Because you can't. There's such a huge differential in age. It's not a group of people that she's going to be able to be real friends with. It's not going to give her what she's looking for, but it certainly can give her a temporary feeling of that. But in doing so, she's compromising rules. She's compromising ethics and she's compromising morals because it's not appropriate to make those jokes or to have those discussions, not only with a group of students, but with her colleagues in general.
46:47 Vanessa Richardson? Well, with management sweeping Elizabeth's conduct under the rug, she was free to keep getting closer to the teenage volunteers at the nursing home. She was cozy with one female student in particular. For the girl's birthday, Elizabeth decided to give her a special treat. She drove them an hour and a half northeast to Toronto to visit the Medieval Times, a dinner show with jousting knights. But during the drive, Elizabeth was acting strange. When the student asked her about it, Elizabeth cracked. Elizabeth said she'd, quote, "given her life back to God" and went on to explain that she'd done some bad things in her life.
47:29 Vanessa Richardson? She took a deep breath and told the girl about the patients she'd murdered. The student couldn't believe what she was hearing. The only thing she could think to ask was if Elizabeth was still doing it. Elizabeth answered that she wasn't.
47:44 Vanessa Richardson? I don't know if Elizabeth admitted just how many people she'd killed, but either way, it was enough to scare the girl. Two days later, the student confided in Elizabeth that she felt like she had to tell someone about Elizabeth's confession. In response, Elizabeth told the girl that nobody would believe her. Maybe she'd realized what would actually happen if she got turned in for her crimes. But regardless of what Elizabeth was thinking, the girl never reported her.
48:15 Tristin Engels? I can't imagine what must have been going through that poor girl's mind, hearing that and feeling scared about how to approach that situation. That's a big weight to carry, but also, at the same time, if she did report her, what Elizabeth do to her? You know, she's young, so she's probably terrified. But also, I think we need to touch on the fact that Elizabeth has this pattern of confessing her crimes. I mean, we do see this with serial killers in general. A lot of the time, since most of them are men, their confessions come in the form of letters or manifestos of some kind. The letters that they write to police, or they send to the newspapers,
49:00 Tristin Engels? or, you know, the messages that they leave, or the people that they call anonymously, they've got a form of confession. Elizabeth's form is very different. And I think it stems from her religious upbringing, that in order for her to feel okay with what she's doing, she needs to confess it in some way. And that absolves her of her sins, and that frees up the burden that she's carrying, and it makes it more available for her to do again. That's a component that we don't really see often, is that verbal confession, and also the arrogance of thinking that no one's gonna say anything. And no one has up until this point.
49:44 Tristin Engels? For whatever reason, people have continued to protect her. And maybe it's because she is such a likable person on the front, right? She brings in treats, she's quote... Good to the patients, at least to everyone's knowledge. Very clearly, that's not the case. But on the surface, she's likable. And she's also been struggling with addiction. And, you know, people are overlooking the bigger picture. And she's been getting away with it. So it's almost a form of arrogance to admit to people and then say, no one's going to believe you.
50:18 Vanessa Richardson? After confessing to her murders for the second time, and as you mentioned, getting off scot-free again, Elizabeth felt that red wave creeping back over her. In the summer of 2013, about two and a half years after her last murder, 46-year-old Elizabeth was working her shift at Karrison. She was caring for a patient named Helen Young when the voice in her head returned. She'd been praying harder than ever, hopeful that her devotion to God would overcome her violent urges. But he was sending her mixed messages. Helen had moved to Canada from Scotland after World War II. She'd led a fulfilling life. But now, at 90 years old,
51:03 Vanessa Richardson? God told Elizabeth that Helen was in pain. The Lord wanted her to put Helen out of her misery. So Elizabeth obliged. She walked over to the medicine fridge and gathered enough insulin to kill Helen. She calmly injected Helen and finished out her shift. By the time Helen was dead, Elizabeth was already home. After her sixth murder, Elizabeth felt lost. She couldn't understand why God would allow her to do such horrible things. She tried talking to him, but nothing he said seemed to make sense. So she turned to the next best person for advice.
51:47 Vanessa Richardson? In October of 2013, Elizabeth asked to speak to her pastor. He led the queer-friendly church that Elizabeth had been attending for years, and she'd come to see him as a friend. Receptive as ever, he invited Elizabeth over to his house to chat. She sat around the kitchen table with her pastor and his wife, debating whether to share her secret with them. And if so, how much of it should she say? Eventually, Elizabeth broke down. She told them that earlier that year, she'd killed her patient Helen Young by giving her an insulin overdose. The pastor and his wife sat silently for a few moments.
52:30 Vanessa Richardson? Privately, they weren't sure if Elizabeth was being truthful or if she was just making it all up. But in that moment, they took Elizabeth's hands in theirs and bowed their heads. They prayed for Elizabeth and promised God would forgive her. But they warned her, if Elizabeth did it again, they would report her.
52:52 Tristin Engels? So this is very frustrating because at this point, there's four different people that Elizabeth has confessed her crimes to. And four different people at this point have not reported her. I can't speak for why her previous girlfriend, the girl at work, why they did not report her. But I know that in the role of pastor, there might be some limitations to what they can and can't report because there is an element of confidentiality when you go to your pastor, similar to when I'm assessing a defendant or an incarcerated individual. And they tell me that they committed a crime in the past in which they'd never been caught for.
53:37 Tristin Engels? I can't inform law enforcement of that because confidentiality applies. The only time that I can intervene is if the individual tells me, I am planning on going and doing this now. It's an imminent threat to someone else. I have a duty to protect that person. But there's nothing we can do about a crime that's previously been committed and that's being shared. And I'm wondering if Elizabeth knows that. I'm wondering if Elizabeth knows the loopholes when it comes to that with her pastor. So again, it's a form of acceptance. It's a form- A validation, all of these things give her that and allow her to continue and allow
54:18 Tristin Engels? her to alleviate whatever turmoil she's having internally for a brief period of time at least.
54:25 Vanessa Richardson? Sort of on the flip side, do you think there's a part of her that wants to get caught?
54:29 Tristin Engels? I do. And I only, the reason why I think that is because of that internal conflict that she's constantly in. That's got to be mentally taxing.
54:36 Vanessa Richardson? Mm hmm.
54:37 Tristin Engels? Absolutely taxing on her. But also, I think more than anything, I think she wants a connection with somebody who's just going to accept her as she is and allow her to be who she is and stay with her.
54:53 Vanessa Richardson? Elizabeth Wettlaufer seemed unstoppable. No matter how many times she admitted to her horrific crimes, no one tried to put her behind bars. Now Elizabeth had the blood of six patients on her hands, and the carnage wasn't close to over.
55:25 Vanessa Richardson? Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next time as we discuss how Elizabeth Wettlaufer's rampage finally came to an end.
55:33 Tristin Engels? Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Mind of a Serial Killer wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference.
55:58 Vanessa Richardson? And to enhance your listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of Mind of a Serial Killer ad-free, along with early access to each thrilling two-part series and exciting bonus content. We'll be back next Monday.
56:17 Vanessa Richardson? Mind of a Serial Killer, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios, is executive produced by Max Cutler. This episode of Mind of a Serial Killer was produced and directed by Ron Shapiro, written by Natalie Pritzowski, edited by Alex Benidorm, fact-checked by Claire Cronin, and included production assistants from Paul Lebaskin, Sarah Carroll, and Kristin Acevedo. Mind of a Serial Killer is hosted by Vanessa Richardson and Dr. Tristin Engels.
56:52 Tristin Engels? The police closed my sister's case in 2019. Last month, her killer commented on my post.
56:59 Speaker 06 On Reddit, true crime doesn't come from journalists. It comes from the victims, the witnesses, and sometimes the suspects themselves.
57:07 Tristin Engels? People post the things they'd never say out loud: anonymous, unfiltered, and completely real.
57:12 Speaker 06 And every Tuesday, on Crimes of Reddit, we read them out loud.
57:16 Tristin Engels? I'm Sabrina Deana-Roga from Two Girls, One Ghost.
57:19 Speaker 06 And I'm Alexis Linkletter from The First Degree.
57:22 Tristin Engels? Each week, one of us brings the most unhinged true crime stories the internet has to offer.
57:27 Speaker 06 And the other goes in completely blind: no prep, no spoilers, reacting in real time, same as you, and then we swap.
57:35 Tristin Engels? And we pull every thread until the whole twisted picture comes into view.
57:39 Speaker 06 It's dark. It's messy. And the scariest part is that these are real stories posted by real people.
57:45 Tristin Engels? New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen to and follow Crimes of Reddit, available now wherever you get your podcasts.
57:52 Vanessa Richardson? If you're looking for your next podcast, check out What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
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