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Former Woodstock nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer checked herself into psychiatric care, warrant shows

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The former Woodstock nurse charged with eight counts of first-degree murder sought out psychiatric help on her own in the days before the police investigation swung into high gear into the deaths of vulnerable long-term-care patients.

In new information, just released in a search warrant obtained by The Free Press, it appears Elizabeth Wettlaufer, 49, “checked herself into the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health” in Toronto on Sept. 16, 2016.

That nugget is one of the new pieces of information approved by a judge to be released to the public after Postmedia sought to have a search warrant unsealed.

In a court decision, Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney ordered other parts of the warrant - some of them full paragraphs of information - to be released. That information will be available once a new copy of the warrant that sought Wettlaufer's education records is prepared.

For now, the snippets are listed in an appendix attached to Heeney's decision to open up some more of the warrant.

The Free Press reported on the warrant in January, pointing out that police started investigating all eight homicides, four attempted murders and two aggravated assaults, after Wettlaufer was a patient at the mental health facility.

It was the first time there was documented evidence that overdoses of insulin were suspected in at least the attempted murders.

The Woodstock police were alerted to allegations by the Toronto police service after Wettlaufer had been interviewed by a Toronto police detective, sparking the beginning of the exhaustive investigation that included inquiries into additional attempted murder and aggravated assault charges laid in January, on top of the first-degree murder charges laid in October.

Seven of the eight dead were from Caressant Care in Woodstock where Wettlaufer worked as a long-term-care nurse.

She also worked at Meadow Park nursing home where a London man died.

She had a brief tenure at Saint Elizabeth Health Care in Woodstock. The newly released warrant information also includes a passage that states Wettlaufer's supervisor at the agency was giving the police Wettlaufer's patient list “so that the police could find who Beverly was.”

That was Beverly Bertram, the only alleged victim who wasn't a resident of a nursing home, who was listed as the victim of attempted murder “by administering an overdose of insulin” in August 2016.

Later the director of nursing at Caressant Care, Helen Crombez, told police she believed a victim only known at the time as “Mike” was Mike Priddle and “Wayne' was Wayne Hedges.

Both men are listed as alleged victims of attempted murder “by administering an overdose of insulin."

Wettlaufer’s next court appearance will be by video link to the Vanier Centre for Women Milton on April 7.

jsims@postmedia.com

twitter.com/JaneatLFPress

 

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