At 96 years old, Mary Zurawinski was a resident of the Caressant Care nursing home in Woodstock, Ontario, where she was known as a "lovely woman." Having already outlived her husband and sons, she was looking forward to her 100th birthday. Her life, however, was cut short in the place she called home, not by natural causes as was first believed, but at the hands of a trusted caregiver who harbored a dark secret.
On the evening of November 7, 2011, Mary, a female resident, had a
chillingly prescient conversation with her registered nurse, Elizabeth Tracey Mae Wettlaufer. According to Wettlaufer’s later confession, Mary told her that she was going to die "tonight" and asked to be put to bed. Wettlaufer complied with the request and then, instead of providing care, she injected the elderly woman with a fatal overdose of insulin. Mary’s death was not seen as suspicious at the time, and her passing was mourned as the end of a long life. The following day, as if to mark the occasion, Wettlaufer and her partner boarded the Emerald Princess cruise ship for a 10-day Caribbean vacation.
For nearly five years, the truth behind Mary Zurawinski’s death remained hidden. She was simply one of several elderly residents who had passed away at Caressant Care. The silence was broken in September 2016 when Wettlaufer, who had since left her job at the facility, checked herself into a psychiatric hospital in Toronto. There, she confessed to staff that she had killed numerous patients under her care with insulin injections. This shocking admission triggered a multi-jurisdiction police investigation. On September 29, 2016, Woodstock police received information that a nurse may have murdered multiple patients, leading them to Wettlaufer.
The investigation uncovered a horrifying pattern of abuse that spanned almost a decade. Elizabeth Wettlaufer, known as Bethe Parker before her marriage, was a serial killer who preyed on the vulnerable seniors she was paid to protect. Between 2007 and 2016, she committed eight murders, four attempted murders, and two aggravated assaults. Mary was one of seven victims killed at the Caressant Care facility in Woodstock. The inquiry that followed revealed systemic failures, showing Wettlaufer had a long history of medication errors and professional misconduct, yet was allowed to continue working, in part because it was cheaper for the facility to issue warnings than to suspend her. In her confession, Wettlaufer spoke of a "red surging" feeling she would get before killing and a "laughing feeling" afterward.
On June 1, 2017, Elizabeth Wettlaufer pleaded guilty to all charges against her, including eight counts of first-degree murder. The guilty plea spared the victims' families the trauma of a lengthy trial, though they had to endure the disturbing details of her confession in court. Some family members expressed a mixture of grief and relief that the case was coming to a conclusion.
On June 26, 2017, Wettlaufer was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years. The judge, calling her "a shadow of death," sentenced her to eight concurrent life terms. Her nursing registration was formally and indefinitely revoked. The case sent shockwaves across Canada, exposing deep-seated problems within the long-term care system and leading to a public inquiry aimed at preventing such a tragedy from ever happening again. For Mary Zurawinski’s loved ones, the legal resolution brought a measure of justice, but it could never replace the "lovely woman" who was stolen from them just a few years shy of her centenary.
