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Dennis Rader BTK Serial Killer

Dennis Rader is a serial killer who was known at the BTK killer. BTK which stands for Bind, Torture and Kill reign of terror starting in 1974 and ending with his arrest in 1991. In this article on My Crime Library we are going to take a closer look at Dennis Rader the BTK killer.

Dennis Rader Early Years

Dennis Rader was born in Kansas on March 9, 1945 and was one of four children. Both of his parents worked long hours and Rader would later state that he felt ignored by his mother. Dennis would harbor thoughts of sexual violence and would commit a number of violent acts against animals.

Dennis Rader would join the US Military in 1966 and would serve until 1970. When he left the military Dennis Rader would work in a supermarket, where his mother worked as a bookkeeper. In 1971 Dennis would get married to Paula Dietz and the pair would have two children Kerri and Brian

Dennis Rader would go back to school and graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Administration of Justice. Rader would work for a security company where he would install security alarms in private homes.

In 1991 Dennis Rader would start a new job as a dog catcher and compliance officer in Park City Utah.

Dennis Rader Murdres

Dennis Rader started to kill people in 1974. According to court documents Dennis Rader would murder four members of the Otero family in Wichita Kansas. Dennis would murder Joseph Otero, age 38; Julie Otero, age 33; Joseph Otero Jr., age 9; and Josephine Otero, age 11. The murder victims would be discovered by other members of the family. After his arrest Dennis Rader would admit to the four murders

Between 1974 and 1977 Dennis Rader would murder three women Kathryn Bright (April 4, 1974), Shirley Vian Relford (March 17, 1977), and Nancy Fox (December 8, 1977). Dennis Rader would write the local press confessing to this crime and suggesting names that the press could call him. The BTK Killer was the one that they chose.

Dennis Rader attempted to murder another woman during this period but thankfully she was able to escape.

In 1985 the BTK Killer would murder Marine Hedge, aged 53, in Wichita Kansas. Dennis Rader would bring the victims body to his church where he posed her in a number of positions and taking photographs.

In 1988 someone claiming to be the BTK killer would murder three members of the Fager family. The press would later receive a letter from the BTK killer denying any involvement however during the letter approved of the killers work. It was later proven that Dennis Rader did write the letter however was not responsible for the triple murder.

In 1991 Dolores E. Davis, was found murdered in Park City Utah. This was the last known murder of Dennis Rader

Name	Sex	Age	Date of Death	Place of Death	Cause of Death	Weapon Used
Joseph Otero	M	39	January 15, 1974	803 N. Edgemoor Street, Wichita	Suffocated	Plastic bag
Julia Maria Otero	F	33	Strangled	Rope
Joseph Otero, Jr.	M	9	Suffocated	Plastic bag
Josephine Otero	F	11	Hanged	Rope
Kathryn Doreen Bright	F	21	April 4, 1974	3217 E. 13th Street N., Wichita (died at Wesley Medical Center)	Stabbed three times in abdomen^[80]	Knife
Shirley Ruth Vian Relford	F	24	March 17, 1977	1311 S. Hydraulic Street, Wichita	Strangled	Rope
Nancy Jo Fox	F	25	December 8, 1977	843 S. Pershing Street, Wichita	Strangled	Belt
Marine Wallace Hedge	F	53	April 27, 1985	6254 N. Independence Street, Park City	Strangled	Hand(s)
Vicki Lynn Wegerle	F	28	September 16, 1986	2404 W. 13th Street N., Wichita	Strangled	Nylon stocking
Dolores Earline Johnson Davis	F	62	January 19, 1991	6226 N. Hillside Street, Wichita (east of Park City)	Strangled	Pantyhose

Dennis Rader Arrest

Dennis Rader would send a floppy disc to the police and it would lead to his downfall. The police were able to find information on the disc that would identify Dennis Rader. On February 25, 2005 the BTK Killer would be arrested in Park City Utah.

Dennis Rader Prison Sentence

Dennis Rader would ultimately be convicted of ten counts of murder and would be sentenced to multiple life sentences with no chance of parole. Dennis Rader is kept away from the regular prison population and is allowed one hour of exercise per day. Due to his crime and notoriety he would not be safe in the general prison population

Dennis Rader 2022 Information

Work or Program Participation Not Working

Earliest Possible Release Date (1) Feb 26, 2180

Current Status Incarcerated

Admission Date Aug 19, 2005

Current Location (2)El Dorado CF-Central

Custody Level Special Management

Dennis Rader More News

Dennis Rader appeared as an ordinary family man in Wichita, Kansas, who collected stamps and served as the president of his church.

But the seeming doting father and trusted Cub Scout leader was also a murderer who terrorized residents for decades using the moniker BTK – bind, torture, kill.

In 2005, Rader, now 76, pled guilty to killing 10 people from 1974 to 1991. And for over a decade, Rader corresponded with Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology, to better understand how lust, as well as a desire for fame and power, drove him to kill. Now, she’s sharing her story.

Ramsland is speaking out in a new true-crime docuseries on A&E titled “BTK: Confession of a Serial Killer.” The two-night special from executive producer Dick Wolf of the “Law & Order” franchise features never-before-heard conversations between Rader and Ramsland as they discuss his past and gruesome crimes.

“When I first wrote to him, he appreciated the fact that I had academic credentials and that I was also an expert on serial killers because I had done a lot of writing on them prior to talking with him,” Ramsland told Fox News. “But he had a test for me. He wanted me to solve some codes that he sent me.

“He wanted to make sure I wouldn’t just dismiss it. But for practical purposes, he wanted to use codes to disguise what we were talking about when we got into very dark, raw subjects. And I was willing to do that. That was a good signal to him that I would work with him in the way he wanted.”

Ramsland first corresponded with Rader in 2010. They exchanged numerous letters, spoke on the phone and even met face-to-face at El Dorado Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Kansas. In 2016, Ramsland wrote the book “Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer” under an agreement that proceeds from its sale would go to the victims’ families trust fund.

“My initial impression of Dennis Rader was that he wanted to challenge me,” Ramsland said. “And what surprised me was the fact that there wasn’t anything in his background that would correspond with the typical formula we have of serial killers. I recently heard a detective say that all serial killers have trauma in their background. He was wrong about that.”

“Dennis Rader challenges the idea we have about serial killers,” she added. “He was a family man. He was a churchgoer, even a president of his church congregation. He had a full-time job. He was part of his community. So we have to be careful about some of the stereotypes we form about these kinds of offenders.

“Otherwise, we’ll start thinking we know them when we don’t. And in Dennis’ case, there wasn’t any particular reason in his background. No trauma. He was an all-American boy, the oldest of four boys in his family. He had an intact family and played on his farm. So where did it all come from? That intrigued me.”

Rader joined the Air Force and married Paula Dietz in 1971. Every Sunday, he and his spouse went to church. The couple shares two children, a boy and a girl. Rader’s father, who died in 1996 after retiring as a plant operator at a utility company’s generating station, was described by childhood pals as strict but never cruel, the New York Times reported.

Rader struck as the BTK for the first time in 1974. Four members of the Otero family — Joseph, 38, wife Julie, 34, and two of their children — Josephine, 11, and Joseph II, 9 — were bound and strangled inside their homes. The slain matriarch had worked on an assembly line for the Coleman Company, the same place Rader worked in the early ‘70s.

Rader taunted the media and police with cryptic messages during a cat-and-mouse game that began after the murders. He signed the letters “BTK.”

That same year, 21-year-old Kathryn Bright, who also worked at the Coleman plant, was found stabbed in her home. She was bound with a cord and partially dressed. Her brother was shot but survived.

Rader returned to his seemingly normal life until 1977. Shirley Vian, 24, was found on her bed with a plastic bag over her head and a cord wrapped around her neck, hands and feet. That same year, 25-year-old Nancy Fox was strangled with nylon stockings in her home.

Rader hid in plain sight as he helped raise his family. Then in 1985, 53-year-old Marine Hedge was found strangled alongside a dirt road. The next year, 28-year-old Vicki Wegerle was found strangled in her bed.

Rader returned to a low-profile life once more as he became heavily involved in his church community. That changed in 1991 when he abducted 62-year-old Dolores Davis, his final victim, from her home. She was found strangled and bound under a bridge.

Ramsland said that growing up, Rader was “humiliated by his mother” which stayed with him over the years.

“That really played on him,” she explained. “It’s something he still thinks about, even to this day. And we haven’t studied humiliation as a factor in the development of extreme offenders much. And I think maybe we need to rethink that. And he certainly got an early exposure to using ropes for an erotic activity.

“And then he began to read these true detective magazines that his father would hide in the car. So that made him clandestine … He wanted to feel significant. And he wanted to have power over women because females made him feel off balance.”

“He didn’t like that as the oldest boy, he was expected to be strong and masculine, and yet they seem to kneecap him right and left without even trying, just by being female,” she shared. “And his fantasy life certainly propelled him.”

Rader resurfaced in 2004 with more chilling, taunting letters. The break in the case came in 2005 after a computer disk Rader sent was traced to his church. His chilling courtroom confession ended a mystery that haunted Wichita for decades. He was sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms in prison.

“During that courtroom hearing, Dennis felt like he was in a position to teach people about who he was,” said Ramsland. “In a way, he also thought of himself as a victim. He thought he had some things in common with the victims … Rader is a narcissist, so he just thought this was a way to present himself.”

When asked if Rader saw himself as a monster, Ramsland said, “At times.”

“Dennis Rader does think of himself as a monster, but he also thinks of himself as a good person who did some bad things,” she explained. “He will talk about a monster in his brain. It’s his ‘Factor X,’ which is a way to distance himself from criminal responsibility. He thinks, for the most part, he’s not a monster. He certainly was in those instances when he selected a victim and carried through with his crimes. But overall, he doesn’t think of himself that way.”

https://www.foxnews.com/us/btk-killer-dennis-rader-katherine-ramsland-true-crime-documentary

Dennis Rader Videos

What Does BTK Stand For

BTK refers to Bind, Torture and Kill which is what Dennis Rader was dubbed as

Dennis Rader Now

Dennis Rader is currently incarcerated in a solitary cell at the El Dorado Correctional Facility

Dennis Rader Release Date

Dennis Rader is serving a life without parole sentence

Craig Bjork The Serial Killer You Have Never Heard Of

Craig Bjork is a serial killer that most people have never heard of unless they are from Minnesota and have a long memory and the name Craig Jackson rings a bell. Craig Bjork started his criminal ways back in Minnesota when he would murder four people including two of his toddlers.

This mass murder crime is one of the worst in the history of Minnesota. See on that day back in 1982 would murder his girlfriend Ramona Yurkew, another woman, Gwendolyn Johnson, and his two sons Joseph and Jason, ages 3 and 1. Minneapolis Police would enter the home to conduct a wellness check and would find all four victims dead, each had been strangled and stuffed other beds. For that crime Craig Bjork would receive multiple life sentences however he was not done with his murderous ways

Craig Bjork would be sent to a maximum security prison in Minnesota called Stillwater where a few years later would beat to death a fellow prisoner and would receive yet another life sentence. Now the Minnesota Department Of Corrections did not want to deal with Craig Bjork any longer so they had him transferred to the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Craig Bjork would keep his head down for a number of years until 2013 when he would strangle to death his cellmate at the Oregon State Penitentiary. Now Oregon does have the death penalty however a Judge ordered the Minnesota Department Of Corrections to get Craig Bjork out of his State which changed the charges against him and a long story short made him ineligible for the death penalty. Craig Bjork would plead no contest to his sixth murder and would receive yet another life sentence

Craig Bjork 2022 Information

MNDOC Offender ID: 123611

Name: Craig Dennis Bjork

Birth Date: 09/14/1959

Current Status:Incarcerated as of 11/05/1982. Currently at a non-DOC facility.

Sentence Date:11/04/1982

Anticipated Release Date: Life without Parole

Expiration Date: Life

Craig Bjork More News

After his latest murder conviction, this time for strangling his cellmate in Oregon, a Minneapolis man who in the 1980s said God and the devil beckoned him to kill two women and his children could be coming home.

In handing down Craig Bjork’s fifth life sentence, for committing his sixth murder, a judge has asked the Minnesota Department of Corrections to move the 60-year-old prisoner out of Oregon, where Bjork is serving time through an interstate compact that allows correctional systems to trade problem inmates

That means Bjork has escaped Oregon’s death penalty, the sentence prosecutors there sought for him.

“I think it’s disgusting,” said Matt Kemmy, deputy district attorney in Marion County, Ore. “The death penalty is supposed to be for the worst of the worst, and Craig Bjork is absolutely that. This is a man who has been convicted of killing men, women and children — plural of each. Frankly, he should be the poster child for why we have the death penalty.”

Thirty-eight years ago, Bjork, then known as Craig Jackson, committed a spree of four murders that Minneapolis police called the city’s worst of the 20th century. He achieved new notoriety years later as a problem inmate when he beat a man to death in Stillwater prison. In 2013, after Minnesota sent him to Oregon State Penitentiary, Bjork killed his cellmate, a convicted murderer named Joe Atkins.

After Bjork’s conviction for the latter killing, Judge Tracy Prall and Oregon corrections officials agreed that Bjork would stay in Oregon through April, while Minnesota finds new housing for him, according to court documents. Prison administrators here have not yet decided whether to place Bjork in Minnesota or send him to another state, said Department of Corrections spokesman Nicholas Kimball.

Bjork ranks among a tier of violent inmates who pose a dilemma for prisons. He is serving, at minimum, a 170-year prison sentence. With two more murder convictions under his belt, his outlook has hardly changed from when a Hennepin County judge first sentenced him to “never be permitted to walk the streets of any community for the remainder of his life.”

Brad Colbert, who runs a legal assistance clinic for prisoners at Mitchell-Hamline law school, said inmates like Bjork are “why supermax prisons were built,” referring to the long-term, high-security facilities with segregated cells.

“Bjork is really the .001 percent of the .001 percent of people who are incarcerated,” he said. “I think you put him in a place where he can’t hurt anyone else. But you don’t forget that he is not like the other people who are incarcerated.”

In 2017, after a Star Tribune report on Bjork facing the death penalty, he called from solitary confinement in Oregon and spoke at length about his life and murders. Bjork claimed that killing Atkins was an act of self-defense.

“It’s an old penitentiary at the end of the tier,” Bjork said. “It’s dark. We’re alone. Two convicted murderers in the cell in the middle of the night. There is no help, you know?”

Bjork doesn’t deny the six killings of which he’s been convicted over the years. He is adamant, however, that those acts do not alone define him — that he feels deep remorse and wants to be viewed with more nuance than simply a “monster.”

“I actually am a human being,” he said. “I actually have a conscience.”

Bjork grew up in Des Moines with an abusive father who ranted about his hatred for women and blacks, and taught his son to tell time by beating him when he got it wrong.

He lived mostly with his mother, a cocktail waitress named Shirley Fees, in small apartments crowded by cousins and grandparents.

As a kid, Bjork angrily stamped out all the flowers in his yard. Once he tied two cats together by the tails and watched them tear each other apart, a psychiatrist later testified at Bjork’s trial.

When he was 18, Bjork got his underage girlfriend, Terry, pregnant, and they moved to Minneapolis. Bjork proudly showed off his first son, Joey. “I ought to charge you a dollar to see this baby of mine,” he told people.

But trouble always followed him. Drugs were anesthesia to make it through the day. He carried a gun and ransacked one of his mom’s friend’s mobile homes. A month after Joey’s birth, he spent two weeks in jail. After their second son, Jason, was born, Bjork and Terry broke up. Bjork started dating a waitress at Dulono’s pizzeria, Ramona Yurkew. It was a brutal relationship and Yurkew left several times when she got sick of the beatings.

One day, in February 1982, Bjork decided to will his soul to the devil in exchange for “money, good physique, women, a good family,” according to the psychiatrist’s testimony.

A couple weeks later, Bjork dropped off his sons with a babysitter and spent the day popping speed, drinking whiskey and beer, smoking marijuana, then snorting PCP and amphetamines, according to testimony. He went downtown Minneapolis and drank on Hennepin Avenue, where he met Gwendolyn Johnson, a 20-year-old woman with a history of prostitution arrests. He brought her back to the house and strangled her during sex, then hid her body under the bed.

The babysitter dropped off Jason and Joey, ages 1 and 3, and Bjork choked them to death, too. Then he waited for Yurkew to come home from her shift, and strangled her.

By the time police found the bodies three days later, Bjork was gone. Detectives didn’t know whether he was hiding or dead.

Police tried to find Terry for questioning. She was missing, too.

In April, Bjork turned himself in to the brother of a Minneapolis homicide detective in a pancake house in Kansas. A month later, a father and son foraging for mushrooms in rural Iowa found Terry’s remains.

Bjork was charged with her murder but it never went to trial. He maintains he did not kill Terry.

Looking back on his first murders, Craig Bjork said he was locked into a drug-induced psychosis, disconnected from reality. “I believe that with every fiber of my being.”

He said he’s been sober now for 20 years and feels remorse deeper than he can express. “I literally totally destroyed myself,” he said. “Who could ever punish me more than my own mind would punish me for what I’d done? The law couldn’t come close to what I did to myself mentally.”

When he first entered prison, Craig Bjork fought other inmates. Prison staff caught him in several escape plots, and transferred him back and forth from different prisons to foil his plans. Bjork boasted that he was untouchable. He was already serving three life sentences, and Minnesota didn’t have the death penalty. One staffer recorded Bjork saying he had “nothing to lose by killing any inmate.”

One summer day in 1996, Craig Bjork wrote an internal communiqué to then-Stillwater prison Warden David Crist demanding he be moved back to Oak Park Heights prison. If Crist didn’t comply, Bjork threatened to kill again. “I’m very homicidal,” he wrote. “Trust me if I made a move I’d complete it. I’m very close to committing mass murder in Stillwater. Trust me minimum of 3 bodies, I’d go for 10 and come real close.”

On Thanksgiving Day 1997, a corrections officer found Bjork in the prison kitchen mopping up a dark red liquid. The officer followed drag marks to a garbage cart, where he found the body of inmate Edwin Curry.

Asked about this killing, Craig Bjork said the prison was playing a “punk game” with him, “and I gave them a body.”

“This is what prison is. This isn’t 3M and this isn’t the neighborhood and this isn’t Powderhorn Park,” he said in an interview. “It probably wasn’t the best choice, but it was the choice I made.”

In 2013, Craig Bjork was transferred to the Oregon prison. He killed Joe Atkins on Aug. 16, 2013. Two years later, a grand jury indicted him for the murders of Atkins, Curry, Johnson, Yurkew and his two children — each one enough to carry the death penalty.

As he prepared for the trial, Bjork told the Star Tribune that Atkins tried to kill him in his sleep because Bjork had confronted Atkins for hiding a knife and razor blades in their cell, and that he strangled him in self-defense.

Craig Bjork said he never intends to kill another person; he said he could be released from prison today and never harm another soul. But if faced with the same threat in prison, he said, he wouldn’t hesitate to act.

“If some dude up in here threatens my life next week and I think he’s serious, I’m going to do whatever I need to do to take care of myself and defend myself,” said Bjork. “That’s how it is.”

Facing death, Craig Bjork said he wanted a botched execution that sent flames shooting from his body. “We can all go to hell together,” he said. “I mean, you want to kill me? Then botch the execution, screw it up, I want it to be horrific.”

The opportunity for such a spectacle would never come. Last year, as Bjork awaited trial, Oregon’s governor signed a new death penalty law making Bjork ineligible for the punishment.

Asked what he thinks should be done with him, Bjork struggled to arrive at an answer.

“What’s fair? I don’t know,” he said. “It’s a difficult question. It’s almost like asking someone what’s the meaning of life.”

https://www.startribune.com/what-to-do-with-a-murderer-who-keeps-killing-in-prison/568439942/?refresh=true

Willy Suarez Maceo Alleged Serial Killer Charged With 2 Murders

Willy Suarez Maceo is the latest alleged serial killer from Florida as he has just been charged with two counts of murder. According to police reports Willy Suarez Maceo, who was working as a realtor in Florida, would drive around in his black Dodge Charger and fire a 9mm gun at homeless people sleeping on the street. According to Miami police Willy Suarez Maceo had fired at two homeless people the same night killing one and injuring the second. Bullet casing found at the scenes would match. Willy Suarez Maceo who was initially charged with attempted murder back in December 2021 has now had two counts of murder added to the charges he is facing and police continue to look for more victims.

Willy Suarez Maceo More News

The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office officially charged real estate agent Willy Suarez Maceo with two first-degree murders, one attempted murder and one attempted premeditated murder, labeling him a serial killer.

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle spoke at a news conference to discuss the case, where numerous surveillance videos were shown.

It is chilling video showing a serial killer in action, according to prosecutors.

“Having an unknown killer striking out at random victims is like no other crime to solve,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said during a press conference announcing charges against 25-year-old Willy Suarez Maceo and showing video of how he was caught.

Suarez Maceo’s online profile showed a smiling, well-dressed professional real-estate agent and records revealed he had no criminal history in Florida.

On Oct. 16, 2021, at 9 p.m. in downtown Miami, a homeless man identified as Manuel Perez was stabbed to death.

Fernandez Rundle described what she said was Suarez Maceo’s first homicide.

“Manuel Perez was homeless and he had been sleeping outside on the sidewalk at the time of the stabbing. Two witnesses heard Mr. Perez yelling, ‘Help, help.’ One witness saw a man making an upward and downward movement as if striking the victim. The man was described as a thin built, Black male, 26 to 27 years of age, short hair, clean-shaven, and wearing a black T-shirt. Surveillance video from a nearby business captured a clear picture of an individual matching that description,” Fernandez Rundle said.

Another surveillance camera from a local business shows the man walking towards the area where the scene of the crime took place. Fernandez Rundle pointed out that there was a very clear picture of the suspect, later identified as Suarez Maceo.

Despite the video, detectives couldn’t identify the man.

“The homicide investigation went cold,” Fernandez Rundle said.

But the suspect struck again. On Dec. 21, 2021, a homeless man was shot and bleeding from the head. He survived. A bullet casing was found and also a set of footprints.

Fernandez Rundle said it was the third incident that broke the case. Two hours later, Jerome Price, who was identified as homeless and sleeping on the ground was shot five times and five 9mm bullet casings were found.

On surveillance video, a black Dodge Charger drove by, and then the video captured flashes from a gun.

“When the police get that video they are then able to catch the last three digits of the (license) tag,” Fernandez Rundle said.

Detectives were able to piece together the full license plate from close circuit television cameras in the area.

“This was a key break to start stripping away at the anonymity of this alleged mystery killer,” Fernandez Rundle said. “That tag number came back to a 2015 black Dodge Charger.” She said a connection with the car was also noted in the unsolved October killing of Manuel Perez. The Charger was also seen circling in the area before Price’s shooting.

The car was registered to Willy Suarez Maceo. Detectives showed up at the real-estate agent’s work where they saw him sitting in the car outside of his place of business. Police stopped him as he exited the vehicle. In the midst of a patdown, a loaded black Glock 19 9 mm handgun was found in the right front waistband of Suarez Maceo’s pants.

The firearm was connected to the spent 9mm casings that were recovered next to Price’s body and another victim, according to Fernandez Rundle.

https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/02/04/realtor-to-be-charged-with-multiple-murders-in-miami-dade-county/

Willy Suarez Maceo Videos

Elizabeth Wettlaufer Serial Killer

Elizabeth Wettlaufer is in a unique club as she is one of the very few female serial killers in Canadian history. Elizabeth Wettlaufer was a nurse who was responsible for the murders of eight people and the attempted murders of at least six more. In this article we will take a closer look at Elizabeth Wettlaufer.

Elizabeth Wettlaufer Early Years

Elizabeth Wettlaufer was born near Woodstock Ontario in a Baptist household. She would receive a degree in Religious Education Counseling before studying nursing

Elizabeth Wettlaufer Nursing Career

Elizabeth Wettlaufer would begin her nursing career in 2007 and for the most part was thought of as competent by fellow staff members however that would change when she began to experience problems with drugs and alcohol. She would be suspended on a number of occasions over the next seven years until she was finally fired for giving the wrong medication to a patient in 2014.

Elizabeth Wettlaufer would be employed for a number of temporary agencies until she finally went to a drug rehabilitation.

Elizabeth Wettlaufer Confession To Murder

While Elizabeth Wettlaufer was at the drug rehabilitation center she would make a confession to a staff member on how she had killed a number of her patients. The staff member would report the confession to police and once she was arrested Elizabeth Wettlaufer would make a full confession to the murders of eight senior citizens and the attempted murders of six more starting in 2007.

Elizabeth Wettlaufer would tell police that she would inject insulin into the patients

Elizabeth Wettlaufer would plead guilty to eight murders in court and would be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Elizabeth Wettlaufer More News

Elizabeth Wettlaufer, Canada’s only known health care serial killer, wouldn’t have been caught if she hadn’t confessed.

That was one of the principal findings of a commission of inquiry into the deaths of seniors under Wettlaufer’s care in long-term care homes in southwestern Ontario.

Over the course of nine years ending in 2016, Wettlaufer, a registered nurse, killed eight and attempted to kill others by injecting her victims with insulin.

They were not mercy killings, Commissioner Eileen E. Gillese wrote in her final report, released Wednesday. Wettlaufer killed “for her own gratification and for no other reason.”

The commissioner said that in the report she had “no hesitation” in finding that Wettlaufer’s offences wouldn’t have been discovered if she hadn’t turned herself in.

The finding is important, she wrote, because without systemic changes — the report contained 91 recommendations — similar tragedies could go undetected in the Canadian healthcare system.

Wettlaufer is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years after her 2017 conviction on eight counts of first-degree murder, four counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault.

Wettlaufer was the catalyst for her own prosecution. In 2016, she quit her job and checked into Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. She admitted to a psychiatrist, and later police, that she had killed and hurt patients.

Until that point, she hadn’t even been under investigation, despite having hurt or killed 14 seniors.

“The evidence showed that no one suspected that Wettlaufer was intentionally harming those under her care — not the residents or their families, not those who worked alongside Wettlaufer, and not those who managed and supervised her,” the commissioner wrote.

Further, Wettlaufer also faced indirect oversight from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, which inspected the facilities she worked at, and as well as from coroners who investigated some of the seniors’ deaths.

In 2014, she had been fired from Caressant Care in Woodstock, Ont., in part for medication errors.

The College of Nurses of Ontario kept Wettlaufer’s termination notice on file, but, the licensing body took no action to suggest it had “serious concerns” about the care Wettlaufer had provided, Gillese found.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Gillese said that one of the clear lessons of the inquiry is that crimes can go undetected when the possibility that healthcare workers might cause intentional harm goes unrecognized.

“We have to improve awareness that this is an actual threat,” she said.

One of the report’s recommendations is that the government of Ontario ensure that a strategic plan is in place to build awareness of the healthcare serial killer phenomenon.

Wettlaufer herself told lawyers with the inquiry that she chose insulin because it wouldn’t be missed — the drug isn’t tracked as closely as, say, a narcotic.

But her use of the drug also aided in Wetlauffer’s crimes going undetected from a scientific standpoint, the commissioner concluded.

Even in cases where an autopsy is performed, it’s not easy to identify if someone has died due to an insulin overdose, according to the province’s chief forensic pathologist.

Dr. Michael Pollanen, who testified at the inquiry and the criminal trial, gave several reasons for this.

For one, there’s no post-mortem test for low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), and the symptoms are associated with other conditions. There are also “serious practical challenges” to identifying that hypoglycemia, if present, was caused by insulin, Gillese wrote.

When someone dies, it’s also difficult to distinguish natural and synthetic insulin in the body, the report stated.

As well, deaths from an insulin overdose could take days to occur.

Another reason why Gillese found that Wettlaufer’s confession was the only means by which she would have been caught is that the judge who presided over the criminal case drew the same conclusion.

In his sentencing decision on June 26, 2017, Justice Bruce Thomas acknowledged what he called Wettlaufer’s “free run” on her nine-year killing spree, with no oversight or even an inkling she had been killing patients.

“Without her confessions, I am convinced these offences would never have been brought to justice,” he said, calling Wettlaufer a “shadow of death that passed over them (the victims) on the night shift where she supervised.”

Elizabeth Wettlaufer wouldn’t have been caught if she hadn’t confessed, inquiry says. Here’s why

William Patrick Fyfe Serial Killer

William Patrick Fyfe is a serial killer and serial rapist from Canada who is responsible for five murders however is believed to be responsible for more. In this article on My Crime Library we will take a closer look at William Patrick Fyfe who police believe is also The Plumber rapist

William Patrick Fyfe Early Years

William Patrick Fyfe was born in Toronto Ontario in 1955 however he would be taken in by his aunt and moved to Montreal. William Patrick Fyfe would be employed as a handyman.

William Patrick Fyfe Murders

William Patrick Fyfe would be tied to the murders after police found DNA from one of the murder scenes. William Patrick Fyfe would be charged with the following murder

Hazel Scattolon, a 52-year-old woman who was stabbed to death and sexually assaulted in 1981.
Anna Yarnold, a 59-year-old woman who was bludgeoned to death on 15 October 1999 in Senneville, Quebec
Monique Gaudreau, a 46-year-old woman who was stabbed to death on 29 October 1999 in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec.
Teresa Shanahan, a 55-year-old woman who was stabbed to death in November 1999 in Laval, Quebec.
Mary Glen, a 50-year-old woman who was beaten and stabbed to death on 15 December 1999 in Baie-D’Urfé, Quebec

William Patrick Fyfe Serial Rapist

Police in Montreal Quebec believe that William Patrick Fyfe was a serial rapist known as The Plumber who was responsible for a series of violent sexual assaults in the 1980’s in downtown Montreal

William Patrick Fyfe Prison

William Patrick Fyfe would be convicted of the five murders and would be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years which was the longest prison sentence in Canada at the time.

William Patrick Fyfe More News

He spoke without emotion, as though recounting the details of an old movie. In a chilling declaration, a 46-year-old handyman already in prison for the murder of five women has admitted to killing four others.

The surprise jailhouse confession has turned William Patrick Fyfe — described by a police detective as “a very, very ordinary man” — into one of the worst serial killers in Canadian history, and perhaps the worst serial slayer of women.

“He was a vicious murderer,” Montreal Urban Community police Commander André Bouchard said yesterday.

The killings went on for 20 years; they were random and gruesome, often involving sexual assaults and multiple stabbing. The youngest victim was 26; the oldest 59. What the women had in common was being home alone in the Montreal area when Mr. Fyfe showed up.

He killed his first victim in 1979, while out on a day pass from a Montreal jail for a minor crime. He killed his last victim in 1999 when he rang her doorbell in an affluent bedroom community west of Montreal. What convinced police of Mr. Fyfe’s guilt was the precise details of his account.

“You couldn’t invent those details,” Cdr. Bouchard said.

Mr. Fyfe made the murder confession to police in exchange for obtaining a transfer from a Quebec prison, where he is serving a 25-year sentence for murder, to a prison in Western Canada.

Police defended the controversial deal with Mr. Fyfe, who was born in Ontario, saying it didn’t lessen his punishment.

“I don’t know the difference between an eight-by-eight-foot cell in Western Canada [and]an eight-by-eight-foot cell in Quebec,” Cdr. Bouchard said. “He got it in English instead of in French, and that’s what he asked for.”

Marc Labelle, Mr. Fyfe’s lawyer, said his client wanted to go to a Saskatoon prison because it offers specialized treatment for offenders, and also because his case in Quebec had been highly publicized.

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Mr. Labelle drew parallels with Karla Homolka, another of his clients, who asked to serve her sentence in a prison in Quebec instead of Ontario, where she committed her crimes. “It’s for a question of safety,” he said. “It’s a way of keeping inmates with difficult cases in safer conditions.”

Mr. Fyfe was described by police as a stubborn and icily manipulative man who made a living working in odd jobs — installing swimming pools, working for roads departments — because he was good with his hands. Cdr. Bouchard listened attentively to interrogation tapes to find underlying causes for Mr. Fyfe’s vicious killing binge, but said he could find none.

One trait that set him apart from typical serial killers was his determination to avoid the spotlight, Cdr. Bouchard said.

Police held yesterday’s news conference only after Mr. Fyfe was flown out of Quebec, at his insistence.

“Usually, serial killers love the publicity and when they’re caught they’re all over the place,” Cdr. Bouchard said. But in Mr. Fyfe’s case, “even though he’s a serial killer, he knew that what he did was wrong.”

Mr. Fyfe’s undoing began two years ago, when he was arrested near his mother’s home in Barrie, Ont., for the death of Mary Glen in Montreal’s quiet West Island. With the help of DNA, he was then charged in the deaths of four more women.

He pleaded guilty to five murders two months ago.

What troubles police is a 10-year gap between his two killing rampages, when, they believe, he may have committed other crimes.

“There are gaps. We won’t close [the case]until we close the gaps,” Cdr. Bouchard said. “Anything is possible. It’s possible he’s killed other women.”

The women killed between 1979 and 1989 were Suzanne Bernier, 55, of Montreal; Nicole Raymond, 26, of Pointe-Claire; Louise Blanc, 37, of Ste. Adèle; Pauline Laplante, 44, of Piedmont; and Hazel Scattolon, 53, of Town of Mount Royal. Killed in 1999 were Anna Yarnold, 59, of Senneville; Monique Gaudreau, 45, of Ste. Agathe-des-Monts; Teresa Shanahan, 55, of Laval; and Ms. Glen, 50, of Baie d’Urfé.

Police said Mr. Fyfe won’t be tried for the four new confessed slayings, because he is serving a life sentence, the maximum under the law.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/very-very-ordinary-man-one-of-worst-serial-killers/article1034872/