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June 27 (UPI) -- A former nurse in Canada has been sentenced to life without parole for murdering eight seniors by injecting them with insulin for no medical purpose. "I caused tremendous pain and suffering and death.... Sorry is much too small a word. I am extremely sorry," said Elizabeth Wettlaufer, 50, to an Ontario court.
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Wettlaufer pleaded guilty to eight first-degree murder charges, four counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault.
Wettlaufer began her violent crime spree in 2007, when she injected two seniors, one 87 and the other 91, with insulin. Those first attempts did not kill the victims, but accounted for her two aggravated assault charges.
Later that year, she killed 84-year-old James (Jim) Silcox, a World War II veteran and married father of six children.
Between 2007 and 2016, she continued to take lives with the injections before police arrested her for first-degree murder Oct. 25.
Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas described Wettlaufer as a predator who killed the very people she was supposed to take care of.
"She was far from an angel of mercy," he said. "Instead, she was a shadow of death that passed over [her victims]."
Wettlaufer had a history of drug abuse, but told acquaintances she attended addiction meetings and said she had recently "found God."
