Families of seniors allegedly killed in Ontario long-term care facilities have been told by the Crown to expect former nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer to plead guilty Thursday to eight counts of murder.

They cautioned, however, that there is no guarantee how Wettlaufer will plea.

“She has that right to recant if she wants to,” said Andrea Silcox, daughter of alleged victim James Silcox. “We can’t get our hopes up too high, because they might be dashed.”

A spokesperson with the Ministry of the Attorney General said “significant developments” are expected in the case Thursday, but did not provide further details.

A source close to the case told The Canadian Press that Wettlaufer is scheduled to plead guilty in a Woodstock court on Thursday. The source said an agreed statement of facts and a video of Wettlaufer confessing is expected to be filed in court.

Wettlaufer’s defence lawyer did not respond to requests for comment on the development.

Wettlaufer also faces four counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault.

Police have alleged those crimes involved the use of certain drugs and took place over the last decade in three Ontario long-term care facilities where Wettlaufer worked as a registered nurse, and at a private home.

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When told of reports that Wettlaufer, 49, would plead guilty, Sandy Millard, the daughter of one of the seniors allegedly killed, said: “From your lips to God’s ears.”

Former registered nurse killed eight residents of nursing homes in London and Woodstock, Ontario, between 2007 and 2014, police said. Elizabeth Wettlaufer faced eight counts of first-degree murder in the deaths.

Millard’s 87-year-old mother, Gladys, was allegedly killed in October 2011 at the Woodstock nursing home where Wettlaufer worked three days.

“I won’t be sad to see her spend the rest of her life in jail,” Millard said of Wettlaufer.

Millard said family members of the alleged victims have been called to a closed-door meeting at the Woodstock courthouse tonight, where they will likely be given the news.

Yvonne Zurawinski, whose mother-in-law, Mary, was allegedly killed at the Woodstock nursing home in 2011, said a guilty plea would spare families of the victims the ordeal of a trial.

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“If she’s guilty, I hope she spends the rest of her life in jail contemplating what she did,” she said in a phone interview.

Sgt. Dave Rektor of the Ontario Provincial Police, one of the forces involved in the multi-jurisdictional investigation, declined to comment.

The police investigation into Wettlaufer began last September after Toronto police became aware of information she had given to a psychiatric hospital in Toronto that caused them concern, a police source has told The Canadian Press.

In October, Wettlaufer was charged in the deaths of eight residents at nursing homes in Woodstock and London. In those cases, police alleged Wettlaufer used drugs to kill the seniors while she worked at the facilities between 2007 and 2014.

The alleged murder victims have been identified as James Silcox, 84, Maurice Granat, 84, Gladys Millard, 87, Helen Matheson, 95, Mary Zurawinski, 96, Helen Young, 90, Maureen Pickering, 79, and Arpad Horvath, 75.

In January, Wettlaufer faced six additional charges related to seniors in her care. Court documents allege Wettlaufer injected those six alleged victims with insulin.

The alleged attempted murder victims have been identified as Wayne Hedges, 57, Michael Priddle, 63, Sandra Towler, 77, and Beverly Bertram, 68. Wettlaufer is also charged with aggravated assault against 87-year-old Clotilde Adriano and 90-year-old Albina Demedeiros.

Redacted court documents released in March — which were filed by police in an application to obtain records — have indicated Wettlaufer was fired in 2014 from a nursing home in Woodstock, where some of her alleged victims lived, after an incident in which she allegedly incorrectly medicated and over-medicated a resident who “experienced distress” as a result.

In a letter of termination cited in the documents, the Caressant Care nursing home said the alleged incident was part of a “pattern of behaviours that are placing residents at risk.”

The home’s director of nursing also told police Wettlaufer was dismissed for how she handled insulin, the documents show.

Records from the College of Nurses of Ontario show Wettlaufer was first registered as a nurse in August 1995 but resigned Sept. 30, 2016, and is no longer a registered nurse.

With files from Sandro Contenta

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