Former nurse pleads guilty to murdering 11 Australian nursing home residents

VANCOUVER – A former nurse pleaded guilty in an Australian court on Monday to setting a fire that killed 11 residents of a nursing home on the outskirts of Sydney. 

Families of the 11 victims held hands and wept as 37-year-old Roger Dean entered his pleas to each of the murder charges, plus eight counts of recklessly causing grievous bodily harm. 

On Nov. 18, 2011 fire broke out in Quakers Hill Nursing Home, located about 43 kilometres from central Sydney, killing 11 people. 

Although Dean initially told local reporters he had tried to save as many patients as possible, he now admits to setting fires in two parts of the nursing home.“We got a lot of people out, so that’s the main thing,” Dean told Australia’s 7 News at the time.

Three people died in the blaze and eight more succumbed to injuries afterward.

According to Australia’s 9 News, Dean set fire to a bed in an empty room in one wing of the facility before lighting up another empty bed in the room where four women — 80-year-old Dorothy Sterling, 73-year-old Alma Smith, 85-year-old Dorothy Wu and 96-year-old Doris Becke — lived.

Smith and Wu were found dead in their room, while the other two women died in hospital.

The other victims, who died in hospital, were Becke, Sterling, Reginald Green, 87, Ella Wood, 97, Lola Bennett, 86, Urbana Alipio, 79, Caesar Galea, 82, and Neeltje Valkay, 90.

Firefighters were on the scene battling the first fire and had no knowledge of the blaze in the room with the four women.

Investigators said at least one resident in the wing pleaded with Dean to help them, but he told her help was coming.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported firefighters said it was one of the most “horrifying experiences” they had ever dealt with.

Becke’s son Neale told the Sydney Morning Herald, after the guilty pleas, his “prayers had been answered.”

“My mum… was 96, she still had all of her marbles and everything,” he told the Herald. “I know she was an old lady at 96, but she didn’t deserve to go this way.”

Although Dean reportedly wore a wooden cross around his neck during many of his court appearances, he reportedly told police, following his arrest, Satan made him do it.

Prior to the blaze, surveillance cameras captured Dean going into a room where drugs were stored.

Police said he stole more than 200 pills the night before he set the deadly fires.  9 News reported he convinced firefighters to let him back into the one-story building to get the drug books, which he later destroyed.  He pleaded guilty earlier to two counts of larceny.

Dean had only worked at the Quaker Hills home for two months before the fire.