A 37-year-old Australian Man has admitted to setting a fire at a Quaker Hill nursing home that took the lives of 11 elderly patients and injured another 8.
Roger Dean had been working as a nurse at the nursing home for just two months.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the incident occurred on the morning of November 18th, 2011. Dean admitted to setting an empty bed ablaze. He then moved to the room of 80-year-old Dorothy Sterling and 85-year-old Dorothy Wu.
From the SMH:
Around 4.50am, Dean set an empty bed on fire in one wing, before moving to the room where Ms Wu and Ms Sterling were sleeping. When resident Helen Perry, 63, saw her friends’ room was on fire she told Dean, “We have to get them out”.
But Dean grabbed her arm and moved her on, saying, “People are on their way”.
They weren’t. As firefighters battled to contain the first blaze Dean had started, they had no idea the room of Ms Wu and Ms Sterling was also on fire. He didn’t tell them and by the time they reached the spot, the blaze had reached the roof. As the fires raged, Dean “actively assisted in moving residents and their beds, being careful to keep up the appearance of having nothing to do with the lighting of the two fires,” the documents said.
Dean had already stolen over 200 pills from the nursing home, and hours before the fire police visited the home to investigate the theft.
Now, in a New South Wales court, Dean has admitted his guilt. Previously, he had said that it was Satan that made him do what he did. The oldest victim of the fire was 97, and the youngest was 73.