An ABC investigation has revealed that police may have failed to identify another victim of convicted healthcare killer Garry Davis, who was found guilty of murdering two nursing home residents and attempting to kill a third by injecting them with lethal doses of insulin.
Elizabeth Eifler, 86, died within the same 48-hour period in which three other residents were injected with deadly doses of insulin by Davis, an aged care worker, at SummitCare Wallsend in Newcastle in October 2013.
Despite Mrs Eifler being in the same wing as the known victims and under the care of Davis, Background Briefing’s true crime series, The Invisible Killer, has found police did not order an autopsy nor test for insulin after her death,
In 2016, Davis was sentenced to 40 years’ jail for the murders of Gwen Fowler (83) and Ryan Kelly (80), and the attempted murder of Audrey Manuel (91).
However, new evidence uncovered by the ABC shows Mrs Eifler’s daughter Ingrid raised concerns that her mother may have been another victim of Davis, but police did not do the necessary post-mortem tests to find out if that was the case.
In a statement made to police almost a month after the murders, Ingrid said she had contacted police in charge of the investigation multiple times, urging them to investigate her mother’s death.
Ingrid, who has since died, expressed concerns that her mother “may have been poisoned”, noting she found her unconscious and sweating around her arms and neck on the morning of October 18, 2013.
Mrs Eifler passed away about 2pm that day.
Just two hours later, Gwen Fowler was found unconscious, also sweating profusely.
Mrs Fowler died the following day, and subsequent tests confirmed she had been injected with a lethal dose of insulin.
Initially, the Eifler family accepted that Elizabeth’s passing was due to natural causes, as she was receiving palliative care. However, Ingrid’s suspicions grew after learning about the other deaths at the facility.
Eventually, after another call to the police, Ingrid said in her statement she was told her mother’s blood tests were “clear”.
When the ABC asked NSW Police about testing Mrs Eifler’s blood sugar levels, a spokesperson said police had made “inquiries” into her death “including looking at toxicology results, and no apparent suspicious circumstances were identified.”
However, after further questions from the ABC, the police confirmed that the toxicology results they referred to were from tests taken three days before Mrs Eifler’s death, when she had visited hospital.
No post-mortem or testing of any kind was conducted after Mrs Eifler’s death.
A failure to investigate death would be ‘negligence’, former chief detective says
When interviewed for the podcast, retired chief detective Graeme Parker, who oversaw the work of Newcastle detectives including the SummitCare case said he couldn’t recall the name Elizabeth Eifler as part of the investigation.
When the ABC told him about the details of her death, Graeme Parker said it rang alarm bells for him.
“The first thing you do is go, ‘have there been any other [deaths] recently? Gosh, the day before? We probably need to see whether there’s any forensic evidence there,'” he said.
After learning from the ABC that the police had looked at hospital records, but no forensic tests were conducted, Mr Parker said he couldn’t understand how that could have happened.
“That’s something they should have checked,” he said.
“That would be negligence, I would think,” he said.
NSW Police did not directly respond to this allegation of negligence, but said a death certificate was issued by Mrs Eifler’s treating doctor at the time and the death was “not deemed reportable.”
The spokesperson said that further inquiries into the death were conducted and reiterated that “no apparent suspicious circumstances were identified.”
Police ‘overlooked’ mother’s death, son says
Mrs Eifler’s body was still at the funeral home when the investigation into the other residents’ deaths began. Police had a small window to order an autopsy and tests.
However, it appears those requests weren’t made.
It’s unknown when police were alerted to or found out about her death.
We asked SummitCare if or when they told police about Mrs Eifler’s death and whether they had considered she could have been another victim of Garry Davis.
SummitCare declined to answer direct questions about Mrs Eifler’s death, stating it was prohibited from disclosing private health information. However, it said its staff remained “devastated and heartbroken” about the crimes committed by Davis.
Mrs Eifler’s son Peter and his wife Sosefina said neither SummitCare nor the police contacted them about Elizabeth.
Peter Eifler said the police should have contacted the family and should have tested his mother’s body.
“My opinion is the police haven’t done their job right and they just overlooked things,” he said.
“That should have been done straight away, not leave it go.”
Garry Davis, who is speaking to the ABC from Goulburn jail as part of its investigation, denied he killed Mrs Eifler.
