Bombeek was born in 1933 and was a member of the Apostolic Congregation of St Joseph. She managed the geriatric floor of the public hospital at Wetteren in East Flanders, where she was known as Sister Godfrida.
In 1976 and 1977 she killed patients aged between seventy-five and eighty by injecting overdoses of insulin, which in a non-diabetic drives blood sugar to fatal levels and leaves little trace. Her stated reason, as recorded, was that the patients were too difficult at night. Three deaths are established and more were suspected.
Nurses at the hospital raised the alarm early in 1977 and an investigation followed. It also emerged that she had been diverting hospital funds and morphine, and had been conducting a relationship with a priest.
She was found unfit to stand trial and was committed to a psychiatric facility. There was no conviction and no judgment.
The case caused a scandal in Belgium disproportionate even to the deaths, because of what she was: a nun in charge of a Catholic-run geriatric ward. The accessible sourcing is Belgian press reporting of 1977 and encyclopaedia summaries, and the count of three or more has never been tested in any court.