In 1986, a troubled young woman named Gwendolyn Graham left her home state of Texas for Grand Rapids, Michigan. There, she took a position caring for elderly patients as a nurses' aide at Alpine Manor Nursing Home, under the supervision of a woman named Cathy Wood.
It didn't take long for the relationship between the two women to grow from a professional working relationship to a budding friendship – and even less time for that friendship to become romantically charged. Within just two years, the duo took their partnership even further, and were charged in 1989 with the smothering deaths of five of their female senior patients: 60 year old Marguerite Chambers, 95 year old Myrtle Luce, 79 year old Mae Mason, 74 year old Belle Burkhard, and 97 year old Edith Cook.
The couple earned themselves the nickname The Lethal Lovers, but according to Cathy Wood, their murderous spree was primarily planned and executed by Gwendolyn herself.