Wood was born in 1962 and worked as a nurse's aide at the Alpine Manor nursing home in Walker, Kent County, Michigan. She was in a relationship with a colleague, Gwendolyn Graham.
Between January and April 1987 five elderly patients died, several with dementia, smothered with a washcloth or a pillow while the other woman kept watch. None of the deaths was questioned at the time; each was recorded as natural.
In 1988 Wood told her ex-husband what had happened. He reported it, and both women were charged. She pleaded guilty to second degree murder and conspiracy in exchange for testifying against Graham, and was sentenced in September 1989 to twenty to forty years.
Her testimony was the foundation of the prosecution. It supplied the account of the pact between them, and the detail, repeated in every retelling since, that they chose victims whose initials would spell a word. There was almost no physical evidence, the deaths having been recorded as natural and the bodies buried. Graham was convicted of five counts of first degree murder, has always denied everything, and says Wood invented it.
Wood was released on parole in 2020 after thirty-two years and moved out of Michigan. Graham is serving life without parole.
The range of one to five reflects her plea, which was to one murder and a conspiracy, against the five deaths in the case. This entry and Graham's describe the same five victims and the count should not be added twice.