Graham was born in 1963 and Wood in 1962. Both worked as aides at the Alpine Manor nursing home in Walker, Kent County, Michigan, and they were in a relationship.
Between January and April 1987 five patients died: elderly women, several with dementia, smothered with a washcloth or a pillow while the other kept watch. The prosecution's case was that the killings were an act of mutual commitment between the two women, and that they had chosen victims whose initials would spell a word. A detail from Wood's testimony that has been repeated in every account since and rests on her word alone. They kept small items belonging to the dead.
None of the deaths was questioned at the time. They were elderly women in a nursing home, and each was recorded as natural.
In 1988 Wood told her ex-husband what had happened, and he reported it. Wood pleaded guilty to second degree murder and conspiracy in exchange for testifying, and received twenty to forty years; she was released on parole in 2020. Graham was convicted on November 3, 1989 of five counts of first degree murder and one of conspiracy and sentenced to life without parole. She has always denied it and maintains that Wood invented the whole thing.
That conflict is the case. One of the two women testified and was released after thirty-two years; the other is serving life and has never admitted anything. The physical evidence was minimal, the deaths having been recorded as natural and the bodies long buried, and the conviction rests substantially on the accomplice's account.