GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Newly released court documentsin the fight to keep Alpine Manor Nursing Home killer Catherine Wood in prisonreveal startling new details about the 1987 murders: that she and her accomplice tried to kill at least 10 elderly patients, not just the five they were charged with killing.
On Friday, the lead detective in the case also revealed for the first time that he believes they suffocated more patients than previously reported at the former Alpine Township nursing home.
"She (Wood) thought there were approximately a dozen or so victims at Alpine Manor. Actually killed," retired Walker Detective Sgt. Tom Freeman told 24 Hour News 8.
He based that, he said, on months working with and interviewing Wood.
Initial reports had listed as many as eight possible victims.
Wood told investigators at the time that her accomplice, Gwendolyn Graham, "killed five female patients and tried at least five others, but was unsuccessful because some of the elderly men and women fought back," according to Wood's never-before-released presentence report.
"She and Graham talked of spelling MURDER with the victims' initials but they abandoned that plan after some of the slayings failed," the report states.
Freeman said details about other possible murders were never released because prosecutors could prove only five — the deaths of Mae Mason, 79, Edith Cole, 89; Marguerite Chambers, 60; Myrtle Luce, 95; and Belle Burkhard, 74.
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