Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial Killers

by Carol Anne Davis

  The final victim, octogenarian Edith Cook, was very ill and kept sedated. Cathy would later say in court that this amounted to a mercy killing. An alternative explanation is that Edith was debilitating to care for as she had advanced gangrene.

  In more than one instance, doctors had told the patient’s relatives that the patient had a strong heart - yet the sudden death was put down to heart disease. In another, the patient’s teeth had been removed, possibly to stop her biting her own tongue as she was suffocated with a washcloth over her mouth and nose. Cathy would later say that Belle’s bruised arm was caused by Gwen Graham kneeling on the old lady to hold her down as she suffocated her to death.

  What really happened at Alpine Manor may never be known - for the bodies of the supposed victims didn’t show conclusive trauma to constitute physical evidence. All that is certain is that Cathy and Gwen had promised never to leave each other - but the relationship deteriorated over those four months into suspicion and mutual violence and Gwen began to have another lesbian affair. In April 1987 she moved with her new lover to Tyler in Texas and began work as a nurse’s aide, this time with babies. She worked there for several months but none of her young charges were harmed.

  Cathy’s confession

  Cathy brooded over Gwen’s departure for the next four months then in August 1987 she told her husband what she had done, saying that she and Gwen had killed several elderly patients. Believing that the killing spree was over, and that the patients had been near to death anyway, Ken Wood didn’t immediately go to the police.

  For the next fourteen months he went over the information in his mind and watched his wife closely, finally deciding she was still emotionally unbalanced, cold and full of hate. In the autumn of 1988 he told the full story to police officers, but at first found it hard to be believed. After all, his separation from Cathy had been bitter and they had gotten into disputes in which they fought so loudly that they caused breaches of the peace. Officials had to be sure that this wasn’t a rejected suitor trying to set up his innocent ex-wife.

  But when Cathy was brought in for questioning she admitted the deaths within minutes, stating that Gwen had suffocated the women whilst she, Cathy, kept watch at the door. She couldn’t remember all of the names of the victims but narrowed the time period down to a few weeks. She gave details of which shifts she and Gwen had been working on and who else was working elsewhere in the building, information later validated by the nursing home’s records. She further told the amazed police personnel that she and Gwen had enjoyed spectacular orgasms as they relived the deaths.

  Later Cathy agreed to take several lie detector tests, but she was seen to press her legs down hard on the floor as she answered certain questions, a tactic that is known to distort the detector’s readings. She admitted to officials that she had lied constantly for as long as she could remember, something that her ex-husband wearily verified. She told officials that if she appeared anxious it was because she’d pressed washcloths against some old people’s faces to see how they’d react and as a rehearsal for the suffocations she’d promised Gwen she’d carry out.

  Gwen Graham was also arrested and charged. She had told her new female lover, Robin, that she’d killed six women but Robin hadn’t believed her. Both Gwen and Cathy had had a macabre sense of humour when they worked together, pretending that they got turned on when bathing the elderly patients. Robin saw the confession as Gwen’s warped way of getting attention or as a mind game that had gone beyond a joke. Other nursing aides had also heard Gwen and Cathy talk about killing the invalids, but chose not to believe it - perhaps because society doesn’t think of young females in murderous terms.

  The trial

  In September 1989 Cathy Wood pleaded guilty to second degree murder and agreed to testify against Gwen Graham. She said that the pair of them had agreed to take turns in killing, so that each had imprisonable evidence against the other. That way neither could ever leave the relationship. She also said that she had been unable to keep her part of the murderous bargain, and had simply watched Gwen start to suffocate the first victim, Marguerite Chambers, but had looked away before the killing was complete.

  She gave the impression that she had only been able to hear - rather than see - Gwen suffocating Myrtle Luce, Mae Mason, Edith Cook and Belle Burkhard. She added that Gwen had later told her she’d had to kneel hard on the struggling Belle, which is why Belle had discolouration on one of her arms.

  Cathy said that she hadn’t wanted to lose Gwen, so she went along with the deaths. She also gave the impression that she was physically frightened of her lover. Yet Cathy weighed three hundred pounds and was six foot tall, whilst Gwen was an elfin five foot two. And at least one witness had seen Cathy pick Gwen up and throw her violently across the room during a fight. Other witnesses had seen Gwen fighting with another woman, and both Gwen and Cathy had attacked Cathy’s ex-husband, Ken, when he came to the house to collect his clothes. Children who’d been violently punished had once again turned into violent adults.

  Within hours Gwen Graham was found guilty of all counts and given multiple life sentences. The girlfriend she had followed to Grand Rapids said later to the papers that she was incensed that Gwen had been convicted on hearsay and mainly on Cathy Wood’s confession. This woman was the only person who knew Gwen to attend her trial. In contrast, Cathy’s mother and ex-husband spoke publicly in Cathy’s defense.

  The following month Cathy appeared before a Kent County judge and was sentenced to between twenty and forty years in prison. She asked that she not be sent to the same facility as Gwen Graham - and when she briefly found herself in the same holding area she refused to make eye contact with her former lover and became visibly upset.

  Psychological profiles

  It’s hard to build up a true picture of Cathy Wood. The media’s first impressions of her came from her former husband, Ken, who presumably felt some guilt at contacting them and had some loyalty towards his ex-wife. He therefore told journalists that Cathy had been led astray by the more dominant Gwen Graham. Some true crime authors then echoed this trend in their articles on the subject, describing Wood as passive, depressed, afraid and less culpable than Gwen. Others noted that she was miserable because her marriage had broken up.

  But as Lowell Cauffiel points out in his impressively detailed book on the case, Forever And Five Days, Cathy chose to end the marriage because she’d taken a lover. Her unassertiveness also dissipated when she had elderly patients in her care and she was often the one chosen to subdue the more exuberant patients because of her no-nonsense manner and large size. She also frightened other patients into passivity by swearing at and generally threatening them. Cathy admitted holding the noses of some restrained patients - hardly the actions of a timid woman. And she admitted throwing ice cold water in her baby daughter’s face to stop her infant tears.

  Yet Cathy had her supporters, including many of the staff at Alpine Manor and she was promoted shortly before the killings came to light.

  Other psychologists have suggested that Cathy fits into the narcissistic category of people who tap into and exploit the needs of others. This certainly squares with the way she behaved towards her ex-husband and towards the women at the nursing home who fell in love with her. Narcissistic personalities see themselves as special and don’t believe they have to follow the same rules as the rest of society. They are deeply envious of other people’s accomplishments - Cathy hated the more beautiful and talented nursing aides. They also lack empathy.

  This lack of empathy is understandable in that she appears to have been exploited throughout her childhood and given so many chores to do that her youth had little fun in it. Clearly the adults she grew up with didn’t empathise with her and she had to replace the lack of love with food. When she was arrested and offered a meal, police were surprised at the size of takeaway she ordered. A relative described her as ‘emotionally starved.’

  Gwen, the more physically scarred of the couple, fits into the
borderline category of people who don’t bond in infancy with their mothers. Gwen’s mother was young and unsupported and always ignored her crying babies, believing that this would toughen their characters. She and her husband also physically chastised Gwen harshly from her formative years until she was eighteen. Gwen had once confided in a friend that her mother once almost choked her to death in a fight. She went on to play choking games with Cathy as part of their erotic activities.

  Because borderline personalities miss out on that crucial early parent-child bond, they spend their adult lifes trying to create it. They therefore fall quickly in love with other people and have intense relationships that are more based on fantasy than reality. That’s why Gwen could claim she’d love Cathy forever, yet would move on within a few months to another woman’s bed.

  Gwen had a lower IQ than the well-read Cathy and could have been easily manipulated by her so it’s unclear which woman was the dominant party. Indeed, some sources have suggested that the patient’s deaths may have been natural, and that Cathy made up the killings to get back at Gwen for leaving her. Cathy had said at one stage that she found paying her bills hard work - and indeed her mother later evicted her for non-payment of rent. Cathy also said to a friend that she’d probably find life easier in jail.

  Yet Gwen did tell Robin that she’d committed the murders and that she feared Cathy would go to the authorities. Later she retracted this statement and has never publicly acknowledged her part in the deaths.

  Gwen Graham’s sentence excludes the possibility of parole so she will never be released unless new evidence leads to a new hearing. Cathy Wood is eligible for parole after serving sixteen years in prison which makes her first possible parole date due in 2005.

  10 Love don’t live here any more

  The brutalised household of Rose West

  Rosemary Pauline Letts was born on 29th November 1953 in Northam, Devon, a quiet village in England. Her father, Bill, had been a radio operator in the navy for many years but was now an electrical engineer. His own childhood had been marked by loneliness and excessive discipline and he was a violent schizophrenic who battered Daisy, his unassertive wife and the seven children she would have with him.

  Daisy, increasingly unable to cope with his brutality, was a depressive who had suffered a series of nervous breakdowns. (Her own father had beat her throughout her childhood.) Horrifyingly, she even had Electro Convulsive Therapy, colloquially known as electric shock treatment, whilst pregnant with Rose.

  Rose came into the world to find that she already had an elder brother, Andrew, and three elder sisters, Patricia, Joyce and Glenys. Later she would also acquire two younger brothers, Gordon and Graham. The children would be kicked, beaten, thrown against the wall and locked out by their sadistic father. It was a life of fear. Playing was forbidden as was speaking at mealtimes, and their sole entertainment consisted of long walks with their mother who was determined to keep up appearances.

  Clearly picking up on the tension in the household, the toddler Rosie would rock herself back and forward for hours at a time. Howard Sounes says in his excellent book on the subject Fred And Rose that this is one of the signs of learning difficulties. But it’s also something that babies do to comfort themselves when frightened or to self-stimulate when they are neglected and bored. Rose also had nightmares and sucked her thumb well beyond the age where other children stop.

  Outwardly she was a pretty child with big dark eyes and long dark hair - but inside she increasingly lived in a world of her own. She would stare into space and often not hear other people when they called to her and some writers have mistakenly assumed that this automatically points to subnormal intelligence. It may indeed signal that - but it’s also the behaviour of abused children of all IQ levels, who go into constant daydreams in order to tune out from the horror they’re experiencing at home.

  And it was a terrible home. Rose and the others would be woken first thing by their father - who never played with them - and given an extensive list of chores to do. If these weren’t completed to his excessively high standards all hell would break loose. He used bleach in all the rooms and even on the carpets, something he had learnt to do whilst in the navy. If the children were late going to bed he would come into the bedroom and throw a bucket of cold water over them. He hit them so viciously that the neighbours often heard them scream.

  The older girls would leave home as soon as they could and one of her brothers would ask to go into care for his own safety. But poor Rose and her remaining siblings stayed on in a house where their father would frequently throw out all the food in the kitchen and smash up the furniture in a blind rage.

  Rose’s mother would tell him to hit the children where it didn’t show. She alleges that he rarely hit Rose as she was his favourite. Her brothers have confirmed this, saying that she was so quiet that she never gave him a reason to pick on her. Rose was also the most attractive of the family and rumour had it that Bill was attracted to young girls.

  School days

  Rose was bullied throughout primary school and given the name Dozy Rosie. In truth she was seen as ‘sensible’ which is often the description given to abused children who don’t run about and have fun in a normal childhood way. She found it hard to talk to children her own age so settled for mothering much younger ones. She adored her two younger brothers - babies always brought out her maternal side.

  But by age twelve she had realised that only the strong survive and had become the schoolyard aggressor. By now she was of a fairly big build so no one wanted to get on the wrong side of her. As she moved into puberty she became understandably interested in sex, but her strict religious mother and outwardly puritanical father refused to tell her or her siblings the facts of life.

  By thirteen she was becoming sexually precocious and was masturbating her ten-year-old brother. Because the household was so poor and overcrowded they shared a bed. But it was more important for Rose to get older men on her side - after all, the older man in her life, her father, could kill her or her siblings at any moment. Older men had to be turned into allies at whatever price. She consequently began to display exhibitionist tendencies when middle aged men were around, an exhibitionism that would stay with her. And she would walk round the house naked in front of her brothers when her parents were at work.

  In 1969, when Rose was fifteen, Daisy at last left Bill and took Rose and the younger kids to stay with relatives. It was a plan born out of desperation and one beating too many. Rose now helped out in the relative’s cafe - but spent more time sleeping with the truck drivers who came in for their meals. The few compliments they paid her were probably the kindest words she’d ever known and the casual sex was the closest she’d gotten to love.

  But her relatives house was now crowded and the atmosphere wasn’t good. At this stage Rose did what she’d always done to make things temporarily better - she made sexual advances to a man, in this case to the married male relative that they were staying with. Some of their other relatives think that her mother caught them in bed together. Whatever happened, she was thrown out and went back to live with her increasingly strange dad. She would never forgive her mother for abandoning her and still talked about the emotional pain many years later. Her father’s moods sometimes drove the fifteen-year-old from the house and she was picked up on the streets by the police, suspected of soliciting.

  Rose now briefly had two unsatisfactory low paid jobs, then went on to a third at a bread shop. Whilst waiting for the bus home from work one teatime she was chatted up by a man called Fred West. She was still fifteen and he was twelve years her senior. He was married but separated.

  Rose didn’t like him at first as he was covered in grease - he drove a van and did building work on the side - but she was flattered by his attention. Eventually she agreed to a drink in a nearby pub. Prior to the date he sent a go-between into the bread shop to give her two presents from him, a lace dress and a fur coat.

  Rose explained that she couldn
’t take the gifts home - her puritanical father, Bill, would kill her if he knew she’d been on a date as she’d never even had a proper boyfriend. (She kept denying to her relatives that she’d been having sex with truck drivers and other men she met casually.) Bill was still falling into rages or day long silences at home.

  Fred then suggested that he could keep the coat and dress for her in his caravan. He took the impressionable teenager there and she met his daughters, Anne Marie aged five and Charmaine aged six. Both children had the same mother, Catherine Costello, known as Rena, but only Anne Marie had been fathered by Fred. Charmaine had been fathered by a Pakistani student and Rena had already been expecting her when she met the equally promiscuous Fred West.

  Fred had taken both children from Rena as a way of hurting her, but wasn’t at all paternal. He often shouted at the children or rubbed them inappropriately on his lap. At other times he would take off for pastures new and put them both into foster care.

  But for now both little girls were living with him in the caravan, looked after by whoever was available, often other caravan dwellers who pitied the neglected children. Some of their carers were girls Rose had been to school with. Fred used the children to lure young women into his life as untrained nannies and most of them ended up having sex with him.

  Fred would weave tall tales about his numerous jobs in various parts of Scotland and England, his hotel chain and his career at sea. It was the kind of talk that intelligent adults quickly see through as his anecdotes were all about his successes yet he was a grubby little man living in a tiny and dirty caravan. But young love-starved girls like Rose were intrigued and impressed.