Dana Sue Gray

In mid-February 1994, a call came in to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department reporting a body found. The deceased was Norma Davis, 86, a resident of a gated community for elderly residents. The victim had been killed in her own home by manual strangulation with a phone cord and had also been stabbed multiple times and almost decapitated. Investigators looking at the scene were amazed by the excessiveness of the attack: Much more force than necessary was used to subdue the elderly victim. The house had not been robbed, which was also surprising. Expensive jewelry had been left behind, and the only items that were missing were a Medicare check and credit cards belonging to the victim.

The investigation of Mrs. Davis's murder was stalled when the sheriff's department received another call 10 days later reporting a similar attack. The victim was 66-year-old June Roberts, who lived in the same gated community as Mrs. Davis. She was also strangled with a phone cord, and bludgeoned repeatedly with a heavy wine decanter. Mrs. Roberts was younger, in good health, physically strong from exercise, and had obviously put up significant resistance to her attacker. Once again, expensive possessions were left in place, and all that was missing were the victim's credit cards. Immediate action was taken to follow activity on these cards, and investigators were able to determine that a youngish, well-built young woman with light-colored hair accompanied by a small male child had dined in a local restaurant and bought toys and clothes at local retail stores. Even with this information, they still had no idea of who the perpetrator was.

Ten days later, Dorinda Williams was attacked in her antique store by a young woman with lightcolored hair. The attacker strangled the victim with her hands and a yellow nylon rope but stopped just short of killing her. She escaped from the business with the contents of the cash register. The victim called the sheriff and was able to describe the attacker, which led investigators to Dana Sue Gray. The sheriff arranged for the alleged offender to be watched until a warrant could be obtained to examine the contents of her home, but Gray slipped away from the surveillance. While she was gone, the sheriff executed a search warrant and found much of the merchandise charged after June Roberts's death.

Five days after the attack on Mrs. Williams, while the search warrant was being executed at Gray's home, an officer in an adjoining county received a call regarding the finding of a dead body. Dora Beebe, 87 years old, had been killed in her home, strangled with a phone cord, and massively beaten with an iron. [Page 211]Her checkbook and savings book were missing and investigators later learned that someone had successfully withdrawn $2,000 from Beebe's savings account only minutes after her death. Fortunately, the bank videotaped all transactions: The customer was a young woman with light-colored hair.

Investigators from both jurisdictions cooperated and were able to pinpoint Dana Sue Gray as the attacker of all four elderly victims. During the course of interrogation, Gray denied all charges, but eventually, just before her trial was to begin, she admitted to committing the murders and attack in order to remove the possibility of the death sentence from consideration. She stated that her reason for committing the crimes was lack of money. She had recently lost her position as a nurse in a local hospital because of mishandling controlled substances, and she and her livein boyfriend had accumulated excessive debt.

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