GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A former nursing home aide was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison today for helping smother elderly patients in a pact with her lesbian lover.
"Without you, I'm sure this matter never would have been cleared up," Circuit Judge Robert Benson said in sentencing Catherine Wood, who had pleaded guilty and testified against her lover.
Wood, 27, admitted serving as lookout while some of five patients at Alpine Manor Nursing Home in Walker were suffocated by another former aide, Gwendolyn Graham. Wood said the murders were part of a pact the two hoped would bind their love. She said Graham told her the killings helped her "relieve tension."
Graham was convicted last month of five counts of murder.
