When Gwendolyn Kills

By Jessi Dillard

 In 1986, a troubled young woman named Gwendolyn Graham left her home state of Texas for Grand Rapids, Michigan. There, she took a position caring for elderly patients as a nurses' aide at Alpine Manor Nursing Home, under the supervision of a woman named Cathy Wood. 
It didn't take long for the relationship between the two women to grow from a professional working relationship to a budding friendship – and even less time for that friendship to become romantically charged. Within just two years, the duo took their partnership even further, and were charged in 1989 with the smothering deaths of five of their female senior patients: 60 year old Marguerite Chambers, 95 year old Myrtle Luce, 79 year old Mae Mason, 74 year old Belle Burkhard, and 97 year old Edith Cook.
The couple earned themselves the nickname The Lethal Lovers, but according to Cathy Wood, their murderous spree was primarily planned and executed by Gwendolyn herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jul 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201123246

Book preview

KILL THEM CHELSEA

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Samantha Reed

There are many motives for murder whether it is revenge, love, or money. Sometimes people just kill other people for the sheer pleasure of it, according to their statements when they are caught. It is the ones that kill for money that often have the most intricate conspiracies attached to them, the most ‘flawless’ of plans, and they are also the ones that often find themselves caught. This is a story of love, money, conspiracy, and murder out of Mansfield, Texas. It is a murder that made headlines of Tarrant County and one people will not be quick to forget.

In The Beginning

Chelsea Lea Richardson was born March 26 1984. She came from a regular working class family and grew up in a working class neighbourhood in Tarrant County, Texas. She had a regular childhood if one that was a little strained. Her father, an ironworker and former marine, had died young and her mother had worked constantly to make ends meet for the two children.

Chelsea was a social person. She would go to the IHOP with her brother and sit for hours while he played Yu-Gi-Oh with his friends. She would chat and waste away the hours. She had never cared for the card game, but being at the IHOP was better than being at home. And it was through this connection that she first met Andrew Wamsley. 

Andrew Wamsley was born July 7, 1984 and was the second child of Rick and Suzanna Wamsley, a wealthy, upper class family in Tarrant County, Texas. He’d had a life with every comfort possible. It was a life that was a great contrast to the one Chelsea had lived and perhaps that was what drew her to him. His parents had been strict, but they had ensured that their entire world revolved around their children. And in doing so, they had isolated them from the world, from people outside of their high-class social group, and from those that they didn’t approve of.

Chelsea and Andrew began a relationship in January 2003 despite their differences, or perhaps because of them. They began to spend a great deal of time out at Ruth Brustrom’s house. Ruth, whose husband had been like a second father to Chelsea, was glad to have the company. She said, "Andrew seemed like a real sweet kid. The best guy she’d brought out here. He seemed real