Dana Sue Gray

Dana Sue Gray (born December 6, 1957) is an American serial killer who murdered three elderly women in 1994.

She was caught after a fourth intended victim survived and identified her.

Gray claims to have committed the murders to support her spending habits.

She is serving a sentence of life, without the possibility of parole, in the California Women's Prison in Chowchilla.

Gray was born Dana Sue Armbrust on December 6, 1957, in California to Beverly ( Beverly Joyce Hetzel; 1929-1975) and Russell Armbrust.

Her father

had worked as a hairdresser and had three previous marriages before marrying Beverly Hetzel, a former beauty queen who had been a MGM starlet.

They had several miscarriages before Dana was born.

Beverly was described as an aggressive, vain woman.

They divorced when her husband found her grappling with an older woman who had angered her.

Dana Sue was two years old at the time and afterwards rarely saw her father; she began acting out to get attention.

Whenever Beverly would discipline her, Dana would retaliate by stealing money to buy candy and would occasionally fly into fits of violence.

In school, she did not get along well with other students and did poorly in all her classes.

She was suspended from school many times for forging notes to get out of class.

When Dana was 14, her mother developed breast cancer; Gray decided to become a nurse after watching hospital nurses treat her mother.

After her mother's death in 1975, Gray moved in with her father but was forced to leave after her stepmother found drugs in her room.

A few years later, she became involved with a skydiving instructor, who got her pregnant twice; he convinced her to terminate both pregnancies, something she resented.

She later suffered several miscarriages, which led her into depression and psychotropic medications.

She was fired from her nursing job after she was caught stealing drugs.

Dana graduated from Newport Harbor High School in 1976.

She lived with her sky-diving instructor, Rob, for the next several years and he helped her with nursing school.

She became an expert skydiver.

In 1981 she graduated from nursing school, and for the next few years had an on-again, off-again relationship with Chris Dodson, a windsurfer.

Dana excelled in windsurfing and golf, and they took trips to Hawaii to participate in these activities.

In October 1987, Dana married a man named Tom Gray at an upscale winery in the Temecula area.

He was a fellow sports enthusiast who had known and admired her since high school.

Not long after their marriage, Dana incurred a large amount of debt.

At this time, she did not have much contact with her family due to a dispute over an aunt's will.

She was a labor and delivery nurse at Inland Valley Regional Medical Center.

They lived in the gated community of Canyon Lake where they had several business ventures under the name Graymatter.

Gray left her husband in early 1993 and moved in with their friend and her lover, Jim Wilkins, and his young son Jason.

In June, 1993, she filed for divorce from Gray, though this was not finalized until after Dana had been in jail for quite some time.

In September 1993, she and Gray filed for bankruptcy to stave off foreclosure on their Canyon Lake house.

Although the value of the house had greatly increased since they purchased it, they owed much more on the house than it was worth.

On November 24, 1993, she was fired from the hospital where she worked for misappropriating Demerol and other opiate painkillers.

On February 14, 1994, Dana sent word through Gray's parents (Gray kept his phone number and address hidden from her) that she wanted to meet with her estranged husband.

Gray initially agreed but did not show up.

Later that day, Dana murdered Norma Davis, an elderly lady whose home Dana had shared for a time.

Gray later found out that Dana had taken out an insurance policy on him.

The policy would have paid off the Canyon Lake house in the event of Gray's death.