This week, a Spanish court in Girona convicted Joan Vila Dilme, 48, of murdering 11 pensioners at the eldercare facility that had employed him. The nine-person jury was unanimous, despite Dilme’s insistence that he’d loved his patients and had killed them only to end their suffering.
His method was to have them drink caustic liquid, which hardly sounds like a merciful treatment. An autopsy of one decedent in 2010 that found acid revealed the MO, bringing an end to Dilme’s brief but proficient spate of killings. He eventually admitted to them all.
So is Dilme a provider or a predator? Unlike some killers of the elderly, he did not seem to enrich himself.
For example, Dorothea Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, and was quick to help those who were down on their luck. During the 1980s, this 59-year-old woman opened her home to welfare and social security recipients. She offered low rent and hot meals, but the turnover seemed surprisngly high. When neighbors inquired about someone they hadn't seen in a while, she would tell them that so-and-so had simply moved on.
Puente was such a sweet lady that no one would have suspected until a social worker went to check on a client reported missing. She’d heard about the bad smells in the house and believed her client wouldn't just leave, so she notified police.
Upon investigating, they identified the odor of decompositon. They dug up the lawns and gardens and soon discovered the source of the stench: seven bodies covered in lime and plastic, one of which had been beheaded. Autopsies later confirmed that these people had died from drug overdoses.
It turned out that Puente had forged signatures on over sixty checks and had served prison time for theft and fraud. Upon release, she’d even been considered a danger to the elderly. But she'd figured out a way to set up a "home."
During the early 1900s, a small eldercare facility in Connecticut logged a suspicious number of deaths over a 5-year period, even for that population. Amy Archer-Gilligan, who’d also lost two husbands to a mysterious illness, ran the place. An undercover official collected evidence of fraud and foul play, which led to exhuming the bodies of Archer-Gilligan’s second husband and several former patients.
Finding high doses of arsenic, along with evidence of her arsenic purchases, officials charged her with six counts of murder. From physicians they learned that the death toll in a facility of this size for would be eight to ten for the period of operation, not forty-eight. Then they discovered Archer-Gilligan's devious methods of “care.”
“Sister” Amy, it seems, had persuaded some patients to pay a substantial insurance premium, for which she promised lifetime care. Once she had the money, their “lifetimes” ended quickly. Archer-Gilligan pleaded guilty and received a life sentence, which she served in an institution for the insane.
In yet another eldercare facility, erotic motivation was the primary factor in a killing spree that took five lives. Catherine Wood was supervisor at the Alpine Manor in Michigan, where she became lovers with Gwendolyn Graham. One day in 1987, Graham suggested killing patients, so they devised a game.
The eldercare facility routinely recorded the names of deceased or discharged patients in a book. Wood and Graham plotted to kill people whose first initial, when read down the book's list, spelled MURDER. They then tried to carry out this plan.
Although some eldercare killers are in it for money, motivations are clearly mixed. A few healthcare killers just felt overburdened. It’s even possible that Dilme believed he was being merciful, despite the obvious pain he’d caused. Even so, patients in such facilities are vulnerable to their caretakers and are often unable to fend for themselves.
That’s one reason why healthcare serial killers often select either the very young or very old for their victims. The young can’t talk and the elderly are expected to die. Typically, there isn’t even even an investigation. But a detailed statistical analysis can offer clues and help to elicit confessions.