Oniomaniac Dana Sue Gray and the sad consequences of her addiction (7 photos)

For most women, shopping is a way to escape from everyday life, relax, and update their wardrobe. It is clear that even for ladies who are very keen on shopping, the main limitation in this is financial resources.





But what if you really want to buy, but don’t have enough money?



The town of Canyon Lake, California was a true retiree's paradise. Silence, landscaped area, wonderful artificial lakes. Suddenly, at one moment, it turned into a real hell: elderly women were attacked. They were beaten and robbed, and some were more unlucky than others.

On February 16, 1994, Norma Davis was stabbed to death. Two weeks later, June Roberts was found strangled with a telephone wire. And Dorinda Hawkins miraculously survived: the attacker who strangled her thought that the victim had died, but she simply lost consciousness. A couple of weeks later, Dora Beebe died a terrible death - the unfortunate woman was beaten with an iron. But survivor Dorinda's testimony helped apprehend the killer. The surprise of law enforcement officers and the public knew no bounds.



Dana in her youth

Dorinda worked part-time in an antique shop and was not surprised when another visitor, a pretty blond woman, came in to admire the antique figurines and porcelain vases.

Dorinda turned to show her client the item she liked. And at that moment I felt a noose on my neck. Losing consciousness, she made eye contact with her attacker. There was nothing human in the eyes of the pretty blonde, only coldness. Dorinda realized that the customer had killed more than once.

The killer took the cash from the register, grabbed the contents of Hawkins' wallet and disappeared. The unfortunate saleswoman woke up and crawled with difficulty to a nearby store, where an ambulance was called for her.

Shopping is great and terrible



Identikit

The police immediately realized that the killer was a woman. Because with the stolen cards of the victims, she immediately went to the store and cleaned everything up. The testimony of the survivor confirmed the version.

The shopping list was quite ordinary - a jacket, boots, perfume, a photo frame, jewelry, toys, even dog food. A consultant at one of the boutiques remembered that the client was with her child and mentioned the name of his father in the conversation.

When the identikit was shown to the relatives of the victims, one of the women identified it as the daughter of her second husband. When Dana Sue Gray was detained, the killer's ears sparkled with earrings bought with the money of the last victim.

"It's not me!"



Dana

The woman categorically refused to admit guilt, despite the victims’ bank cards being found on her. It seems that there was no reason not to believe Dana: a happy childhood, a decent family. True, the parents divorced because of the girl’s mother’s exorbitant passion for money and a beautiful life.

Something similar began to appear in Dana. At the age of 16, her father and stepmother kicked her out of the house for her passion for weed. The girl lived with the guy for some time, then broke up with him and married Tom Gray, a local musician.

She spent a good inheritance on a trip to Europe. She incurred a lot of debts and constantly demanded money from her husband. The marriage ended as expected quickly and, just as in the case of the mother. The man filed for divorce.

Dana asked him to meet, trying to improve the relationship. But at the last moment he changed his mind. And for good reason: she took out insurance, insuring his life in her favor. On the same day that the meeting did not take place, the woman killed Norma Davis.

Reasons and results



Dana Sue Gray

The proceedings dragged on for four long years. In the end, completely unexpectedly for everyone, she admitted guilt. She named the women's rudeness as a motive: they looked condescendingly, served the wrong thing, arched their eyebrows contemptuously.

Of course, the attitude doesn’t even amount to a motive. Moreover, the witnesses claimed that the deceased middle-aged women were not arrogant.

In prison, Dana continued to act weird: she demanded a mirror in her cell, manual therapy sessions, and vegan dishes. However, she has time to terrorize her relatives and staff - a life sentence.



Stories about crimes for the sake of shopping are rare. Therefore, psychologists paid special attention to Gray’s case. Perhaps two factors coincided - oniomania - an irresistible desire to buy something unnecessarily, for the sake of the process itself, and the sociopathic tendencies of the killer. The woman calmly left a child in the car, killed an elderly man, took the money and went to spend it in a shopping center or beauty salon. That is, going to the store was a kind of gift for her, which she rewarded herself for killing.

Despite psychological research, in reality everything is much simpler: if you wanted, you did it. Fortunately, the 66-year-old inmate at the California Women's Prison in Chowchilla is left with only memories. Without the possibility of repeating his monstrous deeds.