Dana Sue Gray (born December 6, 1957) is an American serial killer who murdered three elderly women in 1994.
She is serving a sentence of life, without the possibility of parole, in the California Women's Prison in Chowchilla.
Her father had worked as a hairdresser and had three previous marriages before marrying Beverly Arnett, a former beauty queen who had been an MGM starlet.
[clarification needed] Dana Sue was two years old at the time and afterward 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.
After her mother died 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.
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.
In October 1987, Dana married Tom Gray at an upscale winery in the Temecula area.
They lived in the gated community of Canyon Lake, where they had several business ventures named 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 September 1993, she and Gray filed for bankruptcy to stave off foreclosure on their Canyon Lake house.
[5]: 4 Gray had visited Roberts one day, claiming she wanted to borrow a book about controlling a drinking problem.
Detectives found it unusual for Jeri Armbrust to take care of someone who was not a blood relative, and she was wearing Nikes, and they also wondered why she would not have said hello to Davis.
[13] After weeks of talking with Armbrust and building a rapport, Detective Joseph Greco, a lead investigator, realized she was not the person they sought.
[14] Detective Joseph Greco of the Perris Police Department led the investigations into the murders of Norma Davis and June Roberts.
Greco received numerous awards, including the Medal of Valor, for running into a plane to save victims of an accident at Perris Valley Airport on April 22, 1992.
[citation needed] Greco was promoted to Corporal in 1992 and assigned as an investigator on all major crimes against persons.
Because of the seriousness of the crimes and his lack of experience, Greco initially questioned his ability to do an adequate investigation but would eventually solve the case.
He identified Dana Sue Gray as a potential suspect and wrote a search warrant for her residence in Lake Elsinore, California.
Faced with a mountain of strong circumstantial evidence in the case against her, along with the threat of the death penalty, Gray would eventually plead to life without the possibility of parole and waive all of her appellate rights.
[15] Gray was finally caught because her description was obtained from various merchants in the Temecula, California area, where she used June Roberts' credit cards to go on a shopping spree.
Unbeknownst to the team, Gray was murdering Dora Beebe just hours before they began following her, trying to collect evidence.
Detective Greco took Dana into custody while assisting officers took her boyfriend and his son down to the station for questioning.
[15] At a hearing on July 23, Deputy DA Richard Bentley requested the death penalty.
On October 16, 1998, Gray was sentenced to life without parole and was incarcerated in the California Women's Prison in Chowchilla.
[5]: 6 [18] The case was featured in a LMN (Lifetime Movie Network) 2015 episode of Diabolical Women.
[19][20][21] Gray's murder spree was also featured in a 2017 episode of It Takes A Killer on the television channel Escape.
The case was also featured on Discovery Channel's series Forensic Factor episode 43, which aired on July 23, 2010.
On February 2, 2025, the true crime TV series Very Scary People first aired the episode, "The Angel of Death" about the life of Dana Sue Gray.