Vanessa Richardson

Judy had no idea that Dorothea had also taken Bert to the Social Security office and listed herself as his cousin in order to receive his government checks.

And after Judy left, Dorothea thought she was gone for good.

So she started dosing Bert's food with sleeping pills.

Unlike the tenants before him, Bert quickly realized that something was wrong, and he tried to tell someone.

One day, Bert visited another care facility where he used to live.

Dorothea accompanied him.

When Bert got a moment alone with one of the nurses, he told her that Dorothea had been giving him medicine that was making him feel sick.

Dorothea overheard what he was saying and immediately interjected.

She told Bert that if he wasn't happy, he could stay at that facility and sleep among rows of people on cots.

Bert apologized profusely, and Dorothea let him go back to the boarding house with her.

So thinking back to Betty, how would someone like Dorothea feel after they realize that someone they have power over is trying to undermine them?

The situation with the nurse had set Dorothea off.

She couldn't accept Bert trying to criticize her like that again.

So that evening, back at the house, Dorothea poisoned Bert with enough pills to kill him.

She kept his body in her bedroom overnight, and the next morning, the peach tree that Bert had dug the hole for arrived.

Dorothea buried Bert's body in the hole and planted the tree on top.

Then in front of the other tenants, she pretended to be inconsolable after learning that Bert had left in the middle of the night to go live with his sister without saying goodbye.

However, over the next few months, Dorothea told Judy, as well as another social worker, Peggy Nickerson, inconsistent stories about where Bert was.

Sometimes she said he was visiting family in Utah, other times Mexico.

But Judy and Peggy knew that Burt didn't have any family in Mexico.