Mildred Alston was 72 when she was found suffocated in her bed at the Kearsley Home in Philadelphia on July 19, 1983. Her death came just hours after another resident across the hall, Eugenia Borda, was discovered strangled, and the pair of suspicious deaths finally prompted a full-scale police investigation into a string of fatalities at the facility.

In Alston’s case valuables were missing — a diamond ring, wedding band, and a change purse — a detail that distinguished her killing and pointed to robbery as a motive. Detectives focused on employees with access to residents and questioned a 22-year-old dietary aide, Anthony Joiner. He confessed to multiple murders at the home, and authorities said his motives included rape and robbery.

Joiner was arrested and charged with seven counts of murder and rape; at trial he was convicted on five counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder and received life sentences.