A professor in Renaissance Italy leads a double life, teaching law by day and practicing demonology by night. The untold story of a series of cases that shook the Catholic Church and shaped its spiritual battles.
Editor’s note: Some names have been changed for privacy reasons.
The rhythms of 83-year-old Dorothy Ford’s life were slowly overtaken by the changes brought by aging. Even answering the door could be cumbersome, as on January 6, 2016, when she made her way through her single-story condo at the Reid Hill Commons on Wrennewood Lane in Franklin, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville. When she opened the door, letting in a gust of chilly air, an exterminator she had been expecting was walking back to his Belle Meade Exterminators truck, thinking no one was home.
“You’re early,” Dorothy said.
“Oh, don’t worry,” the exterminator, a middle-aged Black man with an athletic build, replied. “I can come back.”
“No, it’s fine. Just—” she paused. “I need to dress up and put on my makeup. Come back in 15, 20 minutes.” Dorothy lived alone and didn’t often entertain guests, and, gesturing to a bygone era of etiquette and formality, she wanted to look her best.
The exterminator serviced other units and then returned to Dorothy’s home. She had complained about a problem with water bugs, which look a bit like cockroaches. As Dorothy complained about the infestation, he suggested some preventative measures and said he would spray an application to kill the bugs.
“No, no, hold on. No, no, no, no. Are you spraying chemicals in my home?” Dorothy said.
“Well, I’m getting ready to address your problem. It’s a residual—it’s insecticide, and it’s safe. And you won’t even smell it.”
Dorothy appreciated the explanation and relented.
Before he left, he told Dorothy to call the office anytime if she had problems.
“Well, okay. I definitely will call you,” she said.
The exterminator smiled.
“Just give me a heads-up when you come,” she added. “Don’t come so early next time.”
It was the beginning of an unusual relationship. A few weeks later, Dorothy heard noises in the wall and out on the patio. As instructed, she called the exterminator to investigate. He found out that Dorothy was leaving leftover food on plates out for stray cats, and the food was attracting insects to her unit.
Roughly a month later, she called again. She thanked him for help and said the water bugs hadn’t returned. She asked if he was coming to the area. “Just stop by the next time you’re in the area,” she said. “Just stop by.”
The exterminator became familiar with her condo unit, her habits living alone with her cat, and her routines. He was busy with his usual rounds at the retirement community and side hustles, forever trying to make ends meet, but he sensed an opportunity.
Dorothy had found a rare companion.
“You’re a good person,” Dorothy would say to him at one point. “You’re a good person.”
For Dorothy, there always seemed to be another medical challenge around the corner, another doctor’s appointment, and another long form to fill out for another receptionist: Dorothy Ford, Caucasian, born 01/01/1933, age 86, marital status: widowed, preferred pharmacy Walgreens, emergency contact: Ray (son). The most serious entry in her medical history was a heart attack a few years back.
The last thing she needed was extra responsibilities beyond taking care of her condo and her health, but those came from time to time, too. Her sister, Melinda Grant, died in December 2017. Though she had a fraught relationship with Melinda, Dorothy was now named executor of her estate instead of Melinda’s estranged daughter, Vivian Schwab. The estate, worth $269,000, was to be divided between Dorothy and a friend of Melinda’s named Sarah. Dorothy was annoyed, balking at handing the money to someone outside the family.
The resistance to her late sister’s wishes carried a possible subtext, a sadness about her shrinking family that Dorothy wouldn’t have articulated. At this point, with her husband having passed away decades before, it was pretty much just her and her son, Ray, who lived locally.
Ray, as usual lately, stepped in. Now 59 years old, Ray was an ambitious small businessman with cropped hair and an endearing sense of humor. He had his construction business, Hawk Company, and other ventures. He and his wife, Katherine, had a daughter in private school who kept him on his toes. Still, Ray prided himself on making time for Dorothy and helping her handle her affairs.
He had not always been able to be there in the past. Ray had spent much of his adult life away from Tennessee, having met his wife, Katherine, in Maryland. After a short stint playing college basketball, he’d worked at a delicatessen before developing a reputation as a general contractor over two decades. When they looked to relocate, an obvious choice was Tennessee, where Katherine had family, including a sister with Down syndrome, and where they were now close to Dorothy during her golden years.
Once in Tennessee, Ray’s bond with Dorothy noticeably strengthened to the point where Katherine, 58, lightheartedly complained about how much he spent with Dorothy. “You’re bringing the car back with no gas, and I know I had a half a tank in there,” Katherine said. He admitted to wearing out the tires on his wife’s Jeep Patriot while driving Dorothy around greater Nashville. With no other children, Dorothy leaned on Ray to help her make trips to the beauty salon, to medical offices, and her properties in the Whites Creek area of Davidson County.
Dorothy was known for her stubbornness as much as for her wit, though Ray could understand her objections to the instructions that came with Aunt Melinda’s estate. Maybe distributing Melinda’s money in ways that did not make sense to Dorothy made her feel even more disconnected from her late sister– an echo of the emotional chasm between them.
But Ray convinced Dorothy that it was the right thing to do. He personally sent two checks for $12,000 to Sarah and the paperwork for Sarah to fill out so the remainder of the money could be released. “May God continue to bless you,” Ray wrote in a note to Sarah, an olive branch on behalf of the family.
Ray sometimes joked that Dorothy was the CEO of their relationship. Dorothy, meanwhile, in the wake of her sister’s death, was setting out in her own estate documents a list of her goals for Ray in representing their family: “develops a strong work ethic, is a productive and contributing member of society, and provides for those who are dependent on him for care and support.” In other words, Ray had to be more than just an “emergency contact.” He had to make his mother proud.
But he could now see he had to do more than that. Dorothy could have been in serious legal trouble if she had refused to send Sarah money.
Confronting a parent’s mounting frailties does something to a person, as if exposing all the inadequacies of prodigal young adulthood. It’s a challenge to make good, a call to fulfill a profound duty.
In making up for lost time, Ray had to ensure he protected his mother in between the usual chaos of daily life. That was his real job.
Dorothy was often alone in her condo. She always brightened when the exterminator came, and he began to call and check in to chit-chat between visits. He sometimes picked up her mail for her and did other chores.
Eventually, as the exterminator came by regularly to check on her, they built up their rapport.
Sometimes, Dorothy gave him a little gas and spending money for his efforts, but he declined her more significant financial offerings. Still, he began receiving a few checks from Dorothy, ostensibly for his help running her errands.
Dorothy seemed to overlook much in the exchange for the exterminator’s companionship. She looked into his background and discovered that he had declared bankruptcy before. But her instinct was this had just been a blip. He had turned things around.
In fact, his job at Belle Meade Exterminating did not pay very much. He wanted to accumulate enough money quickly to quit his job.
Dorothy kept busy entertaining neighbors and service people whenever possible, but the long periods alone made monotony harder to avoid. She tried to keep her condo immaculately clean, so clean the floor shined, which meant there were always things to do inside. But the usual routine went wrong on a balmy, overcast day on June 8, 2019. While alone, she tripped and fell.
Dorothy was rushed to an acute-care hospital in Franklin. The large structure included multiple wings and towers and had continued to add expansions, keeping the staff at the entrance busy directing new cases to various floors and departments in the facility. Staff found Ray’s number as the emergency contact in her records, and soon after reaching him, he hurried to the hospital.
Ray was briefed. Dorothy’s hip had shattered. Concern wasn’t limited to the injury itself but also the steep decline in quality of life that so many older adults face upon being injured. But to make matters more alarming, a young speech pathologist took Ray aside. She’d noticed something worrisome on Dorothy’s chart. “She’s experiencing symptoms of dementia,” the pathologist explained. Dorothy’s rheumatologist had noted his concerns during one of Dorothy’s previous visits.
Had Ray missed the signs? He would have admitted his mom was aging and experiencing all that came with that, as proven by the fall. But her mind was agile, even sharp on most days. She cooked and cleaned for herself. She didn’t drink. She was a little overweight but otherwise healthy.
Feelings of guilt could sink in for Ray that he hadn’t known anything so serious was happening, but he could not wallow. There was too much to take care of. Surgery for Dorothy’s hip occurred in June. She was then placed in an assisted living facility in Franklin to be in the residential wing to stay until her hip was rehabbed.
Plans were put into motion, looking toward the future. By September, Ray helped Dorothy put her Wrennewood Lane condo on the market. In anticipation of the facility discharging her, she needed a place requiring less maintenance than her current condo. A few months later, Ray rented an apartment in Dorothy’s name in the nearby Nashville suburb of Murfreesboro. It was a smaller place, and she liked the atmosphere in Murfreesboro.
While Dorothy rehabbed in the care home before she could move into the new condo, Ray hired a caregiver named Jamie Nivens to visit in the evening and another woman to help Dorothy in the mornings. A no-call, no-visitor order on Dorothy’s room allowed her to focus on her rehab. Periodically, Ray or Katherine, exempt from the order, would stop in to check on her and see how her recovery was progressing.
Nivens noticed how close Ray and Dorothy were and how much they obviously loved and cared for each other. They were “two wonderful people,” she recalls. On Dorothy’s birthday, Ray and his family arrived. They ate cake and posed for photos. Despite Dorothy’s trying circumstances, Ray rose to the occasion, and everyone was happy.
But Dorothy was not entirely happy. She told Ray she didn’t like the nursing home, which cost $10,000 a month and where she “need[ed] a break from” the staff and residents, who she said were “acting cuckoo.”
“What do you mean, cuckoo? Happy-go-crazy?” Ray asked, using lingo that could sound to others like a family shorthand.
“Yeah, cuckoo,” she said.
Ray could assure her of brighter days ahead away from the nursing home. The Murfreesboro unit was a luxury apartment with a hefty $2,000 monthly rent, and Ray furnished it with high-end furniture, including a top-of-the-line glass coffee table. He also bought his and her teddy bears and coffee mugs, a gesture Dorothy might get a kick out of when she moved in.
But Dorothy would never move into it.
During her rehabilitation at the nursing home, a physician with a mobile geriatric practice paid a visit to Dorothy. Although not a neurologist, he stated his opinion that Dorothy was indeed suffering from cognitive deficiency consistent with advanced dementia. Evaluations of Dorothy also indicated signs of malnourishment that preceded her hip injury.
Ray could point to Dorothy’s medication as causing the symptoms that were used to classify as cognitive decline and malnourishment. Could nursing homes push elderly patients into treatments that put them in a worse state than when they entered and then reference their deterioration to insist on keeping them?
With the diagnosis–from that visiting physician who was no neurologist, no less–Dorothy and Ray were essentially being told this was now her home.
Residential nursing and elderly rehabilitation care facilities had become major corporations with slick campaigns using slogans such as “Love Meets Home” and “A Bridge to Independence.”
But Dorothy, like many elderly individuals finding themselves away from their lives and routines, faced a disorienting and quietly horrifying new reality. Residents wandered facilities filled with unfamiliar faces, often cared for by overworked, underpaid nurses. Many centers faced chronic understaffing. Once admitted, residents frequently felt isolated from family, unable to leave even for the most basic errand.
Lovingly decorated kitchens at home were replaced with generic dining halls and measured-out portions. Doctors would declare a resident’s memory as diminished even as all the people and places that comprised the resident’s memories were stripped away. As soon as a new friend or doctor became familiar to them, the friend might be moved to another facility or pass away, and one doctor would be replaced by another, amplifying disorientation.
Recent headlines had exposed how brazen exploitation corrupted the process. A pharmaceutical company was being charged with paying kickbacks to medical professionals for prescribing dementia drugs, going so far as having their salespeople dress in scrubs and station themselves at nursing stations in medical settings to write out false diagnoses. A clinic in Ohio, meanwhile, had been busted making false Alzheimer’s disease diagnoses to profit from patient treatments, a scheme led by a co-conspirator with a financial interest in the clinic and with no medical background.
Two cases closer to home in Tennessee had also generated headlines. In December 2018, two men who oversaw a city-owned assisted living center in Nashville were arrested and charged with stealing from patients, plundering almost $100,000 directly from patient’s accounts using ATM cards. Another Tennessee man was sentenced to 31 years in jail after he defrauded victims, many of whom were elderly, out of $6 million of annuities.
One nightmare scenario presented itself: the nursing home could be weaving a claim that Ray was not taking proper care of his mom, seizing control of Dorothy’s decisions and finances ostensibly to pay for the medical conditions they were fostering. Meanwhile, the no-contact restrictions on Dorothy could prevent the reality from ever getting out.
Amid all the signs of upheaval, Ray found Dorothy’s finances dwindling quickly and had to pay the minimum for the nursing home on a credit card until he could figure out what to do.
Vivian Schwab, Dorothy’s niece, sensed something off. Vivian lived in Pebble Beach, California, and had been estranged from her mother, Melinda, for whom Dorothy became executor. Although she wasn’t close with Dorothy, the two spoke on the phone a few times a year, usually around the holidays. But as Christmas 2019 approached, Vivian was having trouble contacting Dorothy.
When she tried Dorothy at home, she found the phone disconnected. Vivian discovered that Dorothy was living in a nursing home, but when she called there, the no-call order that had been placed on Dorothy’s room stopped her from getting through. This didn’t seem right. Vivian, who did not have Ray’s current contact information, called Adult Protective Services, who informed the Franklin Police Department.
A few weeks later, Special Agent Susan McDavitt of the Federal Bureau of Investigation got a call from the Franklin Police Department. Originally from Brentwood, Tennessee, McDavitt was a 24-year veteran of the bureau and a diehard sports fan of her alma mater, Ole Miss. She was assigned to the Complex Federal Crimes Squad in Nashville, working cases involving mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft. She was about to retire and was heading into her last case.
A detective with the Franklin police department told Agent McDavitt that a woman in California was concerned about her aging aunt, who was at a facility with restrictions on contacting her. Agent McDavitt learned that Franklin investigators conducted a welfare check and found Dorothy safe. However, at Vivian Schwab’s urging, they obtained subpoenas to look into her financial records.
Those investigators had found that large sums of money had been moved within and withdrawn from her accounts. Some of it had been transferred from her investment accounts into her personal accounts and then withdrawn as cashier’s checks. Money was also moved from the estate of Melinda Grant, Vivian’s late mother, for whom Dorothy was the executor. In some cases, Dorothy had apparently written large checks to herself with vague memos such as travel and petty cash. This was all beyond the small department’s capabilities, so they needed the FBI.
Agent McDavitt elected not to question Dorothy directly. By this point, it was the height of the Covid pandemic, and Dorothy was in the highest risk group. Doctors declared that her mental capacities had deteriorated to the point that any questioning would cause her distress.
Instead, McDavitt worked to reconstruct some of Dorothy’s seemingly mundane dealings. In her day-to-day life, there had been the local pizzeria (NY Pie) near her condo, her neighborhood Walgreens where she filled her prescriptions, and her trusted rolodex of service providers to keep her condo in perfect order, which included regular visits from the exterminator, though he had recently moved on from that job.
McDavitt zeroed in on the older woman’s financial dealings, which led the agent to Luke Alger, Dorothy’s financial advisor. Alger was a fan of sharp suits, golf, and watching his two boys play sports. Alger reported that Dorothy liked checking in on her investments by coming to the office. The visits also allowed Dorothy to get out of the house.
Though she lived modestly, Dorothy turned out to have over a million dollars worth of assets when tallying her property, investments, and cash, all of which had been well maintained since Dorothy was widowed almost 30 years prior.
At one point, as Agent McDavitt heard from Alger, Dorothy had asked the financial advisor for a referral to a law firm to get her affairs in order and set up a revocable living trust with Ray, Katherine, and their daughter as beneficiaries. McDavitt followed this trail to Jay Adcox, an attorney at the Legacy Group, in a rectangular glass and brick office in Brentwood, a wealthy, green community just north of Franklin. Adcox, a father of five with glasses, had a friendly smile and a short beard going white on the sides.
During McDavitt’s interview with Adcox, the lawyer did remember something that struck him as unusual. It involved a man who had shown up alone and without an appointment to the Legacy Law offices, saying he was there on behalf of Dorothy. He had asked to see Adcox, explaining that Luke Alger at SunTrust referred him.
Adcox came out to see him. “Well, we’re a law firm, you really need to make an appointment,” Adcox told the visitor. “And we also need to meet with the client. We just can’t meet with you.”
Eventually, Adcox met with Dorothy, and described to McDavitt a woman sufficiently of sound mind to organize her paperwork.
As for Dorothy’s family, besides her niece Vivian, Agent McDavitt could also gain intelligence from Ray, whom she understood to be Dorothy’s son. One thing stood out to McDavitt right away. Ray and Dorothy had different surnames: his Sampson, hers Ford, although it seemed possible that Dorothy had kept or switched back to her maiden name after she was widowed.
But there was another potential clue to a bigger story. Dorothy Ford was white, and Ray Sampson was Black.
It didn’t take long for McDavitt to determine that Dorothy Ford had no son at all. She had never had any children.
Ray was her exterminator.
McDavitt confirmed that Ray had been an employee of Nashville-based pest control company Belle Meade Exterminating at the time. She reached Belle Meade owner Andrew Douglas, who told her that Ray’s territory included Route 6, a network of 55- plus communities with more than 60 complexes around Nashville spanning Williamson, Maury, Goodlettsville, and Madison counties. One of Ray’s regular clients was Dorothy Ford.
Douglas remembered first meeting Ray a couple of years earlier, when he needed another technician for that area and learned Ray was an out-of-work general contractor with some pest control experience who had recently moved to the area.
McDavitt learned that in the spring of 2016, Ray began running errands with Dorothy: picking up mail, taking documents to her accountant, and going to the hairdresser. And to SunTrust Bank. Monthly outings turned into weekly ones and began to involve reimbursements from Dorothy to Ray.
From the information McDavitt collected, it was easy to imagine the psychological void Ray filled for Dorothy. She was in her eighties, widowed with no children. She didn’t drive herself. She had been estranged from her sister (now deceased) and had a distant relationship with her niece. She would have been terribly lonely. In walks someone who paid attention to her, kept her company, and helped her with day-to-day living.
Indeed, there was much Dorothy overlooked in the exchange for Ray’s companionship. One day, months after the date Agent McDavitt had pinpointed Dorothy and Ray’s new friendship had begun, Dorothy told Ray that she had looked into his background. She had discovered that he had declared bankruptcy in Maryland and Tennessee. His job at Belle Meade Exterminators only paid $28,000 a year, after all.
Even the signs Dorothy noticed, such as Ray’s previous bankruptcy, didn’t matter to her. She would say he had a clean car, which was a plus. Besides, there was her overriding instinct about him being “a good person.”
McDavitt traced how the relationship grew over at least three years. (Later, Ray insisted that he and Dorothy met as early as 2013, although McDavitt found no evidence to support the claim.) First, Ray told people she was “like a mother to him.” Then he became her “godson.” Finally, he was simply her “son.” In her longing for family combined with cognitive challenges, Dorothy embraced this and, over time, seemed to believe it, apparently never objecting when Ray identified himself as her son in her presence and even herself referring to Ray as her son. It was also possible that, as memory troubles increased, there were times she wholeheartedly believed he was her son, times she thought he was her godson, and times she knew him just as Ray, her exterminator and friend.
The documents in McDavitt’s growing file revealed more. In 2016, Ray received at least two checks from Dorothy for $800 each, ostensibly for his help running her errands. The handwriting on the checks was Ray’s, but the signature was hers.
McDavitt pieced together that Ray liked to play the lotto—Pick 3, Pick 4—and Dorothy would do astrology readings to determine if his luck would be good. That was how Ray found Sue Vleck, the broker, to sell Dorothy’s condo. Vleck’s son, Dean, was an attendant at a gas station where Ray bought scratch-and-win tickets.
Dorothy gave Ray more control over her financial affairs as they grew closer. In 2017, for example, she decided to sell one of her properties at Whites Creek. At the closing, Ray was listed as a witness and “senior executive.” He was compensated $1,500 for his role in the closing.
But crucially, McDavitt and other investigators believed, the closing was when Ray realized how much money Dorothy had. He soon drafted an agreement naming himself her “personal representative,” which Dorothy signed. The document said Ray could act on Dorothy’s behalf, though he didn’t bother to get the document sanctioned by an attorney.
On March 5, 2018, Ray drafted another letter titled “Estate of Melinda Grant, care of Dorothy K. Ford, Executor.” The letter gave Ray the authority to act on Dorothy’s behalf concerning the estate. Dorothy signed that one, too.
That brought Agent McDavitt to Dorothy’s visits to the lawyer Adcox, where she set up her power of attorney, will, and a revocable trust to hold her assets during her lifetime. After Ray’s odd solo appearance at Adcox’s office, Ray had returned there with Dorothy. As a matter of course, the power of attorney assigned Ray to use Dorothy’s money for her benefit: “I hereby grant Ray Sampson full authority to negotiate, sell and manage properties, close contracts, initiate investments, deposit checks, withdraw cash, process and sign any legal documents and make decisions on my behalf.” Ray was also responsible for arranging any necessary care at an appropriate facility or hospital, providing companionship and comfort, and someday making funeral arrangements.
McDavitt also traced to these meetings the conspicuous language that set out conditions upon Dorothy’s death for Ray to receive funds, requiring his “strong work ethic” as a “productive and contributing member of society” providing care and support for his loved ones.
McDavitt heard about one particular exchange recounted by Adcox. Adcox had requested that Ray leave the room to speak with Dorothy alone. The lawyer confirmed with Dorothy that she was comfortable granting Ray power of attorney.
“Are you okay with this?” he said.
“Ray’s my guy,” Dorothy replied, harkening back to the clause in her estate documents voicing confidence in her apparent son’s reliability.
Two months after being given power of attorney, McDavitt learned, Ray quit his job at Belle Meade Exterminating. Soon, significant sums of money were withdrawn from Dorothy’s accounts. The checks were in her name, but Ray now had full power to sign on her behalf.
Agent McDavitt successfully traced the plundering of Dorothy’s and Melinda Grant’s accounts as starting in earnest in early 2019. On January 18, 2019, Ray had called Vanguard Bank via Luke Alger at SunTrust to liquidate Grant’s account there. A check for $139,000 was made out to “Dorothy Ford executor, Melinda Grant estate.” On February 4, 2019, Ray called Charles Schwab to liquidate another of Grant’s accounts, this one for $170,000. He deposited those checks into the estate account and endorsed Dorothy’s name on the back. Grant’s friend Sarah was supposed to receive half of Grant’s estate after Ray mailed her two “good faith” payments for $12,000.
The rest of Sarah’s money never arrived. Instead, Ray started writing himself checks from the account: a $1,100 check for “storage”; $2,000 for “travel”; $4,000 for “billing estate.” Ray drafted each of these checks, and Dorothy signed them. The checks were deposited into Dorothy’s personal accounts, then withdrawn by Ray. In total, Ray liquidated and spent $269,000 from Melinda Grant’s accounts.
McDavitt found that in February 2019, Ray liquidated Dorothy’s investment account at Amerant Bank. Amerant mailed a check for $70,937, which appeared in Dorothy’s SunTrust account on February 25.
The next day, Ray bought himself a 2019 Kia Soul.
In December 2019, he called Lincoln Financial on behalf of his “mother,” and Lincoln liquidated the account and mailed a check for $23,992, which was deposited into Dorothy’s SunTrust account. Ray then wrote checks to himself and obtained cashier’s checks totaling $23,249.
Ray set up the construction business called Hawk Company, which existed solely on paper and was a shell company used to launder Dorothy’s money. He made transfers and wrote checks to the company out of her accounts. He used the money to pay for things like the Murfreesboro apartment, “Gold and Diamond” upgraded stays at Marriott, flights, and dinners at Red Lobster.
The evidence Agent McDavitt gathered was mounting, but the process was slow. Those who now suspected the worst of Ray would have to act fast enough to avoid any potential plot to silence Dorothy. The walls were closing in, and Ray could catch on to the fact that everyone in Dorothy’s circle was being questioned.
One day in late 2019, Ray walked into Marathon Gas station in Franklin, where Dean Vleck was the manager. Ray was carrying a clear plastic bag filled with wads of cash. He was sweating and appeared manic. By then, he was spending between $1,000 to $1,500 of Dorothy’s money daily on lotto tickets. The money in the plastic bag totaled $14,000.
Dean was used to seeing Ray at the station to buy lotto tickets. But even he was alarmed to see Ray with a bag full of bills.
He came over with a black trash bag. “You might want to put this in this garbage bag,” Dean said.
Instead, Ray went to the bathroom and left the bag of money on the table. Dean stuffed it into the black garbage bag so other customers wouldn’t see it.
Ray was desperate. Dorothy’s fungible assets in her bank account had dwindled to just $1,300. Ray had increased the credit limit on Dorothy’s card from $12,500 to $18,000 per month, but he had maxed out her card.
Ray had begun paying for Dorothy’s residential care on her credit cards not because of financial impropriety by the medical system but because her funds had dried up. The no-contact rules put in place were not to shield anyone from finding clues about a nursing home scheme from Dorothy but instead were requested by Ray to inhibit anyone from extracting information from Dorothy about Ray or about Dorothy’s money.
Once Ray realized he had spent almost all of her money, he secured a $500,000 line of credit at SunTrust bank, which he claimed would be used to fix Dorothy’s condo. He withdrew $200,000 upon closing the line of credit, and two weeks later, he took out another $200,000.
Ray used the loan money to buy a stake in Franklin Pest Control and spent $21,452 to buy Katherine a 4.3-carat diamond ring with a three-carat center-cut diamond. He also bought a luxury Lexus SUV and used $11,000 for his daughter’s private school tuition.
At the Murfreesboro apartment, which he rented in Dorothy’s name, the his-and-her teddy bears and coffee mugs weren’t, in fact, for Dorothy: he was using the place to conduct an extramarital affair.
Meanwhile, at the nursing home, a lawyer named Rebecca Blair interviewed Dorothy for Williamson County’s guardian ad litem report. Dorothy said she didn’t want a conservatorship and continued to have full trust in Ray to handle her affairs.
Between Agent McDavitt’s findings and Vivian Schwab’s legal filings, Ray ran out of runway for his scheme in February 2020, when Vivian filed a petition for an emergency conservatorship over Dorothy.
On the day of the hearing, Ray took out $8,810 from Dorothy’s accounts.
Dr. Bruce Wallstedt, a family practitioner in Nashville, met with Dorothy on behalf of the court. Wallstedt found that severe cognitive impairment had probably started a full ten years before the evaluation.
In April 2020, Williamson County removed Ray’s power of attorney and appointed emergency conservators for her person and her finances. On May 12, 2021, McDavitt’s exhaustive investigation paid off. Ray was arrested and charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Katherine Sampson was also charged with money laundering but blamed Ray and accepted a plea deal. After fighting his charges in the courts for nearly two years, Ray was convicted on all counts after a six-day trial. Dorothy would never learn about this outcome. She died of natural causes in May 2021.
Dorothy’s finances had been pilfered by Ray, but legitimate anxiety over elderly and end-of-life care remains widespread. As lifespans increase over time, elder abuse has become endemic in the United States. A Human Rights Watch report on United States nursing homes found concerns among residents about extreme weight loss, untreated bedsores, dehydration, and rapid physical and mental decline. Critics argue that many facilities sometimes drain residents’ finances in a predatory fashion, triggering a booming cottage industry of estate planners and other companies set up to charge fees to protect older adults.
All told, Ray Sampson stole over $1.7 million from Dorothy, including the line of credit, and defrauded Sarah Henderson out of a $113,000 inheritance. Brent Hannafan, the assistant district attorney on the case, says that regardless of Ray’s fraud, there was a genuine relationship between the two people at the center of the case. “He was, more than anyone in her life at the time, paying attention to her.”
“Dorothy Ford loved Ray Sampson and his family. Ray Sampson loved Dorothy Ford,” Brian Strianse, Ray’s defense attorney, had likewise insisted. “Ray was the only person in the world that took care of Dorothy Ford at the end of her life. She used to tell people that Ray took care of her for years ‘before he knew I had anything.’” The ultimate twist of the case, Ray’s team suggested, was that Ray was more like a son to her than anyone else, and for that reason, she had empowered him financially of her own free will when she was still of sound mind.
“How did you feel about Dorothy Ford?” Strianse asked Ray on the witness stand during the trial.
“I loved her. I loved her like a mother,” Ray said.
“Do you think she loved you?”
“She did. She loved me like a son.”
It is perhaps an indication of an increasingly colorblind society that those who believed Dorothy and Ray were mother and son apparently did not have questions about race. Of course, innumerable interracial marriages and adoptions produce family members with a variety of ethnicities without raising eyebrows.
Still, those wanting the full power of the law to come down on Ray could allege that he had cynically counted on society’s openness. On the other hand, Ray’s supporters could suggest that law enforcement’s dismissiveness about the genuineness of Ray’s relationship with Dorothy happened because she was white and he wasn’t. At one point, Ray commented about people assuming he “hoodoed” Dorothy into their relationship, evoking his perspective that a racial subtext tainted the investigation. (Ray would continue to insist Dorothy had repeatedly told him of her money, “it’s yours,” and the estate planning merely reflected that.) Moreover, defenders could point out that it was no wonder Ray stepped in to fill a void with Dorothy; studies have long shown that a variety of historical and cultural factors have led to Black individuals in the United States being twice as likely to take on the responsibility of taking care of elderly loved ones than white counterparts.
Ray argued that Dorothy had been all but abandoned by her biological family. One lasting detail that supports a lack of attention on Dorothy’s life and legacy outside of Ray Sampson is her grave marker at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville. It includes nothing other than her name and date of birth.
Jamie Nivens, one of Dorothy’s caregivers, recalled hearing Dorothy say explicitly several times that everything she had was Ray’s. For those who supported Ray, Dorothy’s dementia, rather than being exploited by Ray, took away her ability to correct the record in Ray’s favor. (Nivens was a friend of Ray’s.)
Sue Vleck, the broker, remembers Ray as friendly and flashy. “He thinks very highly of himself,” she says. “Have you ever met someone who likes to talk about themselves, and you walk away feeling almost sorry for them because you get the feeling like they’re very insecure?”
At various points, Ray told Sue that his dad used to play for the Dallas Cowboys and that he was heir to the fortune of the Frist family (one of Tennessee’s wealthiest). When Sue put Dorothy’s condo on the market, Ray encouraged her to take cash and hand over the keys. “Obviously, we look back and think, how did we miss the signs?” Sue says.
With Dorothy Ford’s death, there can be no definitive answer to whether she would have been brought more peace by her relationship with Ray or by his conviction. The day after she passed, Ray made his last play as a pretend son. He made multiple calls to determine when he would get the money from Dorothy’s will.