Most 85 year old women would be content to sit out on the verandah, knitting socks and watching the world go by. Janie Sanchez, however, is not most women. Behind the quiet façade of an ordinary home in a quiet US neighborhood, Sanchez was the ‘mastermind’ of a gambling operation that took bets of up to $100 from visiting friends and neighbors. The police who raided the family home found betting slip cards, betting cards and in excess of $10,000 in cash – as well as two guns. Incredibly, the police said that because of Sanchez’s advanced age and the fact that she wasn’t considered a flight risk, she would not be arrested.
“Aging Mildred was a 93 year-old woman who was particularly despondent over the recent death of her husband Earl. She decided that she would just kill herself and join him in death. Thinking that it would be best to get it over with quickly, she took out Earl’s old Army pistol and made the decision to shoot herself in the heart since it was so badly broken in the first place.
Not wanting to miss the vital organ and become a vegetable and a burden to someone, she called her doctor’s office to inquire as to just exactly where the heart would be. “On a woman,” the doctor said, “your heart would be just below your left breast.”
Later that night, Mildred was admitted to the hospital with a gunshot wound to her knee. ”
Tags: illegal gambling
