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Judge Josie-Jo “J.J.” Ford
Crow is a mysterious, deeply religious, and very tall woman who dresses all in black. She’s one of Sam Westing’s 16 potential heirs. Crow works as the cleaning woman at Sunset Towers and lives in a small maid’s apartment. She volunteers each week at a soup kitchen on Skid Row with her close friend, the delivery boy Otis Amber. Crow is severe and quiet, and the other heirs know little of her past. Eventually, it is revealed that Berthe Erica Crow is the mysterious Mrs. Westing—Sam Westing’s wife who left him after the death of their beloved daughter, Violet. Crow, desperate to secure her daughter a more secure social and financial position, arranged to marry Violet off to a crooked politician—and in doing so, she separated Violet from her true love, George Theodorakis, the son of a Westing factory worker. After Violet committed suicide the night before the wedding, Crow left Westing, returned to using her maiden name, and became devoutly religious in order to atone for her sins against her daughter and her family. Berthe Erica Crow’s full name is the “answer” to the Westing game—and though Crow “wins” the game by offering herself up to the authorities as Westing’s murderer, she’s absolved of any role in the man’s death and receives over $30,000 from Westing’s will. Crow eventually marries Otis. Together, they renovate the soup kitchen downtown, and many years later, the two lovers die within days of one another.
Berthe Erica Crow Quotes in The Westing Game
The The Westing Game quotes below are all either spoken by Berthe Erica Crow or refer to Berthe Erica Crow. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 20
Quotes
"I grew up in Westingtown where my father was a factory foreman. Violet Westing and I were, what you'd call, childhood sweethearts. We planned to get married someday, when I could afford it, but her mother broke us up. She wanted Violet to marry somebody important.”
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Chapter 24
Quotes
"Can we accuse an innocent woman of a murder that has never been proved? Crow is our neighbor and our helper. Can we condemn her to a life imprisonment just to satisfy our own greed? For money promised in an improbable and illegal will? If so, we are guilty of a far greater crime than the accused. Berthe Erica Crow's only crime is that her name appears in a song. Our crime would be selling—yes, I said selling, selling for profit the life of an innocent, helpless human being.”
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Berthe Erica Crow Quotes in The Westing Game
The The Westing Game quotes below are all either spoken by Berthe Erica Crow or refer to Berthe Erica Crow. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 20
Quotes
"I grew up in Westingtown where my father was a factory foreman. Violet Westing and I were, what you'd call, childhood sweethearts. We planned to get married someday, when I could afford it, but her mother broke us up. She wanted Violet to marry somebody important.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24
Quotes
"Can we accuse an innocent woman of a murder that has never been proved? Crow is our neighbor and our helper. Can we condemn her to a life imprisonment just to satisfy our own greed? For money promised in an improbable and illegal will? If so, we are guilty of a far greater crime than the accused. Berthe Erica Crow's only crime is that her name appears in a song. Our crime would be selling—yes, I said selling, selling for profit the life of an innocent, helpless human being.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
