Latest / Crime and Horror / The final piece of evidence was INSIDE HIM... - MrBallen

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The final piece of evidence was INSIDE HIM... - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: On the afternoon of September 30th, 1991, an investigator in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,
0:05
Speaker 1: walked carefully through a college chemistry lab. It was also
0:08
Speaker 1: a potential crime scene. The room was a complete mess
0:11
Speaker 1: with construction debris all over the place and lab equipment
0:14
Speaker 1: strewn across the countertops. In fact, it was so cluttered,
0:17
Speaker 1: the investigator didn't even know where to begin. But then
0:20
Speaker 1: he noticed something that really stood out that was laying
0:23
Speaker 1: on a nearby counter. It was a soiled rag with
0:26
Speaker 1: a handwritten note sitting right next to it. And when
0:29
Speaker 1: he read the note, he gasped because he realized he
0:33
Speaker 1: could be the next to die. But before we get
0:36
Speaker 1: into today's story, you might be asking yourself, why is
0:39
Speaker 1: this a Monday upload? Well, get used to it because
0:43
Speaker 1: starting now, you're going to be getting a new episode
0:46
Speaker 1: every Monday. As mentioned in prior videos, I'm going to
0:50
Speaker 1: be uploading up to four new videos every week. So,
0:53
Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious
0:55
Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place,
0:58
Speaker 1: because that's all we do, and we do upload two, three,
1:02
Speaker 1: even four times a week. So, if that's of interest
1:04
Speaker 1: to you, please steal all the mail in the Like
1:07
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1:10
Speaker 1: with expired pizza coupons and mysterious credit card offers. Also,
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Speaker 1: so you don't miss any of our uploads. Okay, let's
1:20
Speaker 1: get into today's story. Early on the morning of August 19th, 1991,
1:47
Speaker 1: a 32-year-old man named Bobby Curley stood in his recently
1:50
Speaker 1: renovated kitchen in the city of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He walked
1:54
Speaker 1: over to his fridge, opened it up, reached inside, and
1:57
Speaker 1: grabbed his bagged lunch along with his thermos, and he
1:59
Speaker 1: was just about to head out the door and go
2:01
Speaker 1: to work, but he stopped and gave his wife Joanne
2:04
Speaker 1: a kiss on the cheek and said he loved her,
2:06
Speaker 1: and then he left for the day. So Bobby and
2:09
Speaker 1: Joanne had been married for a year. and they lived
2:11
Speaker 1: with Joanne's four-year-old daughter, Angela, in a duplex in a
2:14
Speaker 1: working-class neighborhood. Bobby was an electrician, and so he made
2:18
Speaker 1: pretty good money, but the Curleys were by no means rich. However,
2:22
Speaker 1: Bobby knew that that actually might change soon, because Joanne
2:26
Speaker 1: was on the verge of winning this big court settlement.
2:29
Speaker 1: Joanne had actually been married once before, but her husband
2:32
Speaker 1: had died in a car accident about three years ago.
2:35
Speaker 1: His car had collided with a tractor trailer, and the
2:37
Speaker 1: driver of that tractor trailer... was eventually found to be
2:40
Speaker 1: the one at fault. And so now, Joanne's lawyers and
2:44
Speaker 1: the trucking company's lawyers were finally closing in on a
2:47
Speaker 1: financial settlement to compensate Joanne for her first husband's wrongful death.
2:51
Speaker 1: It had been a really stressful process, and Bobby had
2:54
Speaker 1: definitely noticed that Joanne had been more sullen and stressed
2:57
Speaker 1: than usual as they were going through it. But now
3:00
Speaker 1: that the case was finally wrapping up, Joanne did appear
3:03
Speaker 1: to be sort of back in good spirits, And, you know,
3:06
Speaker 1: while nothing was official yet, it looked like they were
3:08
Speaker 1: going to receive approximately a million dollars in compensation, which
3:13
Speaker 1: was obviously really exciting. In fact, the two of them
3:17
Speaker 1: were already mapping out how they might spend some of
3:19
Speaker 1: this money. Some of the ideas they had come up
3:22
Speaker 1: with included taking Angela on a few big trips and
3:25
Speaker 1: also maybe using some of that money to finally fund
3:29
Speaker 1: Bobby having his own business, something he had always wanted
3:31
Speaker 1: to do but lacked the resources for. But for now,
3:35
Speaker 1: you know, the settlement was not complete. And so Bobby
3:37
Speaker 1: had to go to his normal nine to five and,
3:40
Speaker 1: you know, punch the clock and keep earning money for
3:41
Speaker 1: the family. So for today, once he was outside, he
3:45
Speaker 1: simply got into his car and made the short drive
3:47
Speaker 1: to his current job site. Ten minutes later, Bobby parked
3:53
Speaker 1: outside of a science building on the campus of Wilkes University,
3:56
Speaker 1: which was a small college in Wilkes-Barre. He saw some
3:59
Speaker 1: of the guys on his crew standing out front waiting
4:01
Speaker 1: to be let into this building. So Bobby, who was
4:04
Speaker 1: the foreman of their crew, he got out of his
4:06
Speaker 1: car and said good morning to everyone and then walked
4:08
Speaker 1: up and unlocked the doors. Then they all went inside
4:11
Speaker 1: and got to work. And working at this location had
4:14
Speaker 1: really become a pretty big routine for this crew. Because
4:18
Speaker 1: by now, Bobby and his crew had been coming here,
4:20
Speaker 1: working here for a few months now. And this job
4:23
Speaker 1: was a really big job. Bobby and his team were
4:26
Speaker 1: helping renovate the entire building, which included all the classrooms,
4:30
Speaker 1: all the laboratories, hallways, everything. And so they still had
4:33
Speaker 1: quite a bit of work to do. But there was
4:35
Speaker 1: another reason this job was taking as long as it was.
4:38
Speaker 1: And that was because when Bobby's crew had first shown
4:41
Speaker 1: up at the building, they had expected it to be
4:43
Speaker 1: totally prepared for them, meaning all furniture and equipment would
4:46
Speaker 1: be cleared out. But instead, they found a ton of
4:49
Speaker 1: stuff just kind of everywhere inside the building because the
4:53
Speaker 1: building clearly had not been prepped at all. The chemistry lab,
4:56
Speaker 1: for example, still had random flasks and chemical bottles and
5:00
Speaker 1: wet rags with weird substances on them just laying around
5:03
Speaker 1: the room. So as a result, Bobby and his crew
5:07
Speaker 1: had been forced to do a ton of cleanup before
5:10
Speaker 1: they even got into their jobs that they had not
5:12
Speaker 1: planned on. And it really set them back. And so now,
5:16
Speaker 1: just to stay on schedule, they were regularly putting in
5:19
Speaker 1: 12-hour days basically every day they were there. And so
5:23
Speaker 1: all these extra hours... had Bobby feeling completely exhausted, and lately,
5:27
Speaker 1: he had sort of felt kind of sick almost, and
5:29
Speaker 1: he just sort of chalked that up to basically overworking.
5:33
Speaker 1: But Bobby never complained. The overtime pay was great, and
5:37
Speaker 1: he really enjoyed working with these particular guys on this crew.
5:40
Speaker 1: You know, these guys were basically his friends. So normally,
5:43
Speaker 1: the long work days were actually kind of fun, as
5:46
Speaker 1: exhausting and awful as they were. Later that afternoon... Bobby
5:50
Speaker 1: was standing on a ladder inside of that chemistry lab,
5:52
Speaker 1: running electrical wires above the ceiling panels. And as he
5:55
Speaker 1: was doing that, he suddenly heard this loud commotion coming
5:58
Speaker 1: from across the room. Bobby realized what he was hearing
6:01
Speaker 1: were guys on his crew basically shouting and laughing. So
6:05
Speaker 1: he climbed down to see what was going on. And
6:07
Speaker 1: when he walked over there, he saw that everybody was
6:09
Speaker 1: gathered around one of the members of the crew, whose
6:12
Speaker 1: name was Sammy DePasquale. And Sammy was sort of doubled over,
6:16
Speaker 1: coughing and spitting and holding a Coke can in his hand.
6:21
Speaker 1: Another member of the crew, whose name was Robert Marconi,
6:24
Speaker 1: explained to Bobby when he walked over that somebody had
6:26
Speaker 1: swapped out Sammy's Coke with a different Coke can, one
6:30
Speaker 1: that was filled with chewing tobacco spit instead of soda.
6:34
Speaker 1: Bobby cringed. I mean, this was absolutely disgusting. Even as
6:37
Speaker 1: a prank, this was awful. But it was also sort
6:40
Speaker 1: of par for the course for the guys on Bobby's crew.
6:43
Speaker 1: This is sort of what they did. They were always
6:44
Speaker 1: playing pranks on each other to kind of lighten the
6:47
Speaker 1: mood on long work days like today. And everybody was laughing,
6:50
Speaker 1: even Sammy, who'd been the butt of the joke. And
6:53
Speaker 1: so eventually, you know, Bobby joined in too. He thought
6:56
Speaker 1: that this was ultimately good for morale, as gross as
6:58
Speaker 1: it was. And after a minute or so, Sammy recovered
7:02
Speaker 1: from his coughing fit from drinking this disgusting liquid and
7:05
Speaker 1: vowed sort of comically to get payback on whoever switched
7:09
Speaker 1: his Coke can. Then after that, all the guys got
7:12
Speaker 1: back to work. And so Bobby, he left the group
7:14
Speaker 1: and went back over to his ladderer And as he
7:17
Speaker 1: was climbing back up, he paused about halfway because he
7:20
Speaker 1: felt this sudden wave of sickness come over him. It
7:23
Speaker 1: almost felt like he had a flu coming on, which
7:25
Speaker 1: didn't really surprise him because he had been doing all
7:28
Speaker 1: these overtime hours and he really had felt run down
7:31
Speaker 1: as a result of it. And so, again, he's just
7:32
Speaker 1: sort of chalking up the way he feels to overworking.
7:36
Speaker 1: And so as Bobby is standing on this ladder, he
7:38
Speaker 1: kind of told himself, you know, just suck it up.
7:40
Speaker 1: This will pass. And he just stood there on the ladder.
7:43
Speaker 1: And after a minute or two, that sensation of being
7:45
Speaker 1: sick did sort of pass. And then, because he was
7:48
Speaker 1: not a complainer, he was a hardworking guy, he just
7:51
Speaker 1: pushed the sickness feeling he was having out of his mind.
7:54
Speaker 1: He climbed back up and got back to doing his wiring.
8:02
Speaker 1: But four days later, on the morning of Friday, August 23rd,
8:06
Speaker 1: Bobby felt worse than ever. As he made his way
8:09
Speaker 1: across the college parking lot towards the science building where
8:12
Speaker 1: his crew was still working, he felt like his feet
8:15
Speaker 1: were heavy and he was constantly short of breath. And
8:18
Speaker 1: then as the workday went on, you know, continuing to
8:20
Speaker 1: run wires in that chem lab, Bobby got really sweaty
8:24
Speaker 1: and really hot. His co-workers noticed and kept coming up
8:27
Speaker 1: to him to ask if he needed to go home early.
8:30
Speaker 1: But even though Bobby totally did need to go home
8:33
Speaker 1: early and felt awful, he would just tell them, nope,
8:36
Speaker 1: he was just fine. And so Bobby would manage to
8:38
Speaker 1: get through that particular workday. But then at the end
8:41
Speaker 1: of the day, when it was time to go home,
8:43
Speaker 1: Bobby felt so relieved. He could not wait to just
8:47
Speaker 1: get home, crawl into bed, and sleep. But by the
8:52
Speaker 1: next morning, Saturday morning, that heavy feeling in Bobby's feet
8:56
Speaker 1: had turned into this really intense burning pain that actually
9:00
Speaker 1: went all the way up his legs. And then his
9:02
Speaker 1: hands went numb. At this point, Bobby had to admit
9:06
Speaker 1: to himself that this was not a symptom of overworking.
9:09
Speaker 1: He was sick, like something was wrong with him. So
9:12
Speaker 1: he went to his doctor. But the doctor told him
9:15
Speaker 1: that despite what he was feeling, the symptoms were not
9:18
Speaker 1: that serious. Like it didn't appear that something was seriously
9:21
Speaker 1: wrong with him. And so ultimately, he just told Bobby to,
9:25
Speaker 1: you know, go home and get more rest. That's what
9:27
Speaker 1: you need right now. So that's exactly what Bobby did.
9:30
Speaker 1: For the rest of that Saturday and all day the
9:32
Speaker 1: next day Sunday, Bobby didn't do anything except lay in bed.
9:36
Speaker 1: But by that Sunday evening, Bobby still felt horrible. So
9:41
Speaker 1: he picked up the phone and did something that Bobby
9:43
Speaker 1: basically never did. He called one of his co-workers and
9:48
Speaker 1: told them that unfortunately, he would not be able to
9:50
Speaker 1: come to work tomorrow. When Bobby woke up the next
9:53
Speaker 1: morning on Monday morning, the day he had taken off
9:56
Speaker 1: from work, he was in so much pain that he
9:58
Speaker 1: couldn't even stand up on his own. His wife, Joanne,
10:01
Speaker 1: tried to help him get out of bed and go
10:02
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, but he was physically too heavy for
10:06
Speaker 1: her to lift. And so Joanne actually ended up calling
10:09
Speaker 1: Bobby's brother, David, to come over the house and help.
10:12
Speaker 1: But even with David there, who could now basically help
10:15
Speaker 1: move Bobby around the house, it was very clear to
10:18
Speaker 1: Bobby that whatever was happening to him was not some
10:21
Speaker 1: minor issue. Like, this was serious. And it clearly was
10:24
Speaker 1: not going away with rest like the doctor had said
10:26
Speaker 1: it would. And so at some point that day, the
10:28
Speaker 1: family called an ambulance, which came and took Bobby to
10:31
Speaker 1: a nearby hospital. But by the time they got there,
10:36
Speaker 1: the pain in Bobby's legs had gotten so bad that
10:39
Speaker 1: that Bobby was literally periodically screaming in pain. And he
10:43
Speaker 1: also had begun to vomit. But after several hours of
10:47
Speaker 1: nonstop pain and nonstop testing at the hospital, the hospital
10:52
Speaker 1: doctors came into Bobby's room and they told him and
10:55
Speaker 1: his family that they actually had good news. They knew
10:58
Speaker 1: what was wrong with Bobby and it was treatable. They
11:01
Speaker 1: diagnosed him with something called Guillain-Barre syndrome, which is a
11:05
Speaker 1: condition where the body's immune system attacks the nerves and
11:09
Speaker 1: and causes tingling in the feet and hands. But the
11:12
Speaker 1: staff assured Bobby that all he needed was a very
11:14
Speaker 1: specific medication, and then he would feel a whole lot better.
11:18
Speaker 1: Bobby was incredibly relieved, as was his family, and that
11:22
Speaker 1: day he began taking the medication, and quickly his pain
11:25
Speaker 1: became tolerable, he stopped vomiting, and before long, he actually
11:29
Speaker 1: felt good enough that he was able to go home.
11:32
Speaker 1: It seemed like Bobby had really turned a corner here,
11:34
Speaker 1: and that everything really was going to be okay. But,
11:38
Speaker 1: Within just a few days of being back home again,
11:42
Speaker 1: Bobby's pain came back even worse than before, despite still
11:46
Speaker 1: taking this medication. And he also began experiencing a new symptom.
11:51
Speaker 1: His hair started falling out. On September 7th, so now
12:04
Speaker 1: a week and a half after Bobby came back from
12:06
Speaker 1: the hospital, well, He was back there again. And to
12:09
Speaker 1: Bobby's horror, this time, his doctors actually seemed kind of
12:13
Speaker 1: baffled by his symptoms. They told him that sudden extreme
12:17
Speaker 1: hair loss was definitely not a symptom of Guillain-Barre syndrome.
12:22
Speaker 1: So they told Bobby that it seemed like their initial
12:24
Speaker 1: diagnosis must have been wrong, despite the fact that the
12:28
Speaker 1: medication they gave him to treat GBS had helped him
12:31
Speaker 1: for a little while. And so the problem now was
12:34
Speaker 1: the doctors were basically at a total loss as to
12:37
Speaker 1: how to help Bobby. They really didn't know what was
12:39
Speaker 1: going on. And so for the next nine days, doctors
12:43
Speaker 1: ran test after test on Bobby. And all the while,
12:46
Speaker 1: Bobby's pain intensified so much and became so constant that
12:51
Speaker 1: he basically fell into this almost delirious state, like the
12:54
Speaker 1: pain was completely too much. And then eventually, all these
12:58
Speaker 1: doctors who ran all these tests failed. came back to
13:00
Speaker 1: Bobby and his family and they just told them that
13:03
Speaker 1: we don't know what's wrong. Like all these tests did
13:06
Speaker 1: not provide any clarity. And so basically we can't help you.
13:10
Speaker 1: And they told Bobby that now the only choice was
13:12
Speaker 1: he needed to be transferred to a bigger, more specialized
13:16
Speaker 1: medical facility in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which was about a hundred
13:19
Speaker 1: miles away from Wilkes-Barre. A few days later, a neurologist
13:25
Speaker 1: named Dr. Robert Brennan walked down the hallway of the
13:28
Speaker 1: bigger hospital in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was heading to the
13:31
Speaker 1: room where his patient, Bobby Curley, was staying. And even
13:34
Speaker 1: from several yards down the hallway, Dr. Brennan could already
13:37
Speaker 1: hear Bobby screaming and cursing at the nurses. Ever since
13:41
Speaker 1: Bobby had arrived at this hospital, his behavior had gotten
13:44
Speaker 1: more and more unhinged. At one point, Bobby had even
13:48
Speaker 1: thrown medical equipment across the room. And so now Dr.
13:51
Speaker 1: Brennan had to keep Bobby physically restrained to his bed.
13:55
Speaker 1: And so Dr. Brennan, when he reached Bobby's room, took
13:57
Speaker 1: a deep breath out in the hallway and And then
13:59
Speaker 1: into the room he walked and inside he saw Bobby
14:03
Speaker 1: strapped down to the bed and he was screaming and
14:05
Speaker 1: thrashing around violently. And Dr. Brennan found himself just feeling
14:10
Speaker 1: awful about it. I mean, he felt really bad for Bobby,
14:13
Speaker 1: but really he didn't know what to do for Bobby.
14:16
Speaker 1: He and his staff had tried basically everything they could
14:19
Speaker 1: think of to try to treat Bobby's pain, but nothing
14:23
Speaker 1: had worked. And so on this day, Dr. Brennan couldn't
14:26
Speaker 1: do anything except what he normally did, which was just
14:29
Speaker 1: stand in Bobby's room sort of helplessly as Bobby screamed
14:33
Speaker 1: and flailed in pain. But on September 22nd, so six
14:37
Speaker 1: days after Bobby arrived in Hershey, he finally fell silent
14:42
Speaker 1: because on that day, he slipped into a coma. Three
14:48
Speaker 1: days later, Dr. Brennan felt very defeated as he stepped
14:51
Speaker 1: into Bobby's hospital room. There, he saw five members of
14:54
Speaker 1: Bobby's family, his wife, Joanne, his four-year-old stepdaughter, Angela, Bobby's
14:59
Speaker 1: adult siblings, Susan and David, and Bobby's elderly mother, Mary.
15:03
Speaker 1: They'd all come to be with Bobby after he had
15:05
Speaker 1: fallen into this coma. Now they looked up at Dr.
15:08
Speaker 1: Brennan expectantly. And Dr. Brennan, he took a deep breath
15:12
Speaker 1: and he said he had some bad news. New test
15:15
Speaker 1: results had come back. And now based on those results,
15:19
Speaker 1: they knew what was wrong with Bobby. Dr. Brennan told
15:21
Speaker 1: the family that what Bobby was suffering from was something
15:25
Speaker 1: called thallium toxicity. And when he said this, Dr. Brennan
15:29
Speaker 1: watched the family for some kind of a reaction, but
15:32
Speaker 1: the family just stared blankly at him like they had
15:34
Speaker 1: no idea what that meant. So Dr. Brennan went on
15:38
Speaker 1: and explained that thallium is an extremely toxic chemical. In fact,
15:43
Speaker 1: it can kill anyone who touches it, ingests it, or
15:46
Speaker 1: even just inhales its fumes. And he told them that,
15:49
Speaker 1: you know, this is really unusual because thallium is highly
15:53
Speaker 1: controlled in the United States. It's actually banned in household products.
15:58
Speaker 1: So this is not a chemical that, you know, Bobby
16:00
Speaker 1: just could have accidentally stumbled upon. This is pretty rare.
16:03
Speaker 1: And so at this point, Dr. Brennan just paused and
16:06
Speaker 1: let the family sit with this new information. And the family,
16:09
Speaker 1: I mean, they looked at each other like, wow, this
16:11
Speaker 1: is awful, but nobody knew how to react. They just
16:14
Speaker 1: kind of looked back at the doctor waiting for him
16:16
Speaker 1: to explain more. But when the doctor didn't say anything,
16:20
Speaker 1: Bobby's sister, Susan, just asked in a quavering voice, you know,
16:24
Speaker 1: what can we do? At that point, Dr. Brennan just
16:27
Speaker 1: shook his head and said, unfortunately, there's no cure for
16:31
Speaker 1: thallium poisoning. Two days later, on September 27th, Joanne stood
16:36
Speaker 1: next to her unconscious husband in the hospital, and she
16:39
Speaker 1: nodded at the medical staff that was gathered all around him.
16:42
Speaker 1: It was ultimately Joanne's decision whether or not to keep
16:45
Speaker 1: Bobby on life support. But with no hope of a cure,
16:49
Speaker 1: Joanne had ultimately decided that the best thing to do
16:52
Speaker 1: was to take him off life support. And so after
16:55
Speaker 1: giving the signal to medical staff, Joanne, her daughter, and
16:59
Speaker 1: the rest of Bobby's family, they kind of stepped back
17:01
Speaker 1: from the bed, and they watched as the staff walked
17:04
Speaker 1: over and removed Bobby's ventilator. And then Joanne had to
17:08
Speaker 1: watch as her husband took his final breath. On the
17:16
Speaker 1: evening of October 21st, 1991, so about a month after
17:21
Speaker 1: Bobby died from thallium poisoning, A police detective named Harold
17:25
Speaker 1: Cawley sat at a big table with seven other men
17:28
Speaker 1: inside of a steakhouse in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The other men
17:31
Speaker 1: were a mixture of coroners and investigators from all across Pennsylvania.
17:36
Speaker 1: Some were from the Hershey area, where Bobby had died.
17:39
Speaker 1: The rest, like Cawley, worked for the police in Wilkes-Barre,
17:42
Speaker 1: where Bobby had lived. The men were there discussing the
17:45
Speaker 1: investigation into Bobby's death, and they had been doing this
17:48
Speaker 1: for the past three hours already because there really was
17:51
Speaker 1: so much to talk about. They had already covered Bobby's
17:54
Speaker 1: initial autopsy results, which showed that he had a staggering
17:58
Speaker 1: 900 times the lethal limit of thallium in his system
18:03
Speaker 1: when he died. And so they were working under the
18:05
Speaker 1: assumption that Bobby must have been poisoned by a single
18:10
Speaker 1: massive dose of thallium, whether accidentally or on purpose, they
18:13
Speaker 1: didn't know. And so they discussed theories for how this
18:16
Speaker 1: could have even happened to him. Because remember, thallium is
18:19
Speaker 1: not just a a chemical you can get from the store.
18:22
Speaker 1: I mean, this is something that is highly regulated. So
18:25
Speaker 1: how did he come in contact with it? Their first
18:28
Speaker 1: thought had been basically what everybody else suspected, which was,
18:31
Speaker 1: you know, Bobby must have been accidentally poisoned at the
18:34
Speaker 1: Wilkes University chemistry lab where he'd been working for so
18:37
Speaker 1: many months. And they actually had a bunch of records
18:40
Speaker 1: from a preliminary examination of the lab. And according to
18:44
Speaker 1: these records, one of the first things investigators had found
18:47
Speaker 1: inside of that lab was was five vials of thallium
18:51
Speaker 1: in one of the storerooms. They'd also found a rag
18:54
Speaker 1: that was laying out on a countertop that presumably was
18:57
Speaker 1: there when Bobby first arrived and he and his crew
19:00
Speaker 1: began cleaning everything up. And next to this rag was
19:04
Speaker 1: a handwritten note that had a warning on it that
19:06
Speaker 1: literally said, thallium wiping rag, touch me and die. The
19:12
Speaker 1: rag had actually caused a huge amount of panic amongst
19:14
Speaker 1: the investigators and when they had gone in to begin
19:17
Speaker 1: sweeping the lab for signs of thallium because people were
19:20
Speaker 1: fearful that maybe they'd brushed up against it and touched
19:23
Speaker 1: this rag and were they going to get thallium poisoning? However,
19:27
Speaker 1: they actually tested the rag and it came back negative
19:29
Speaker 1: for thallium, as did all the surfaces in the lab
19:33
Speaker 1: and also the air in the lab. And so the
19:35
Speaker 1: investigators had finally decided that that note must have been
19:39
Speaker 1: a joke or something. Also, the university insisted that all
19:42
Speaker 1: of its thallium was accounted for. Meaning none of it
19:45
Speaker 1: could have been you know, stolen or misused in some
19:48
Speaker 1: way to poison Bobby because they would know about it.
19:51
Speaker 1: And so at this point, the university had actually been
19:54
Speaker 1: sort of ruled out as where Bobby got poisoned, which
19:58
Speaker 1: really didn't make sense to Detective Cauley or the other
20:01
Speaker 1: investigators at this dinner. Because again, thallium is hard to
20:06
Speaker 1: come by. The idea that Bobby was working in a
20:09
Speaker 1: lab that contained thallium, but that wasn't where he was
20:14
Speaker 1: poisoned by thallium, seemed almost impossible. It had to have
20:18
Speaker 1: happened there. But they had gone out and tested all
20:22
Speaker 1: of Bobby's co-workers, who had also worked in that lab
20:24
Speaker 1: with Bobby for so many days and so many hours,
20:27
Speaker 1: and they all came back negative for thallium exposure. However,
20:32
Speaker 1: Bobby's own family, his wife Joanne and her four-year-old daughter Angela,
20:36
Speaker 1: they had tested positive for thallium exposure. Granted, it was
20:40
Speaker 1: on a near microscopic level because any amount of exposure
20:44
Speaker 1: could actually be lethal, and those two were okay, so
20:47
Speaker 1: obviously they had not received a lethal dose, but there
20:50
Speaker 1: were very small traces of thallium in both of them,
20:53
Speaker 1: which was odd. And so everybody at the table agreed
20:56
Speaker 1: that the right thing to do here was to speak
20:58
Speaker 1: to Joanne and see if maybe she had some ideas
21:00
Speaker 1: of how she and her daughter and obviously Bobby could
21:03
Speaker 1: have maybe come in contact with this very rare and
21:06
Speaker 1: lethal chemical. And then also, they need to get inside
21:10
Speaker 1: of the family's duplex to search it, literally, for thallium.
21:13
Speaker 1: But first, there was the problem of jurisdiction. Bobby had
21:16
Speaker 1: died in Hershey, but he'd gotten sick in Wilkes-Barre. So,
21:20
Speaker 1: after some discussion, the men decided that the Wilkes-Barre police
21:24
Speaker 1: should be the ones to head up the case because
21:26
Speaker 1: that is where Bobby actually got poisoned. The next day,
21:30
Speaker 1: Detective Cauley invited Bobby's siblings, David and Suzanne, to the
21:34
Speaker 1: Wilkes-Barre police station. And right away, it was quite clear
21:38
Speaker 1: that both of them were very suspicious of Bobby's wife, Joanne.
21:43
Speaker 1: They told Cauley that Joanne had been acting really strange
21:46
Speaker 1: for months, both before and also after Bobby's death. David
21:50
Speaker 1: said when his brother had first gotten sick, Joanne had
21:54
Speaker 1: barely lifted a finger to help him. She'd called David
21:56
Speaker 1: to come over and look after Bobby, acting like she
21:59
Speaker 1: needed somebody strong enough to move Bobby around, which was true.
22:03
Speaker 1: But while David was upstairs literally carrying Bobby to and
22:07
Speaker 1: from the bathroom, Joanne stayed downstairs with her daughter and
22:10
Speaker 1: totally ignored them. She didn't even pretend to want to help.
22:14
Speaker 1: She basically let David do all of it. And Susan said,
22:17
Speaker 1: even though she didn't know for sure, her impression of
22:20
Speaker 1: Joanne right after she had taken Bobby off life support
22:24
Speaker 1: and he's died... Her impression of Joanne was she was
22:27
Speaker 1: hugely relieved. Collie listened and nodded and sort of gave
22:31
Speaker 1: the impression that he was following along and basically believed them.
22:34
Speaker 1: But inside, he wasn't really convinced that what they were
22:37
Speaker 1: describing was highly suspicious behavior. When David came over to
22:42
Speaker 1: help Bobby, I mean, that was because she had asked
22:44
Speaker 1: him to do that after trying at first unsuccessfully to
22:48
Speaker 1: move her husband around. And then when David was there,
22:51
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, she does have a four-year-old daughter.
22:54
Speaker 1: She can't just leave her unsupervised. Or maybe she doesn't
22:57
Speaker 1: want her daughter to see Bobby, and so she has
22:59
Speaker 1: to keep her downstairs. So there's like an explanation for that.
23:02
Speaker 1: And as for Joanne being relieved after her husband's death,
23:06
Speaker 1: you know, everybody dealt with grief differently. And Bobby's death
23:09
Speaker 1: had been a really traumatic, drawn-out process for everybody involved.
23:13
Speaker 1: So maybe she was relieved, but not because she was
23:16
Speaker 1: happy about it. It could have just been the end
23:19
Speaker 1: of a nightmare chapter in all of their lives. And
23:21
Speaker 1: so after he had listened to their concerns, Kali began
23:24
Speaker 1: to redirect the conversation. And he began asking David and
23:28
Speaker 1: Susan about their relationship with Bobby. They both said they
23:32
Speaker 1: were very close with their brother, even as adults. They
23:34
Speaker 1: said they lived nearby and they saw each other quite
23:37
Speaker 1: a bit. David in particular said he spent a lot
23:39
Speaker 1: of time with Bobby. He said they often went fishing
23:42
Speaker 1: and recently together they had renovated Bobby's kitchen. And this
23:47
Speaker 1: caught Kali's attention. because it sounded like David and Bobby
23:51
Speaker 1: had finished this renovation project around the same time that
23:54
Speaker 1: Bobby first got sick. Collie didn't know if this was
23:57
Speaker 1: relevant or not, but it was interesting. So at the
24:00
Speaker 1: end of their discussion, he just thanked David and Susan
24:03
Speaker 1: for all the information and told them they were free
24:05
Speaker 1: to go. A few days later, on the morning of
24:18
Speaker 1: October 25th, 1991, Detective Cawley and three other investigators sat
24:23
Speaker 1: at an interrogation table in the Wilkes-Barre police station, right
24:27
Speaker 1: across from Joanne Curley and the lawyer that she had
24:30
Speaker 1: brought along with her. Cawley didn't know what to make
24:32
Speaker 1: of Joanne yet. Obviously, she and her daughter had also
24:35
Speaker 1: been exposed to thallium. So that could mean that they, too,
24:39
Speaker 1: accidentally were exposed to this chemical, same as Bobby, but
24:43
Speaker 1: obviously on a much smaller scale because they lived. Or
24:47
Speaker 1: they could have also been the target of somebody trying
24:50
Speaker 1: to poison this family, and ultimately just Bobby was killed
24:53
Speaker 1: from this poisoning. Or Joanne could be the poisoner. She
24:57
Speaker 1: could have poisoned her own husband. I mean, you know,
25:00
Speaker 1: Bobby's siblings are talking about how awful Joanne was acting
25:03
Speaker 1: towards her husband in the wake of his illness. You know,
25:06
Speaker 1: maybe she poisoned him. And in doing so, she accidentally
25:10
Speaker 1: exposed herself and her daughter. Basically, Collie couldn't tell yet
25:13
Speaker 1: if Joanne was a victim or a perpetrator. So he
25:17
Speaker 1: made sure to watch her very carefully while another investigator
25:21
Speaker 1: began asking her to explain how and when her husband
25:25
Speaker 1: first got sick. Joanne said that Bobby had been complaining
25:28
Speaker 1: about feeling pretty run down for what felt like weeks
25:31
Speaker 1: or maybe even months, but he hadn't had any major
25:34
Speaker 1: symptoms until a week before his hospitalization in August. And
25:38
Speaker 1: she said that much like Bobby, she had just kind
25:41
Speaker 1: of chalked it up to He had been overworking, or
25:44
Speaker 1: maybe he had some standard illness that would just go
25:46
Speaker 1: away with rest, like that first doctor had said. She
25:49
Speaker 1: said that she had never even heard of thallium, and
25:51
Speaker 1: really at no point had it ever crossed her mind
25:54
Speaker 1: that maybe Bobby had been poisoned by thallium. As Collie
25:58
Speaker 1: listened to Joanne tell this story, he was struck by
26:01
Speaker 1: a couple of things. First of all, Joanne said Bobby
26:05
Speaker 1: had been feeling pretty run down for a while before
26:07
Speaker 1: his death. This seemed to conflict with investigators' assumption that
26:11
Speaker 1: a single massive dose of thallium had sent Bobby to
26:14
Speaker 1: the hospital and ultimately killed him. It seemed more likely,
26:17
Speaker 1: based on what Joanne said, that this poisoning happened over
26:20
Speaker 1: a period of time. And the second thing Collie was
26:22
Speaker 1: struck by was actually just Joanne's general demeanor. She had
26:27
Speaker 1: just recounted in detail, you know, the story of her
26:30
Speaker 1: husband dying this awful, awful death. Thallium poisoning is a
26:34
Speaker 1: horrible way to die. And as she's describing it, she's
26:37
Speaker 1: not shedding a single tear or really acting at all
26:41
Speaker 1: like she's even upset about it. And so at this point,
26:44
Speaker 1: Kali was beginning to wonder if maybe Susan and David
26:47
Speaker 1: had been right about Joanne. She really did not seem
26:50
Speaker 1: to care much about her husband's death. And so what
26:53
Speaker 1: Kali did is he stopped the other investigator and he
26:56
Speaker 1: leaned forward and he just asked Joanne point blank, how
27:00
Speaker 1: do you explain how you and your daughter were exposed
27:03
Speaker 1: to thallium? And immediately, Joanne had a story, a bizarre one.
27:08
Speaker 1: She said Bobby really liked to drink iced tea when
27:11
Speaker 1: he was at work. So every morning she would fill
27:13
Speaker 1: his thermos up from this big pitcher of pre-made iced
27:16
Speaker 1: tea that she kept in their fridge. And so Bobby
27:19
Speaker 1: would take that thermos with him to work and he
27:21
Speaker 1: would drink the tea all day and then come home
27:23
Speaker 1: with the thermos. And some days when he would come back,
27:27
Speaker 1: Bobby had not drank all the iced tea. There'd be
27:29
Speaker 1: some left inside the thermos. And so Joanne said what
27:33
Speaker 1: she would do in that case was she would take
27:35
Speaker 1: the remaining iced tea still in the thermos and she
27:38
Speaker 1: would pour it back into the pitcher in the fridge,
27:42
Speaker 1: basically to salvage what was left of the tea. And
27:44
Speaker 1: she said she and her daughter also drank from that pitcher.
27:49
Speaker 1: So in essence, she sometimes was drinking from the same
27:53
Speaker 1: tea that that Bobby was drinking from directly. And so
27:56
Speaker 1: perhaps in that way, if he was being exposed to thallium,
28:00
Speaker 1: maybe it was getting into that tea that he was
28:02
Speaker 1: bringing home. And, you know, she believed that maybe that
28:05
Speaker 1: was how she was being exposed by drinking the leftover
28:07
Speaker 1: iced tea. Collie glanced over at the other investigators in
28:11
Speaker 1: the room and they all looked as baffled as he was.
28:14
Speaker 1: This iced tea explanation was pretty out there, but it
28:17
Speaker 1: was so weirdly specific that they really couldn't write it off.
28:21
Speaker 1: And Kali knew that, you know, if the iced tea
28:24
Speaker 1: theory was legitimate, it might be able to explain why
28:27
Speaker 1: all three people in this family, all living in the
28:30
Speaker 1: same place, had such drastically different levels of exposure. Basically,
28:35
Speaker 1: Bobby could be having this huge exposure to thallium outside
28:38
Speaker 1: the house. And then basically remnants of the thallium exposure
28:42
Speaker 1: are finding their way back into that leftover tea. So
28:45
Speaker 1: it's a really small amount of thallium. That's coming back home.
28:49
Speaker 1: It's being mixed in inside that pitcher. And so when
28:52
Speaker 1: Joanne and her daughter are drinking from that pitcher, you know,
28:55
Speaker 1: they're only getting a very small amount of thallium. And so, again,
28:58
Speaker 1: it's out there, but it would explain it. So Kali
29:02
Speaker 1: asked Joanne if he had her permission to not just
29:05
Speaker 1: search her whole duplex to check for thallium, but specifically
29:09
Speaker 1: check her fridge, check her pitcher, her iced tea pitcher,
29:12
Speaker 1: and all the thermoses that Bobby brought to work to
29:14
Speaker 1: see if there was still trace levels there. of thallium
29:17
Speaker 1: inside of them, and he was worried when he asked
29:20
Speaker 1: her this question that she might refuse or give some
29:22
Speaker 1: reason that she couldn't, but Joanne immediately agreed without any hesitation.
29:28
Speaker 1: That same afternoon, Colley, his investigators, and a crime scene
29:31
Speaker 1: unit arrived at the Curley's duplex to begin their search.
29:35
Speaker 1: Colley looked on as the crime scene unit entered the
29:37
Speaker 1: duplex and immediately began scouring every surface, and they found
29:42
Speaker 1: absolutely no trace of thallium anywhere in the house except
29:47
Speaker 1: for in one very specific location, the thermos Joanne had
29:51
Speaker 1: already told them about, the one that Bobby would bring
29:53
Speaker 1: with the iced tea in it to work and then
29:55
Speaker 1: back again. Traces of thallium were found on the little
29:58
Speaker 1: ridges at the top of the thermos where the lid
30:00
Speaker 1: screwed back on. And this was huge not only because
30:04
Speaker 1: now they had the first clear sign of exactly where
30:07
Speaker 1: this thallium was coming in and out of Bobby's life,
30:10
Speaker 1: but more specifically because it was at the top of
30:14
Speaker 1: this cup that obviously Bobby is drinking from. This showed
30:18
Speaker 1: that the way the thallium wound up in Bobby's system
30:21
Speaker 1: was because he ingested it. That was something they didn't
30:24
Speaker 1: know at this point. Now it seems very clear that's
30:27
Speaker 1: how it happened. But despite this revelation, it didn't explain
30:32
Speaker 1: how Joanne and Angela were also exposed. Because when they
30:35
Speaker 1: tested the big pitcher of iced tea in the fridge,
30:37
Speaker 1: it didn't contain any thallium. And also, just finding the
30:41
Speaker 1: thallium at the top of the thermos didn't explain how
30:44
Speaker 1: it actually got there. But for Kali, what really stood
30:47
Speaker 1: out about finding thallium on this thermos was that this item,
30:51
Speaker 1: this thermos, is something Bobby took to work and home
30:55
Speaker 1: every single day. So it seemed like maybe, you know,
30:59
Speaker 1: Colley and his staff had been too quick to rule
31:02
Speaker 1: out where Bobby was working. I mean, he was working
31:05
Speaker 1: in a chemical lab that contained thallium, and they had
31:09
Speaker 1: ruled that out as the place where he could have
31:11
Speaker 1: been poisoned. Now, it seemed like they needed to take
31:14
Speaker 1: another look. Seven months later, in late May of 1992,
31:26
Speaker 1: Detective Cauley sat at his desk, thumbing through the notes
31:29
Speaker 1: from all the interviews and polygraph tests that he and
31:31
Speaker 1: his team had carried out since the previous October. One
31:35
Speaker 1: by one, they had brought in all of Bobby's co-workers
31:38
Speaker 1: and grilled them about Bobby's death. And all of the
31:41
Speaker 1: co-workers had more or less said the same thing. Bobby
31:44
Speaker 1: was well-liked and nobody they knew would want to harm him.
31:48
Speaker 1: Some of the co-workers did admit that they did like
31:50
Speaker 1: to prank each other a lot. But they said the
31:53
Speaker 1: pranks had always been, you know, pretty harmless, and spiking
31:56
Speaker 1: somebody's drinks with chemicals was way, way beyond anything they
32:00
Speaker 1: ever did. At least, that's what all of them said.
32:03
Speaker 1: But two of Bobby's co-workers, Sammy DePasquale and Robert Marconi,
32:08
Speaker 1: had failed their polygraph exams. In fact, the polygraph examiner
32:13
Speaker 1: said those two had literally gotten the worst scores he
32:16
Speaker 1: had ever seen. So very quickly, those two shot to
32:20
Speaker 1: the top of Kali's suspect list. And so Kali had
32:22
Speaker 1: pressed both of them about whether or not they had
32:25
Speaker 1: pranked Bobby by putting thallium into his thermos. Maybe they
32:29
Speaker 1: didn't know how dangerous thallium was, but did they put
32:31
Speaker 1: something in his thermos? And they said, absolutely not. They
32:35
Speaker 1: didn't do that. But Kali didn't believe them because he'd
32:38
Speaker 1: already heard about previous pranks that involved swapping out co-workers'
32:43
Speaker 1: drinks for things like tobacco spit. So what's to say
32:46
Speaker 1: they didn't put thallium in Bobby's thermos? It just sort
32:49
Speaker 1: of tracked. The problem was, Kali didn't have any actual
32:53
Speaker 1: evidence that he could use to arrest either of them,
32:56
Speaker 1: especially since the university continued to insist that none of
32:59
Speaker 1: their thallium was missing from the lab. Now, Kali knew
33:03
Speaker 1: it was possible the university was wrong, that maybe there
33:05
Speaker 1: was unaccounted for thallium, but he had no way to
33:09
Speaker 1: prove that. Kali also felt pretty suspicious of Joanne and
33:13
Speaker 1: also Bobby's own brother, David. You know, Joanne, for obvious reasons,
33:17
Speaker 1: was still suspicious. She had thallium in her system. She
33:20
Speaker 1: seemed oddly detached from Bobby when he was dying, you know,
33:24
Speaker 1: kind of letting other people take care of him and
33:26
Speaker 1: apparently was relieved when he was taken off life support.
33:30
Speaker 1: But even if Joanne had wanted to poison Bobby, it
33:33
Speaker 1: was really unclear how she would have gotten her hands
33:36
Speaker 1: on thallium. And then as for David, the reason he
33:39
Speaker 1: was sort of suspicious to Kali is because he spent
33:42
Speaker 1: a lot of time with Bobby. And he also did
33:45
Speaker 1: that kitchen renovation with him. And so there's all these
33:47
Speaker 1: moments where he's alone, potentially handling chemicals with Bobby before
33:52
Speaker 1: he got sick. So basically David had the opportunity to
33:55
Speaker 1: poison Bobby, but there really was no motive. And just
33:59
Speaker 1: like with Joanne, Collie felt like, you know, where would
34:02
Speaker 1: David get the thallium? That was the big question. Where
34:04
Speaker 1: is the thallium coming from? And so at this point,
34:07
Speaker 1: Detective Collie was basically at a dead end and just
34:10
Speaker 1: did not know how to take this case. which was
34:13
Speaker 1: heartbreaking because earlier that day, he'd been informed that the
34:17
Speaker 1: district attorney had decided to actually shut down the investigation
34:21
Speaker 1: into Bobby's death. The case was officially cold. And so
34:25
Speaker 1: since Colley could not revive it, all he could do
34:27
Speaker 1: was close the case file and stick it in a drawer.
34:34
Speaker 1: One morning in August of 1994, so more than two
34:37
Speaker 1: years after the investigation into Bobby's death was shut down,
34:41
Speaker 1: Detective Cauley walked up the porch steps of the duplex
34:44
Speaker 1: where Bobby had lived, and he knocked on the door.
34:46
Speaker 1: Cauley had been thinking a lot about this case recently,
34:50
Speaker 1: and today he was hoping that Bobby's widow, Joanne, would
34:53
Speaker 1: help him take one last shot at cracking it. A
34:56
Speaker 1: moment later, Joanne answered the door, and once the look
34:59
Speaker 1: of surprise left her face, she invited the detective inside.
35:02
Speaker 1: Cauley quickly explained to her that the reason he was
35:04
Speaker 1: here is because there had been this technological breakthrough in
35:08
Speaker 1: toxicology testing. the Wilkes-Barre police were now able to perform
35:12
Speaker 1: a new type of test that had not been available
35:15
Speaker 1: to them three years ago when her husband had died.
35:18
Speaker 1: And Colley believed that, you know, this information they could
35:21
Speaker 1: get would help them figure out what actually happened to
35:24
Speaker 1: Bobby once and for all. Joanne's eyes lit up at
35:27
Speaker 1: this news, and she was about to open her mouth
35:29
Speaker 1: to reply, but Colley quickly added there was actually a catch.
35:34
Speaker 1: He said in order to do these tests, they would
35:36
Speaker 1: have to exhume Bobby's body. and the only person who
35:39
Speaker 1: could give investigators permission to do that was Joanne. Colley
35:44
Speaker 1: waited while Joanne processed everything she'd just been told. He
35:47
Speaker 1: tried not to let it show on his face, but
35:49
Speaker 1: Joanne's response to this would basically decide the entire fate
35:53
Speaker 1: of this case. If she said no, there really was
35:56
Speaker 1: nothing they could do. The evidence contained inside of Bobby's
35:59
Speaker 1: casket would be lost to them forever, which meant if
36:02
Speaker 1: somebody had intentionally poisoned Bobby... They would never figure out
36:06
Speaker 1: who it was, and so the killer would never be
36:08
Speaker 1: brought to justice. But unsurprisingly, Joanne said, yes, of course.
36:13
Speaker 1: Later that month, on August 23rd, Colley went to the
36:16
Speaker 1: cemetery where Bobby was buried, and he watched as a
36:19
Speaker 1: backhoe dug up his grave and pulled his casket out
36:22
Speaker 1: of the ground. The police and coroner then took custody
36:25
Speaker 1: of Bobby's body, and they would go on to perform
36:27
Speaker 1: these new toxicology tests. And when the results came in,
36:31
Speaker 1: they gave Colley the exact information he had hoped for.
36:41
Speaker 1: Based on the police investigation and, critically, those new toxicology tests,
36:46
Speaker 1: here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to
36:49
Speaker 1: Bobby Curley. The first time the killer slipped thallium into
36:58
Speaker 1: Bobby's thermos, Bobby was busy working in another room and
37:02
Speaker 1: didn't notice, which was exactly what the killer wanted. The
37:06
Speaker 1: killer did not hate Bobby. In fact, they really hadn't
37:09
Speaker 1: wanted to kill him. till he had started talking about
37:12
Speaker 1: opening up his own business with that settlement money his
37:15
Speaker 1: family was going to get. And the killer just could
37:18
Speaker 1: not let that happen. Because if Bobby went into business
37:21
Speaker 1: for himself, he would ruin everything. The killer believed that
37:25
Speaker 1: by poisoning Bobby one time, that that would kill him,
37:29
Speaker 1: and then all their problems would be solved. But the
37:32
Speaker 1: next day, Bobby actually seemed fine, sort of unfazed by
37:35
Speaker 1: the poison. So the next time the killer got the chance,
37:39
Speaker 1: they added a little more poison to Bobby's thermos. And
37:42
Speaker 1: when Bobby again stayed healthy the next day, well, the
37:45
Speaker 1: killer just added a little bit more the next time,
37:48
Speaker 1: and they just kept on doing that. They were afraid
37:50
Speaker 1: that if they added too much at once, Bobby might notice,
37:53
Speaker 1: and then they would get caught. So for months, Bobby
37:57
Speaker 1: was being poisoned, but didn't really show any significant symptoms.
38:01
Speaker 1: But finally, in August of 1991... Bobby started showing really
38:06
Speaker 1: severe symptoms. Remember, his legs were in extreme pain, his
38:09
Speaker 1: hands were going numb. And when he called in sick
38:12
Speaker 1: to work on that Monday, that was when the killer knew.
38:15
Speaker 1: They were certain they had finished him off. Except they
38:18
Speaker 1: hadn't finished him off. Because when he went to the hospital,
38:22
Speaker 1: Bobby just continued to cling to life. So the killer
38:25
Speaker 1: actually went to visit Bobby in the hospital. And while
38:29
Speaker 1: Bobby was sleeping, the killer slipped a final, massive amount
38:33
Speaker 1: of the poison into into a soda cup that Bobby
38:36
Speaker 1: kept by his bedside. And when Bobby woke up, the
38:39
Speaker 1: killer kind of casually encouraged him to drink the soda.
38:42
Speaker 1: And Bobby did so without any hesitation, because Bobby had
38:45
Speaker 1: no reason not to trust the killer. Because the killer
38:50
Speaker 1: was his own wife, Joanne Curley. She had actually started
38:57
Speaker 1: poisoning him almost a year before she actually murdered him,
39:01
Speaker 1: But investigators didn't realize this until a new type of
39:04
Speaker 1: toxicology test allowed them to figure out exactly when Bobby
39:08
Speaker 1: was being poisoned. This test worked by analyzing some of
39:12
Speaker 1: the hairs that Bobby still had left on his body. Basically,
39:15
Speaker 1: every time Bobby was poisoned, a chemical marker was left
39:18
Speaker 1: behind in his hair. So as his hair grew out,
39:22
Speaker 1: the strands sort of became timelines that showed exactly when
39:26
Speaker 1: he had been poisoned. And when Colley, through these tests,
39:30
Speaker 1: discovered that Bobby had been poisoned multiple times between October
39:34
Speaker 1: 1990 and September of 1991, these dates ruled out Bobby's
39:39
Speaker 1: co-workers and his brother David. The poisoning had simply started
39:43
Speaker 1: too early for David to be responsible and went on
39:47
Speaker 1: far too long for his co-workers to be guilty. But
39:50
Speaker 1: the timeline clearly ruled in Joanne. And when police began
39:54
Speaker 1: digging into why Joanne might have wanted to kill her husband,
39:58
Speaker 1: they realized she'd convinced Bobby to make her the beneficiary
40:01
Speaker 1: of his life insurance policy just days before poisoning him
40:05
Speaker 1: for the very first time. And so Joanne's motive was money.
40:09
Speaker 1: She did not want Bobby to have any of that
40:12
Speaker 1: financial windfall she was going to get from the death
40:15
Speaker 1: of her earlier husband, the wrongful death lawsuit where she
40:18
Speaker 1: was going to get a million dollars, even though she
40:20
Speaker 1: kind of acted like, you know, oh yeah, Bobby's going
40:22
Speaker 1: to use some of that to start his business. She
40:24
Speaker 1: didn't want that. She did not want him to have
40:26
Speaker 1: any of it. That was her money. So that was
40:28
Speaker 1: one motivation financially. And the other financial motivation was by
40:33
Speaker 1: killing Bobby, she would also receive the life insurance payout.
40:37
Speaker 1: As for where Joanne actually got the thallium, she would
40:40
Speaker 1: admit that she had used an old container of rat
40:43
Speaker 1: poison that did contain thallium and that was manufactured in
40:46
Speaker 1: the U.S. before thallium was banned in household products. On
40:51
Speaker 1: December 12, 1996, five years after Bobby's death, Joanne was
40:56
Speaker 1: finally arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Joanne ultimately pled
41:01
Speaker 1: guilty and so was sentenced to 10 to 20 years
41:04
Speaker 1: in prison. She would wind up serving all 20 years
41:07
Speaker 1: and was released from prison in 2016. Thank you so
41:19
Speaker 1: much for watching. Let me know what you thought of
41:21
Speaker 1: today's episode in the comments. And remember, we have a
41:24
Speaker 1: whole playlist of true crime episodes ready for you to
41:27
Speaker 1: binge right now. So click here and give them a watch.
41:31
Speaker 1: All right, until next time, see ya.