Latest / Crime and Horror / SECRET-group-of-geniuses-KILL-for-fun

Transcript

SECRET-group-of-geniuses-KILL-for-fun · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, a waitress who was living in
0:02
Speaker 1: central Florida had just begun her shift at a local
0:05
Speaker 1: diner when she's standing in the middle of the restaurant
0:08
Speaker 1: and her heart just starts racing like mad. Now, she
0:10
Speaker 1: had not been running around or doing any heavy lifting,
0:13
Speaker 1: so it didn't make any sense, and so kind of
0:15
Speaker 1: startled by what was happening, she just turned around and
0:17
Speaker 1: went straight into the bathroom and sat down in a stall,
0:21
Speaker 1: waiting for this sensation to pass. But as she sat there,
0:24
Speaker 1: her heart just continued to beat like mad, and then
0:27
Speaker 1: she began to feel tingling in her feet and in
0:29
Speaker 1: her arms, and it was at that moment that she
0:31
Speaker 1: realized she was having a heart.
0:33
Speaker 2: Attack, except she wasn't. Something much much worse was happening
0:37
Speaker 2: to her. But before we get into today's story.
0:40
Speaker 1: If you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious
0:42
Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place,
0:45
Speaker 1: because that's all we.
0:46
Speaker 2: Do, and we upload once a week.
0:48
Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you, please invite the
0:50
Speaker 1: light Button to come ballroom dancing with you. But when
0:53
Speaker 1: you get out on the dance floor just starts stomping
0:55
Speaker 1: all over their feet, but don't acknowledge it. Also, please
0:57
Speaker 1: subscribe to our channel and turn on all note of locations.
1:00
Speaker 2: So you don't miss any of our weekly uploads.
1:03
Speaker 3: Okay, let's get into today's story.
1:18
Speaker 1: Peggy Carr's life had never been very easy. She was
1:22
Speaker 1: born in nineteen forty seven in a very small rural
1:25
Speaker 1: town in central Florida to parents who were deaf and
1:28
Speaker 1: who had almost no money, so from a young age,
1:32
Speaker 1: Peggy had to go to work, except the only jobs
1:35
Speaker 1: she could land were either extremely low paying or they
1:38
Speaker 1: were just outright dangerous, like overnight shifts at isolated truck
1:43
Speaker 1: stops on deserted highways, where she would waitress there all
1:46
Speaker 1: by herself. But Peggy never complained about her job prospects. Instead,
1:51
Speaker 1: she just took whatever jobs were available because she knew
1:53
Speaker 1: that she and her family needed the money. And whenever
1:56
Speaker 1: she was working in a dangerous environment, she would intentionally
2:00
Speaker 1: put on this very tough exterior to make sure no
2:03
Speaker 1: one attempted to take advantage of her. And despite her
2:06
Speaker 1: small stature, she quickly developed a reputation amongst her coworkers
2:11
Speaker 1: as somebody you did not want to mess with. Peggy
2:14
Speaker 1: didn't take crap from anybody. But while this kind of
2:17
Speaker 1: prickly outer shell protected her from potential predators, it also
2:22
Speaker 1: warded off potential romantic partners that might have been interested
2:26
Speaker 1: in her but were kind of intimidated when they interacted
2:29
Speaker 1: with her.
2:29
Speaker 2: But eventually one man.
2:31
Speaker 1: Would cut through Peggy's defenses and they would fall in love,
2:34
Speaker 1: and they would get married, and they would have three
2:36
Speaker 1: kids together, and everything was great until it wasn't.
2:40
Speaker 2: The marriage would crash and burn.
2:42
Speaker 1: And so by the mid nineteen eighties, Peggy was a
2:45
Speaker 1: mid thirty somethings, divorced mother of three teenage children who
2:49
Speaker 1: had to work overtime at a local diner just to
2:52
Speaker 1: barely make ends meet. And while she still acted very
2:55
Speaker 1: tough and composed when she was working or when she
2:58
Speaker 1: was out in public, when she was behind closed doors
3:01
Speaker 1: at her home with her kids, they saw the real.
3:04
Speaker 2: Side of Peggy, and that side was just kind of sad.
3:07
Speaker 1: I mean, life had just been kind of hard on her,
3:09
Speaker 1: and she had tried so hard to provide a safe
3:12
Speaker 1: and happy home for her kids, and she felt like
3:15
Speaker 1: she'd kind of let them down. But her kids, on
3:17
Speaker 1: the other hand, were not bitter towards their mother for
3:20
Speaker 1: the divorce. It just pained them to see her so upset,
3:23
Speaker 1: and so her kids really hoped that one day their
3:26
Speaker 1: mom would meet somebody new, she would fall in love
3:29
Speaker 1: all over again, and maybe that would put a smile
3:32
Speaker 1: back on her face.
3:33
Speaker 2: And in late nineteen eighty seven, that is exactly what happened.
3:37
Speaker 1: That year, Peggy met a man named Perry Ellen Carr.
3:40
Speaker 1: Perry Ellen, who just went by his nickname Pi, was
3:44
Speaker 1: a lot like Peggy. He was a recently divorced single
3:47
Speaker 1: father of two teenage children. He didn't take crap from anyone,
3:51
Speaker 1: and like Peggy, he had been kind of forced to
3:54
Speaker 1: start working at a fairly young age. When Peggy met him,
3:57
Speaker 1: he was living with his two kids in another other
4:00
Speaker 1: tiny central Floridian rural town called Alturas, and he was
4:04
Speaker 1: the foreman of a local.
4:06
Speaker 2: Phosphate mining company there.
4:07
Speaker 1: Phosphate is a chemical that has a number of industrial
4:10
Speaker 1: and consumer uses. So Peggy and Pie they start dating,
4:14
Speaker 1: and right away Peggy's kids notice this huge shift in
4:18
Speaker 1: their mother.
4:18
Speaker 2: I mean, now she's all smiles, she's so happy.
4:21
Speaker 1: It seems like Pie is the night in shining armor
4:24
Speaker 1: that's come to save the day. And then just a
4:26
Speaker 1: couple of months later, in April of nineteen eighty eight,
4:29
Speaker 1: Pie and Peggy would get married, much to their children's excitement,
4:32
Speaker 1: and then after the marriage was finalized, Peggy and her
4:36
Speaker 1: three kids moved in with Pie and his two kids
4:39
Speaker 1: in his home in Alturas, Florida. And for a while,
4:42
Speaker 1: this newly blended family worked out perfectly, even though they
4:46
Speaker 1: were living in a fairly small house and so all
4:49
Speaker 1: five of them were kind of all over each other,
4:51
Speaker 1: but they got along great and it was kind of
4:53
Speaker 1: fun to have so many people in this house all
4:55
Speaker 1: the time. It was kind of crazy and hectic, and
4:58
Speaker 1: overall the house just felt like it was with life.
5:01
Speaker 1: But within a few months of Peggy and her kids
5:04
Speaker 1: moving in with Pie and his kids, Peggy and.
5:07
Speaker 2: Pie started to have marital issues.
5:09
Speaker 1: It was like all their early chemistry had just totally
5:12
Speaker 1: vanished and in its place was nothing. They basically completely
5:16
Speaker 1: resented each other and everything they did upset the other person.
5:20
Speaker 2: And then adding fuel to the fire were rumors that began.
5:24
Speaker 1: Spreading around this small town where everybody knows each other
5:27
Speaker 1: that Pie was apparently back together with the next girlfriend,
5:30
Speaker 1: and so he was having an affair, and so Pie
5:33
Speaker 1: he denied these accusations, but Debbie totally believed them, and so.
5:37
Speaker 2: Their fights got worse and worse and worse, and.
5:40
Speaker 1: The more they fought, the more a wedge was kind
5:42
Speaker 1: of driven down the center of this blended family, where
5:46
Speaker 1: Peggy's kids automatically took their mother's side and Pie's kids
5:50
Speaker 1: automatically took their dad's side, and so from the outside
5:53
Speaker 1: looking in, it seemed plainly obvious that Pie and Peggy's.
5:57
Speaker 2: Marriage was not going to last.
5:59
Speaker 1: But before their marriage could fall apart, something totally unexpected
6:04
Speaker 1: happened that would link these two families together forever. In
6:08
Speaker 1: late October of nineteen eighty eight, so seven months into
6:12
Speaker 1: Peggy and Pye's now very rocky marriage, Pie suddenly got
6:16
Speaker 1: up one morning and just told Peggy he was leaving
6:19
Speaker 1: for the whole day to go hunting.
6:20
Speaker 2: This was not a planned trip.
6:22
Speaker 1: He just wanted to get away, and at this point
6:25
Speaker 1: neither of them wanted to spend any time with each other,
6:27
Speaker 1: so Peggy didn't care.
6:28
Speaker 2: She said, go ahead, enjoy your trip. I'll see you later.
6:31
Speaker 1: And so Pye he leaves the house, he gets in
6:33
Speaker 1: his truck, he drives off, and then a little while later,
6:35
Speaker 1: Peggy and her daughter, Sissy. They both get their things
6:39
Speaker 1: together and they head out and they get in Peggy's
6:41
Speaker 1: car and they drive into town.
6:43
Speaker 2: Both Peggy and her daughter worked at.
6:44
Speaker 1: The same diner as waitresses, and they both had a
6:47
Speaker 1: shift that morning, and so they arrive at the diner.
6:50
Speaker 1: They both get out, they go inside, they get their
6:51
Speaker 1: things on, and they begin.
6:53
Speaker 2: Their shift like normal. But not long into the.
6:56
Speaker 1: Shift, Peggy was about to walk up to one of
6:58
Speaker 1: her tables when she knows her heart was racing. And
7:01
Speaker 1: she had not been running around the restaurant. She had
7:04
Speaker 1: not done any heavy lifting. There was no reason for
7:06
Speaker 1: her heart to suddenly be beating at a really fast clip,
7:09
Speaker 1: and so initially Peggy tried to just ignore it, thinking
7:13
Speaker 1: that her heart would slow down and she would go
7:15
Speaker 1: back to normal.
7:16
Speaker 2: But when her racing heart persisted, she walked away.
7:19
Speaker 1: From the table she was waiting on and snuck off
7:22
Speaker 1: into the staff bathroom and she sat.
7:24
Speaker 2: In one of the stalls.
7:25
Speaker 1: She shut the door and she just sat on the toilet,
7:27
Speaker 1: waiting for her heart to stop racing. But as she
7:31
Speaker 1: sat there, not only did her heart only continue to
7:34
Speaker 1: thump like mad, but she started to notice her legs
7:37
Speaker 1: were tingling, and so were her arms.
7:39
Speaker 2: Now, Peggy was a no nonsense person.
7:41
Speaker 1: She was not prone to panicking or overreacting or anything
7:45
Speaker 1: like that. And so as she's sitting there feeling these symptoms,
7:48
Speaker 1: it dawns on her that maybe I'm having a heart attack,
7:51
Speaker 1: and so she decides, Okay, I'm gonna deal with this.
7:54
Speaker 2: She stands up, she opens the stall door, she.
7:56
Speaker 1: Goes to the sink, she washes her hands, she washes
7:58
Speaker 1: her face, She kind of herself down, and then she walks.
8:01
Speaker 2: Out of the bathroom.
8:02
Speaker 1: She goes right into the staff break room and she
8:05
Speaker 1: tells her daughter, I think I'm having a heart attack,
8:08
Speaker 1: but don't worry. I'm just gonna go home. I'm gonna
8:10
Speaker 1: lay down. If this gets worse, I will go to
8:13
Speaker 1: the hospital, but for right now, I don't really know
8:15
Speaker 1: what it is, but I want to take it seriously.
8:17
Speaker 1: So I'm going to leave for the day. And so
8:19
Speaker 1: Sissy is looking at her mom really concerned. But Sissy
8:23
Speaker 1: knows what her mom is like. Her mom is tough
8:26
Speaker 1: as nails. She is the type of person that's gonna
8:28
Speaker 1: sleep off a heart attack, and so she says.
8:31
Speaker 2: To her mom, Okay, you know, go home.
8:32
Speaker 1: I'll be sure to check on you as soon as
8:34
Speaker 1: I get back, and please call me if anything changes.
8:37
Speaker 1: And so Peggy, whose heart was still racing and her
8:39
Speaker 1: arms and her legs were still tingling, she told her daughter,
8:42
Speaker 1: you know, everything's gonna be fine, and then she told
8:44
Speaker 1: her manager that she was leaving, and then Peggy slipped
8:46
Speaker 1: out the back door. She got in her car, and
8:48
Speaker 1: she drove back home. When she got there, the house
8:51
Speaker 1: was empty, so she just went inside. She made her
8:53
Speaker 1: way to her bedroom and she lied down in.
8:55
Speaker 2: Her bed to try to get some rest.
8:57
Speaker 1: That afternoon, Peggy's son, Dwayne, came home from high school,
9:01
Speaker 1: and when he walked inside, he found his mother laying
9:04
Speaker 1: down in her bed.
9:06
Speaker 2: This was very.
9:07
Speaker 1: Unusual for Dwayne, because his mother never took naps. In fact,
9:11
Speaker 1: he could not recall a time ever that he saw
9:13
Speaker 1: his mom napping, even when she was sick. And so concerned,
9:17
Speaker 1: he went into her bedroom and she was facing away
9:19
Speaker 1: from him, and so he kind of jostled her awake,
9:21
Speaker 1: and when his mom rolled over to face him.
9:24
Speaker 2: Her face was pale, she was sweating.
9:26
Speaker 1: She obviously had not been sleeping. She was gritting her
9:29
Speaker 1: teeth and it looked like she was in a lot
9:31
Speaker 1: of pain or some sort of discomfort, and he said, Mom, jeez,
9:34
Speaker 1: are you okay, And she would say that, oh, no,
9:37
Speaker 1: I'm fine. I'm just sleeping something off. I got something
9:40
Speaker 1: going on. I think I have a flu or something.
9:42
Speaker 2: I don't know. I took off from work, so I'm
9:44
Speaker 2: just sleeping it off.
9:45
Speaker 1: And so Dwayne, he knows his mom is tough as
9:47
Speaker 1: nails and if she says she's going to sleep something off,
9:50
Speaker 1: then she'll be just fine. And so Dwayne said, okay, well,
9:52
Speaker 1: you know, let me know if you need anything. And
9:54
Speaker 1: so Dwayne began to walk away, but his mother would
9:57
Speaker 1: actually flag him back and she would level with him.
10:00
Speaker 1: You would tell him that actually, something is wrong here.
10:03
Speaker 1: I feel like someone has poured fire down my veins,
10:07
Speaker 1: in my arms and in my legs, and it is
10:09
Speaker 1: excruciatingly painful. And so Dwayne is hearing his mother say this,
10:13
Speaker 1: and he knows his mother is not the type of
10:15
Speaker 1: person to complain or exaggerate or anything.
10:18
Speaker 2: She is just straight, no nonsense. And so for her to.
10:22
Speaker 1: Say this is the most excruciating pain she's ever been in.
10:25
Speaker 1: And she's laying in bed unable to move. He knew
10:29
Speaker 1: this was really serious, and so Dwayne began telling his
10:32
Speaker 1: mom that.
10:33
Speaker 2: You got to go to the hospital.
10:34
Speaker 1: We need to get Pie here to drive you to
10:36
Speaker 1: the hospital, or we need to call an ambulance. But
10:38
Speaker 1: something needs to be done here. But despite the pain
10:41
Speaker 1: she was in, Peggy was still a little bit reserved
10:43
Speaker 1: about it. She thought maybe she could just sleep it off.
10:46
Speaker 1: But as they're having this kind of back and forth
10:48
Speaker 1: about what to do, Pie would return from his hunting trip.
10:52
Speaker 1: He would come in the house and right away Dwayne
10:54
Speaker 1: would run over to him. He would explain to Pie, hey,
10:57
Speaker 1: this is not normal. My mom never ever acts this way.
11:01
Speaker 1: She never complains this is really serious. You gotta take
11:03
Speaker 1: her to the hospital. But Pie would actually say, nah,
11:06
Speaker 1: she's fine. I'm sure she just has a fever or
11:08
Speaker 1: maybe the fluke. Yeah, she'll sleep it off. But when
11:11
Speaker 1: he walked into the bedroom and he saw his wife
11:13
Speaker 1: looking so horrible and literally squirming in pain, he relented
11:18
Speaker 1: and said, okay, I'll take her to the hospital, and
11:20
Speaker 1: so Pie would have to literally carry Peggy out of
11:24
Speaker 1: the house, put.
11:24
Speaker 2: Her in his truck.
11:25
Speaker 1: He drove her to the hospital and then had to
11:27
Speaker 1: carry her into the hospital, and by the time Peggy
11:30
Speaker 1: was under doctor's care at the hospital, she no longer
11:34
Speaker 1: could talk. She was just moaning in agony from this
11:37
Speaker 1: excruciating pain in her limbs, and her heart was still racing,
11:41
Speaker 1: and she was nauseous and she was vomiting.
11:43
Speaker 2: I mean, she was really spiraling quickly. And so after
11:46
Speaker 2: she's been admitted.
11:47
Speaker 1: The doctors turned to Pie and to Dwayne and to Sissy,
11:50
Speaker 1: into the other family members that had assembled, and they
11:53
Speaker 1: asked them, do you have any idea what could.
11:55
Speaker 2: Have caused this? And they all said no, she just
11:57
Speaker 2: suddenly started feeling this way.
11:59
Speaker 1: And so the doctors who were unable to ask Peggy
12:02
Speaker 1: she was in such blinding pain she couldn't even talk.
12:05
Speaker 1: They just began running her through a wide ranging series
12:08
Speaker 1: of tests.
12:09
Speaker 2: To try to figure out what was going on.
12:11
Speaker 1: But when these results began coming in, either she was
12:14
Speaker 1: negative for the thing they were testing for, or it
12:17
Speaker 1: just came back that everything was normal. And so they're
12:20
Speaker 1: looking at Peggy seeing her completely falling apart. None of
12:23
Speaker 1: their tests have revealed anything is wrong with her, and
12:27
Speaker 1: so they're at a loss.
12:28
Speaker 2: They don't know what's wrong with.
12:29
Speaker 1: Her, and so without a better option, they just put
12:31
Speaker 1: Peggy into a hospital room and began monitoring her, and
12:35
Speaker 1: sure enough, after being in the hospital for three days,
12:38
Speaker 1: Peggy's symptoms would come down. While she wasn't back completely
12:41
Speaker 1: to strength, she was able to speak again, she was
12:44
Speaker 1: able to eat and drink water and move around. She
12:47
Speaker 1: was still very uncomfortable. Her heart would still race periodically,
12:50
Speaker 1: and she would get fits of pain in all of
12:52
Speaker 1: her extremities, but overall she felt like she was really improving,
12:56
Speaker 1: and so after three days she was discharged from the
12:58
Speaker 1: hospital and so Peggy in her family they drive back
13:01
Speaker 1: to their home and initially everything's okay, it seems like
13:04
Speaker 1: she's on the mend. But within twenty four hours, Peggy's
13:08
Speaker 1: heart starts to race again, and before long her arms
13:10
Speaker 1: and legs feel like they are on fire. Now, Peggy
13:14
Speaker 1: and her family they know that the doctors don't know
13:17
Speaker 1: what this condition is, and so their immediate reaction was
13:20
Speaker 1: huge concern that Peggy again was suffering from this horrible thing.
13:25
Speaker 1: But going to the hospital didn't really feel like the
13:27
Speaker 1: obvious first choice. In fact, the obvious first choice, at
13:31
Speaker 1: least for Peggy was just to sit at the house
13:33
Speaker 1: and wait it out. The same way she had waited
13:36
Speaker 1: it out at the hospital, but over the next several days,
13:39
Speaker 1: despite laying in bed and resting as much as she could,
13:42
Speaker 1: her symptoms did.
13:43
Speaker 2: Not get any better.
13:44
Speaker 1: They got worse and worse and worse, to the point
13:47
Speaker 1: where she literally was completely bedridden and all she could
13:50
Speaker 1: do was just shake and periodically scream into her pillow
13:54
Speaker 1: from all the pain she was experiencing in her extremities.
13:58
Speaker 1: And so finally, on October thirty, which was ten days
14:01
Speaker 1: from the first day that Peggy felt these strange symptoms,
14:05
Speaker 1: when she was at the diner, her family decided, you
14:07
Speaker 1: know what, enough is enough. She obviously is not able
14:10
Speaker 1: to just sleep off whatever this is, and so they
14:13
Speaker 1: called an ambulance which rushed her to the hospital, and
14:15
Speaker 1: when she got there, the doctors they remembered her from
14:18
Speaker 1: the week before, so they understood this was a bit
14:20
Speaker 1: of a mystery, but just in case, they ran the
14:23
Speaker 1: exact same battery of tests on her to see it
14:25
Speaker 1: maybe now there was some other indication of what this was.
14:29
Speaker 1: But again, all of the tests came back and they
14:31
Speaker 1: either came back negative or inconclusive, or just showed that,
14:34
Speaker 1: you know, nothing was wrong with her. The doctors even
14:37
Speaker 1: ran her through some tests for poison, thinking, you know,
14:40
Speaker 1: maybe she accidentally ingested something toxic and that's what's causing
14:44
Speaker 1: all of this, But those tests as well came back negative,
14:47
Speaker 1: and so totally stumped, the doctors decided the only thing
14:50
Speaker 1: they could do was once again put her in a
14:53
Speaker 1: hospital room and just monitor her.
14:55
Speaker 2: And so that night Peggy was wheeled into a.
14:57
Speaker 1: Room, and all night, up and down that hospital people
15:00
Speaker 1: listened to the sound of Peggy streaming at the top
15:03
Speaker 1: of her lungs from the pain she was experiencing. And
15:07
Speaker 1: then the next morning, the whole situation got even worse,
15:10
Speaker 1: not only for Peggy, who by now was dipping in
15:12
Speaker 1: and out of consciousness, but also for the rest of
15:15
Speaker 1: her family, because that morning, Peggy's son Dwayne and Peggy's
15:19
Speaker 1: step son so Pie's son, Travis, they were both admitted
15:23
Speaker 1: to the same hospital for exhibiting these same symptoms as Peggy.
15:27
Speaker 1: Their heart was raising, they were nauseous, they were vomiting,
15:29
Speaker 1: and their arms and legs were starting to tingle. And
15:32
Speaker 1: so the doctors, with nothing else to do, just ran
15:35
Speaker 1: Dwayne and Travis through all the same tests they had
15:37
Speaker 1: put Peggy through, and they all came back negative or
15:40
Speaker 1: they came back normal. However, shortly after Dwayne and Travis
15:44
Speaker 1: had been admitted to the hospital, a neurologist who was
15:47
Speaker 1: looking after Peggy he noticed something about her condition, and
15:51
Speaker 1: suddenly it was like his medical training from back in
15:54
Speaker 1: college kicked in and he remembered something very specific that
15:58
Speaker 1: lined up exactly with what he was seeing in Peggy,
16:01
Speaker 1: and he suddenly realized that he knew what was going on,
16:05
Speaker 1: and so he told his colleagues. They ran out and
16:07
Speaker 1: they got this very specialized testing kit that doctors very
16:11
Speaker 1: rarely use.
16:11
Speaker 2: It's only for this one really specific and.
16:14
Speaker 1: Very rare condition, and they tested Dwayne and Travis and Peggy,
16:18
Speaker 1: and sure enough, the next day the results came back
16:21
Speaker 1: and all three tested positive for this condition that the
16:24
Speaker 1: neurologist had guessed.
16:26
Speaker 2: And even though there was a cure for this condition.
16:30
Speaker 1: For Peggy, it was too late. Her body had been
16:33
Speaker 1: so completely ravaged that even if they administered the cure,
16:37
Speaker 1: it would not work fast enough to save her life.
16:40
Speaker 1: And so that day the doctors went to Peggy, who,
16:43
Speaker 1: despite being on all these painkillers, is still squirming and
16:46
Speaker 1: writhing in pain and screaming into her pillow.
16:49
Speaker 2: They would tell her.
16:50
Speaker 1: You're gonna die. The only thing we can do is
16:52
Speaker 1: try to make you as comfortable as possible.
16:55
Speaker 2: And then try to save your boys.
16:57
Speaker 1: Not long after being told this terrible news, Peggy would
17:01
Speaker 1: slip into a coma, and then four months later, on
17:04
Speaker 1: March third, nineteen eighty nine, Peggy's family had to make
17:07
Speaker 1: the heart wrenching decision to pull her off life support,
17:11
Speaker 1: and then at that point she passed away. As for
17:13
Speaker 1: her two boys, Dwayne would remain hospitalized for two months
17:17
Speaker 1: and would make a full recovery. As for Travis, he
17:20
Speaker 1: would remain hospitalized for six months, and while he would recover,
17:24
Speaker 1: he would never walk normally again. Even though the actual
17:28
Speaker 1: medical condition that killed Peggy and nearly killed Dwayne and
17:32
Speaker 1: Travis was completely known, at this point, everybody knew what
17:35
Speaker 1: it was, what nobody could figure out was why this happened.
17:40
Speaker 1: Why in the world did this happen to these people?
17:44
Speaker 1: It made no sense. However, shortly after Peggy's death, that
17:49
Speaker 1: mystery would actually begin to unravel in the most bizarre.
17:53
Speaker 2: And totally roundabout way.
18:01
Speaker 1: We've all been there. You're the host for the big
18:04
Speaker 1: summer barbecue. The guests are on their way, and you
18:06
Speaker 1: realize right at that moment, as you're pulling it out
18:08
Speaker 1: of the oven, that you've overcooked.
18:10
Speaker 2: Your zebra cornea souflet.
18:12
Speaker 1: With only minutes to spare, you leap head first out
18:15
Speaker 1: of your kitchen windows, shattering the glass, cutting your body badly.
18:18
Speaker 1: And then you run into the nearby jungle and you
18:20
Speaker 1: tackle a wallaby and you knock you teeth loose.
18:23
Speaker 2: You grab those teeth, You run back to your house.
18:25
Speaker 2: You die, you die.
18:28
Speaker 1: You dive back into your house head first through a
18:31
Speaker 1: different windows, You cut yourself up badly again. You get
18:34
Speaker 1: inside your kitchen and you whip together a wallaby teeth
18:36
Speaker 1: salad just in time as your guests are coming in
18:39
Speaker 1: the door, and right before.
18:40
Speaker 2: You pass out from blood loss. Chrisis averted right wrong.
18:43
Speaker 1: Zebra cornea soufle and wallaby teeth salad. They're not good,
18:48
Speaker 1: But what is good is Hello Fresh. HelloFresh is a
18:51
Speaker 1: meal service that delivers actually good tasting food right to
18:55
Speaker 1: your doorstep. Between menu items like cheese stuffed burgers and
18:58
Speaker 1: grilled salmon with balsamic tomatoes, you are not only going
19:01
Speaker 1: to wow your barbecue guests, but also you're going to
19:05
Speaker 1: avoid jail time for poaching wallabies and zebras, and you're
19:08
Speaker 1: going to avoid expensive medical and repair.
19:10
Speaker 2: Bills from all the jumping out the windows you were doing.
19:13
Speaker 1: HelloFresh recipes include pre portioned ingredients, which means less prep
19:17
Speaker 1: time and less wasted food.
19:19
Speaker 2: HelloFresh also offers.
19:21
Speaker 1: A line of kid friendly recipes that are perfect for
19:24
Speaker 1: families that are looking to try something new as the
19:26
Speaker 1: summer winds down and we.
19:27
Speaker 2: Get ready for school to start up again.
19:29
Speaker 1: So if you're ready to stop choking down zebra corneas
19:32
Speaker 1: and wallaby teeth, then you need to sign up for
19:34
Speaker 1: HelloFresh today. To do that, go to HelloFresh dot com
19:37
Speaker 1: and use code mister ballin sixteen for sixteen free meals
19:41
Speaker 1: across seven boxes and three free gifts. Again, go to
19:45
Speaker 1: helofresh dot com and use code mister ballin sixteen for
19:49
Speaker 1: sixteen free meals across seven boxes and three free gifts.
19:53
Speaker 2: Okay, back to the story.
20:01
Speaker 1: There is an international organization called MENSA. That's not an acronym,
20:06
Speaker 1: it's a Latin word that roughly translates to table or mind,
20:10
Speaker 1: and this organization is a highly exclusive society for the
20:16
Speaker 1: ultra intelligent. You literally have to prove that your IQ,
20:20
Speaker 1: which is an intelligence test, ranks in the top two
20:24
Speaker 1: percent out of everybody in the entire world, and even
20:27
Speaker 1: then you may not be smart enough to get in.
20:30
Speaker 1: And in the same town that Peggy and Pi had lived,
20:34
Speaker 1: in Alturas, Florida, there was a chapter of MENSA, and
20:38
Speaker 1: the way some of these chapters worked is they would
20:41
Speaker 1: just get together every month and do some sort of
20:43
Speaker 1: intellectually stimulating activity. And in alturis that MENSA chapter. What
20:48
Speaker 1: they would do is they would get together at some
20:50
Speaker 1: private location once a month and they would put on
20:53
Speaker 1: what they called a murder mystery weekend. The members of
20:56
Speaker 1: this chapter would head off to some private location like
20:59
Speaker 1: an in or a hotel or a cabin or something,
21:02
Speaker 1: and they would all role play a murder investigation. So
21:05
Speaker 1: one or two of the MENSA members would come up
21:08
Speaker 1: with a very elaborate murder and subsequent investigation, and they
21:12
Speaker 1: would assign different fake characters to each of the real
21:15
Speaker 1: MENSA members, and so once they got there, they'd all
21:17
Speaker 1: find out what character they were and what they were
21:19
Speaker 1: responsible for. And then once they got into character, which
21:22
Speaker 1: included dressing up in costumes, they would remain in character
21:27
Speaker 1: until the killer was revealed, and so this activity was
21:30
Speaker 1: meant to be extremely intellectually challenging, but also it was
21:33
Speaker 1: extremely fun.
21:34
Speaker 2: The group loved these murder mystery weekends.
21:37
Speaker 1: And so with that in mind, just a couple of
21:40
Speaker 1: weeks after Peggy had passed away, so this is sometime
21:42
Speaker 1: in April of nineteen eighty nine, a new genius was
21:46
Speaker 1: accepted into the ranks of the Alturas Mensa chapter. Her
21:49
Speaker 1: name was Sherry Gwynn and she was a middle aged
21:52
Speaker 1: woman who had recently fled from Texas to Central Florida
21:56
Speaker 1: to get away from her abusive husband, who still lived
21:59
Speaker 1: in Texas. After she was accepted into the Mensa chapter,
22:03
Speaker 1: it became abundantly clear to the members that Sherry was
22:07
Speaker 1: eager to make friends, but not just any friends. She
22:10
Speaker 1: wanted to make friends with two very specific members of
22:14
Speaker 1: the Alturas Mensa Chapter, and they were Diana Carr, who
22:17
Speaker 1: had no relationship to Pie Car or his family, and
22:21
Speaker 1: Diana's husband, whose name was George Trapaul. Diana was a
22:25
Speaker 1: very successful orthopedic surgeon who had her own practice in Alturas, Florida,
22:30
Speaker 1: and George was this computer programmer who had more advanced
22:34
Speaker 1: degrees than you could count and critically, Diana and George
22:39
Speaker 1: just so happened to live right next door to Peggy
22:42
Speaker 1: and Pie's house. Even though Sherry came on really strong
22:46
Speaker 1: right away to try to become friends with Diana and George,
22:50
Speaker 1: neither of them were fazed. The couple just figured, you know,
22:52
Speaker 1: here's a woman who's living by herself, she's moved to
22:55
Speaker 1: a brand new area, she's run away from an abusive husband.
22:59
Speaker 1: You know, it's no one she wants friends, and so
23:01
Speaker 1: she probably just needs some support, and so Diana and
23:04
Speaker 1: George were happy to just become her friend. The same
23:07
Speaker 1: month that Sherry was accepted into the Alturas Mensa chapter,
23:11
Speaker 1: George and Diana happened to be chosen as the people
23:15
Speaker 1: responsible for coming up with the complicated scenario that the
23:19
Speaker 1: group would act out during their murder mystery weekend that month.
23:23
Speaker 1: So George and Diana very diligently sat down and went
23:26
Speaker 1: over how to make the case as complicated as they could,
23:29
Speaker 1: and George took on the responsibility of really focusing on
23:33
Speaker 1: exactly how the victim in their fake scenario would be killed,
23:37
Speaker 1: because he was really trying to make it as difficult
23:40
Speaker 1: as he possibly could. And he was trying to find
23:42
Speaker 1: the perfect murder that would be nearly impossible to solve,
23:46
Speaker 1: and so he came up with his very elaborate murder scene,
23:49
Speaker 1: and then between him and what his wife was creating,
23:52
Speaker 1: they put together this really intense and very complicated scenario that.
23:56
Speaker 2: They were both very happy about.
23:57
Speaker 1: And so a couple of days later, it was time
23:59
Speaker 1: to head out for the murder mystery weekend that George
24:02
Speaker 1: and Diana had worked so hard on, and so they
24:05
Speaker 1: went and printed off a whole bunch of those cards
24:07
Speaker 1: that would have all the information about who each of
24:10
Speaker 1: the MENSA members were going to be in this role
24:12
Speaker 1: playing game, and there was some initial information about the
24:16
Speaker 1: murder that was committed, the so called perfect crime that
24:19
Speaker 1: George had come up with, and so they printed all
24:21
Speaker 1: those cards out, They grabbed their costumes, they packed their
24:23
Speaker 1: stuff up, they hopped in the car, and they drove
24:25
Speaker 1: to the nearby ind where they met up with the
24:28
Speaker 1: rest of the MENSA members, which included Sherry. And so
24:30
Speaker 1: they get to this in, everybody checks in, and then
24:33
Speaker 1: afterwards they all meet up in the lobby where George
24:36
Speaker 1: and Diana hand out their cards that have the information
24:39
Speaker 1: about the role playing game, and so everybody's reading it
24:42
Speaker 1: and figuring out what they're going to do with their character,
24:44
Speaker 1: and everyone's also looking at the so called perfect crime
24:48
Speaker 1: that George had come up with that he was also
24:50
Speaker 1: very proud about, and he was kind of boasting to
24:51
Speaker 1: the audience about how difficult this weekend was going to be.
24:55
Speaker 2: He really came up with the perfect crime.
24:57
Speaker 1: And so as all the members are reading their cards,
25:00
Speaker 1: Sherry would see the murder weapon used in this game,
25:03
Speaker 1: and she would become fascinated with it, and she would
25:06
Speaker 1: make a point of going over to George and asking
25:09
Speaker 1: him lots and lots of questions about how he came
25:11
Speaker 1: up with this particular choice of a murder weapon and
25:14
Speaker 1: what actually happens when this is used on a person,
25:17
Speaker 1: not just in the game, but in real life.
25:19
Speaker 2: It was like Sherry had become obsessed.
25:21
Speaker 1: With this exact form of murder, she was so interested
25:25
Speaker 1: in it.
25:26
Speaker 2: And George, he was immediately aware that Sherry was kind.
25:29
Speaker 1: Of unnaturally interested in exactly how he had come up
25:33
Speaker 1: with the scheme. But in a way it was kind
25:35
Speaker 1: of flattering for George because he had spent a lot
25:37
Speaker 1: of time constructing it to make it as complicated as
25:41
Speaker 1: he could, and so he indulged Sherry, and he sat
25:44
Speaker 1: there and told her everything about this particular weapon and
25:47
Speaker 1: what it does to the human body, and you know,
25:49
Speaker 1: how you can get it, and what the history of
25:52
Speaker 1: this weapon was, and the whole time, Sherry is just
25:54
Speaker 1: totally locked in. I mean, she's really focused on this
25:58
Speaker 1: particular style of murder.
26:00
Speaker 2: And so that Murder.
26:01
Speaker 1: Mystery Weekend would eventually come to an end and all
26:03
Speaker 1: the MENSA members would think it was great and they
26:05
Speaker 1: would head home, and then over the course of nearly
26:09
Speaker 1: a year after that, Sherry would be a near constant
26:13
Speaker 1: in George and Diana's lives.
26:15
Speaker 2: I mean, she was always around them. She always wanted
26:18
Speaker 2: to meet up with them.
26:19
Speaker 1: She was always talking to them and asking them questions
26:21
Speaker 1: and calling, and anytime she was with them, she always
26:24
Speaker 1: wanted to be with George.
26:25
Speaker 2: And when she was with George, a lot of times
26:27
Speaker 2: she would bring up that very particular murder method that
26:31
Speaker 2: he had come up.
26:31
Speaker 1: With for the Murder Mystery Weekend, and George just continued
26:35
Speaker 1: to think this was just the greatest thing. It was
26:37
Speaker 1: so flattering that she thought he was so smart that
26:40
Speaker 1: he had come up with the perfect crime, and so
26:42
Speaker 1: anytime she wanted to talk about it, he would just
26:44
Speaker 1: indulge her because it made him feel really good. And
26:47
Speaker 1: if George and Diana had seen any red flags in
26:50
Speaker 1: Sherry with her behavior towards them, they certainly didn't show it.
26:54
Speaker 1: They basically were operating under the assumption that Sherry, no
26:57
Speaker 1: matter what, was just this helpless, harmless person who had
27:00
Speaker 1: come to Central Florida and she was trying to be
27:03
Speaker 1: their friend, and so they should try to be her
27:05
Speaker 1: friend back. But as they would soon find out, they
27:08
Speaker 1: were very, very wrong about Sherry. In December of nineteen
27:12
Speaker 1: eighty nine, so roughly eight months after George and Diana
27:16
Speaker 1: had first met Sherry, Diana decided she wanted to move
27:19
Speaker 1: her medical practice from Alturas to a neighboring town called Seabring,
27:24
Speaker 1: And the drive from where their house was in Alturas, too,
27:27
Speaker 1: where her new office was going to be, was just
27:29
Speaker 1: far enough that it made sense for George and Diana
27:32
Speaker 1: to relocate to Seabring, And when Sherry discovered that the
27:36
Speaker 1: couple was moving, she immediately called George and said, please
27:40
Speaker 1: let me rent out your house. I don't have a
27:42
Speaker 1: place to stay up and staying with friends, I'll pay
27:44
Speaker 1: whatever rent you want. And as it happened, George and
27:47
Speaker 1: Diana had actually talked about keeping.
27:49
Speaker 2: The house and renting it out, and so.
27:52
Speaker 1: It was actually a pretty easy decision. They trusted Sherry,
27:55
Speaker 1: and so they said, you know what, that's fine. You
27:57
Speaker 1: can rent at the house for a couple of months
27:59
Speaker 1: and then we'll decide this is a long term solution
28:01
Speaker 1: or not. And within just a couple of hours, Sherry
28:04
Speaker 1: was on Diana and George's doorstep with a sleeping bag
28:07
Speaker 1: and a small bag of toiletries.
28:09
Speaker 2: Ready to go inside.
28:10
Speaker 1: And so George and Diana they grabbed the last couple
28:12
Speaker 1: of things they needed, and then as they walked out
28:15
Speaker 1: the front door, they gave their house key to Sherry
28:17
Speaker 1: and told her, you know, hey, if you need anything,
28:19
Speaker 1: just give us a call.
28:20
Speaker 2: And then George and Diana they climbed into.
28:22
Speaker 1: Their car, and as soon as they had drove off
28:24
Speaker 1: and were out of view, Sherry dropped her things and
28:26
Speaker 1: she kind of looked around, and then she ran inside
28:29
Speaker 1: of the house, and just minutes later, practically the entire
28:32
Speaker 1: Altarist police department came crashing through that front door after Sherry,
28:37
Speaker 1: and within an hour the police department would find something
28:41
Speaker 1: that would not only reveal the true identity of Sherry
28:44
Speaker 1: and her true intentions, but it would also reveal the
28:47
Speaker 1: truth about what happened to Peggy and her family.
28:51
Speaker 2: A couple of days.
28:52
Speaker 1: Before Peggy first started feeling bad when her heart started
28:55
Speaker 1: racing and her arms and legs began tingling at the diner,
28:58
Speaker 1: a couple of days before that, someone had placed eight
29:02
Speaker 1: Coca Cola bottles, so full sodas glass bottles inside of
29:06
Speaker 1: Peggy and Pie's kitchen, and they set these eight drinks
29:09
Speaker 1: kind of tucked away inside of a storage nook. A
29:11
Speaker 1: couple of days later, the family discovered these sodas, but
29:15
Speaker 1: they didn't think anything of it. They figured somebody else
29:17
Speaker 1: in the family had bought them and left them in
29:19
Speaker 1: the kitchen, and so they were fair game. And so
29:21
Speaker 1: before long Peggy and the rest of our family were
29:24
Speaker 1: drinking these cokes. But Peggy, who was notorious for loving
29:27
Speaker 1: Coca Cola, drank way more than anybody else.
29:30
Speaker 2: Well, it would.
29:31
Speaker 1: Turn out all eight of those Coca colas had been
29:34
Speaker 1: tampered with. They all contained a significant dose of the
29:39
Speaker 1: heavy metal called thallium. Thallium is odorless, it's colorless, it's tasteless.
29:44
Speaker 1: And even though there are very small trace amounts that
29:47
Speaker 1: naturally occur inside of our bodies, if there's even a
29:51
Speaker 1: little bit more than that inside of our bloodstream.
29:53
Speaker 2: It becomes lethal.
29:54
Speaker 1: And so when Peggy was admitted to the hospital the
29:57
Speaker 1: second time, around the same time that Dwayne and and
30:00
Speaker 1: Travis were also admitted, that neurologist who was looking at Peggy,
30:04
Speaker 1: what he noticed about her condition was that her hair
30:08
Speaker 1: was starting to fall out, and that's when it clicked
30:10
Speaker 1: for him. He had this flashback to his medical training
30:13
Speaker 1: where he was taught about thallium poisoning and one of
30:16
Speaker 1: the symptoms was hair loss. The other symptom was extreme
30:20
Speaker 1: pain in the extremities. And so the neurologist and his
30:24
Speaker 1: colleagues went and got a thallium test kit and they
30:27
Speaker 1: tested Dwayne and Travis and Peggy, and they all came
30:30
Speaker 1: back positive for thallium poisoning. But the level of thallium
30:35
Speaker 1: inside of them was astronomical. The boys are lucky to
30:39
Speaker 1: have survived. They had twenty thousand times the amount that
30:43
Speaker 1: naturally occurs inside of the human body. As for Peggy,
30:46
Speaker 1: she had an astounding fifty thousand times the amount that
30:51
Speaker 1: naturally occurs, way more than was lethal, and so that
30:55
Speaker 1: was why the doctors told her, there's nothing we can do.
30:57
Speaker 1: Your body is basically already dead, just technically still alive
31:01
Speaker 1: right now. And so the rest of the family besides
31:04
Speaker 1: Dwayne and Travis, would also test for thallium, and they
31:06
Speaker 1: would all, with the exception of one child, have elevated
31:10
Speaker 1: levels of thallium. However, compared to Dwayne, Travis, and Peggy,
31:14
Speaker 1: of course, you know, their conditions were negligible and they
31:16
Speaker 1: would all make full recoveries. And so the doctors realized
31:19
Speaker 1: fairly early on that this family has been poisoned, and
31:23
Speaker 1: so they contacted the police, who launched an investigation, and
31:26
Speaker 1: right away their primary suspect was Pi. He and Peggy
31:30
Speaker 1: had been fighting extensively before she fell ill. He also
31:33
Speaker 1: had that kind of abrupt hunting trip that lined up
31:36
Speaker 1: with the day Peggy started feeling sick, and so they're thinking, okay, well,
31:40
Speaker 1: did that have something to do with how he planted
31:42
Speaker 1: the thallium. And then also there was the fact that
31:44
Speaker 1: Pi worked at the phosphate mining company and so had
31:48
Speaker 1: access to fairly rare chemicals. However, upon closer inspection. Pie
31:52
Speaker 1: did not have access to thallium. Specifically, thallium is incredibly
31:56
Speaker 1: rare and very expensive, and it just seemed awe that
32:00
Speaker 1: he would use thallium to poison and kill his wife,
32:03
Speaker 1: but he would also poison himself and his son, who
32:06
Speaker 1: he adored. It just didn't really add up, and so
32:09
Speaker 1: Pie would get ruled out as a suspect fairly quickly.
32:12
Speaker 1: But during one of his last interrogations, he would give
32:15
Speaker 1: the police something he didn't think was very valuable, but
32:17
Speaker 1: it wound up being very significant. He would say that
32:21
Speaker 1: three months before Peggy got sick, their family received a
32:25
Speaker 1: death threat. He opened the mail one day and there
32:27
Speaker 1: was this typed out note that said your family needs
32:30
Speaker 1: to leave Florida in the next two weeks where you're
32:32
Speaker 1: all going to die. But Pie thought it was some
32:34
Speaker 1: stupid teenage prank, and so he didn't think anything of it.
32:37
Speaker 1: And then when two weeks went by and they weren't dead,
32:40
Speaker 1: he just kind of forgot about it. And so after
32:42
Speaker 1: the police have ruled Pie out as a suspect, they
32:45
Speaker 1: didn't know where to turn. They had no other suspects,
32:48
Speaker 1: and so they just began focusing on who might have
32:50
Speaker 1: written this note, and that's where Sherry comes in. Sherry
32:53
Speaker 1: gwyn was not a Texas transplant who had come to
32:57
Speaker 1: Central Florida to run away from her abusive husband. Sherry
33:00
Speaker 1: Gwynn wasn't even her real name. Her real name was
33:03
Speaker 1: Susan Galek, and she had lived in Central Florida for most.
33:06
Speaker 2: Of her life.
33:07
Speaker 1: Susan was very smart, but she certainly was not Mensa
33:10
Speaker 1: level genius smart, and so almost certainly her paperwork that
33:14
Speaker 1: got her in to the altuus.
33:16
Speaker 2: Mensa chapter was forged.
33:18
Speaker 1: Susan also had absolutely no interest in becoming real friends with.
33:23
Speaker 2: Diana and George.
33:25
Speaker 1: The only reason she was pretending to be their friends
33:28
Speaker 1: and wanting to be around them all the time is
33:30
Speaker 1: because she was studying them because Susan was actually an
33:33
Speaker 1: undercover police officer. She had been sent undercover after the
33:38
Speaker 1: police discovered Diana and George were responsible for that death
33:42
Speaker 1: threat letter that was sent to Peggy and Pie.
33:45
Speaker 2: It would turn.
33:46
Speaker 1: Out Diana and George hated Peggy Pie and their kids.
33:51
Speaker 2: They hated them.
33:52
Speaker 1: They thought they were obnoxious, they were too noisy, they
33:55
Speaker 1: were annoying. And so Diana, who for context, was the
33:59
Speaker 1: type of person who would stop people mid sentence and
34:02
Speaker 1: correct them if they ever referred to her as anything other.
34:05
Speaker 2: Than doctor Carr.
34:07
Speaker 1: She had gotten into at least one or two serious
34:11
Speaker 1: yelling fights with Peggy and with Pie and their kids
34:14
Speaker 1: when she had gone over to tell them to turn
34:16
Speaker 1: their music down and be quiet and do this and
34:19
Speaker 1: do that, and Peggy and Pie they're not putting up
34:21
Speaker 1: with that, and they just told her.
34:22
Speaker 2: To get out of here.
34:23
Speaker 1: As for George, he didn't get into any public altercations
34:27
Speaker 1: with Peggy and Pie and their family.
34:29
Speaker 2: George was a very meek and submissive guy. He was
34:32
Speaker 2: very meager, and he was mostly a recluse.
34:34
Speaker 1: But he spent virtually all day peering out the window
34:37
Speaker 1: at Peggy and Pie and their family, studying what they
34:40
Speaker 1: were doing, and obsessing over how noisy and obnoxious they were.
34:44
Speaker 1: And as he's seeing his wife getting more and more
34:47
Speaker 1: frustrated with their neighbors, George finally decides he's going.
34:50
Speaker 2: To take drastic action.
34:52
Speaker 1: And so that's when George types out that death threat,
34:54
Speaker 1: and he sends it across the way, But after Pye
34:57
Speaker 1: reads it, nothing happens. They don't leave Florida within two weeks,
35:01
Speaker 1: and so George went to phase two of his plan.
35:03
Speaker 1: George had actually spent time in a federal prison in
35:07
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies for cooking meth, and one of the
35:10
Speaker 1: byproducts of making meth is thallium. So George used his
35:15
Speaker 1: old meth cooking skills and he whipped up some thallium
35:18
Speaker 1: and he put lethal doses of thallium in eight different
35:22
Speaker 1: Coca Cola bottles, and then, after mixing them all up
35:24
Speaker 1: so you couldn't tell there was any chemical inside of them,
35:27
Speaker 1: he used his bottle topping machine to put tops back
35:30
Speaker 1: on top of each of them. George made his own beer,
35:33
Speaker 1: and so that's why he had a topping machine at
35:35
Speaker 1: his house. And so with his eight deadly drinks all
35:38
Speaker 1: prepared looking like brand new Coca Colas, George waited until
35:42
Speaker 1: Peggy and Pie and her family were out of their house,
35:45
Speaker 1: and then he snuck over and he walked into their
35:47
Speaker 1: kitchen and he placed these Coca colas right down on
35:50
Speaker 1: the kitchen counter and he slid them into a storage
35:53
Speaker 1: nook and then he.
35:54
Speaker 2: Left the house and that was it.
35:55
Speaker 1: And over the next several weeks he watched with absolute
35:58
Speaker 1: pleasure as the family got sick and then Peggy died.
36:02
Speaker 1: While George never actually admitted that he had poisoned his neighbors,
36:06
Speaker 1: he did do some things that really tipped off Susan
36:09
Speaker 1: that he had to be the guy, like, for example,
36:12
Speaker 1: that mensa mystery murder weekend. The murder method that George
36:16
Speaker 1: had come up with was poisoning. And remember, at that point,
36:20
Speaker 1: Susan has been sent under cover to find out if
36:23
Speaker 1: George and Diana are responsible for poisoning their neighbors. And
36:28
Speaker 1: now George is sitting up there talking about the perfect
36:30
Speaker 1: crime he's come up with, and it's poisoning. And so
36:34
Speaker 1: that was why she had followed up with him really
36:36
Speaker 1: specifically on Wow, what else do you know about poisoning?
36:39
Speaker 2: And how'd you learn about poisoning? And what kind of
36:42
Speaker 2: poisons do you know about?
36:43
Speaker 1: And over the following months, even though Susan never got
36:46
Speaker 1: George to actually admit to her when she was under
36:49
Speaker 1: cover recording him that he was the poisoner, she did
36:53
Speaker 1: completely earn his trust. And she did this by always
36:57
Speaker 1: making sure she was very submissive around him and made
37:00
Speaker 1: sure to stroke his ego and remind him how smart
37:02
Speaker 1: he was.
37:03
Speaker 2: I mean, George was used to being in.
37:04
Speaker 1: A relationship with Diana, who was extremely overbearing and kind
37:08
Speaker 1: of kept him under her thumb, and so Susan kind
37:11
Speaker 1: of allowed George to feel like he was in control
37:14
Speaker 1: for once, and he loved it, and so he completely
37:17
Speaker 1: trusted Susan to the point where when he and Diana
37:20
Speaker 1: were going to move out of Alturus, they were willing
37:23
Speaker 1: to rent their house to Susan. And this is important
37:26
Speaker 1: because the house had not actually been emptied. A lot
37:28
Speaker 1: of their things were still in the house, including George's things,
37:32
Speaker 1: and so he just assumed Susan would never go through
37:35
Speaker 1: his things.
37:36
Speaker 2: But as soon as Susan was in that house and.
37:38
Speaker 1: She watched George and Diana drive off, she immediately called
37:42
Speaker 1: in backup.
37:42
Speaker 2: The police swarmed the house.
37:44
Speaker 1: They searched at top to bottom, and in the garage
37:46
Speaker 1: they found George's chemistry equipment and nestled underneath it was
37:50
Speaker 1: a bottle that contained thallium. George would be found guilty
37:53
Speaker 1: of first degree murder as well as attempted murder on
37:56
Speaker 1: the rest of Peggy's family, and he would be sentenced
37:59
Speaker 1: to death. As of this episode, he is still alive
38:02
Speaker 1: and he is still on death row. As for his wife, Diana,
38:05
Speaker 1: who many people believe must have had something to do
38:08
Speaker 1: with the poisoning or must have at least known it
38:11
Speaker 1: was happening, was never actually charged with anything, and so
38:14
Speaker 1: she would eventually divorce George and move on with her
38:17
Speaker 1: life and remarry.
38:22
Speaker 2: So that's going to do it.
38:23
Speaker 1: If you've got something out of today's episode and you
38:25
Speaker 1: haven't done this already, please invite the like button to come.
38:28
Speaker 2: Ballroom dancing with you.
38:30
Speaker 1: But when you get out on the dance floor, just
38:31
Speaker 1: start stomping all over their feet and don't acknowledge it. Also,
38:35
Speaker 1: please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications
38:38
Speaker 1: so you don't miss any of.
38:39
Speaker 2: Our weekly uploads.
38:40
Speaker 1: We now have a podcast called the Mister Ballin Podcast
38:43
Speaker 1: and we upload on Mondays and Thursdays. You can find
38:46
Speaker 1: that podcast on YouTube under the name mister Ballin Podcast.
38:50
Speaker 1: You can also find it on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google,
38:53
Speaker 1: and anywhere else you get your podcasts. We now have
38:55
Speaker 1: a registered five oh one c three charitable organization called
38:59
Speaker 1: the Mister ball And Foundation, which makes it as easy
39:02
Speaker 1: as possible.
39:03
Speaker 2: For you to join me, my wife, my family, my.
39:06
Speaker 1: Team in supporting those whose lives have been most impacted
39:10
Speaker 1: by violent and heinous crime.
39:11
Speaker 2: Monthly, donors to the Mister Ballin Foundation Honor.
39:14
Speaker 1: Them Society will receive free gifts and exclusive invites to
39:18
Speaker 1: live events, but the real reward is helping to create
39:21
Speaker 1: a new ending to the story for victims of violent crime.
39:25
Speaker 2: Go to mister Ballin dot foundation.
39:27
Speaker 1: And click Get Involved to join the Honor Them Society today.
39:30
Speaker 1: We also have two additional YouTube channels called mister Ballin'
39:34
Speaker 1: Shorts and mister ballin En Espanol. We also post near
39:37
Speaker 1: daily content on Facebook and Snapchat.
39:40
Speaker 2: Those channels are just called mister Ballin.
39:42
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with me, please
39:44
Speaker 1: follow me on any major social media platform.
39:47
Speaker 2: And then send me a direct message.
39:49
Speaker 1: My username on all platforms is just at mister Ballin
39:52
Speaker 1: and I really do read the majority of my dms.
39:55
Speaker 1: We also have some really cool merchandise, so head on
39:57
Speaker 1: over to Shopmisterballan dot com to have a.
40:00
Speaker 2: And if you have a story suggestion, please submit it
40:03
Speaker 2: to our subreddit just called mister Ballin. It's linked in
40:05
Speaker 2: the description.
40:06
Speaker 1: Blow So, whether I see you on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, Facebook,
40:10
Speaker 1: other YouTube channels, the podcast wherever, just know that I
40:14
Speaker 1: really appreciate your support and until next time that's going
40:17
Speaker 1: to do it. See you