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

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