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The-final-piece-of-evidence-was-INSIDE · 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.
0:07
Speaker 1: It was also a potential crime scene. The room was
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Speaker 1: a complete mess, with construction debris all over the place
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Speaker 1: and lab equipment strewn across the countertops. In fact, it
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Speaker 1: was so cluttered the investigator didn't even know where to begin.
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Speaker 1: But then he noticed something that really stood out that
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Speaker 1: was laying on a nearby counter. It was a soiled
0:25
Speaker 1: rag with a handwritten note sitting right next to it,
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Speaker 1: and when he read the note, he gasped because he
0:32
Speaker 1: realized he could be the next to die. But before
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Speaker 1: we get into today's story, you might be asking yourself,
0:39
Speaker 1: why is this a Monday upload? Well, get used to it,
0:43
Speaker 1: because starting now, you're going to be getting a new
0:45
Speaker 1: episode every Monday. As mentioned in prior videos, I'm going
0:50
Speaker 1: to be uploading up to four new videos every week.
0:53
Speaker 1: So if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and
0:55
Speaker 1: mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the
0:58
Speaker 1: right place, because that's all we do, and we do
1:01
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1:04
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1:20
Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. Early on the morning of
1:44
Speaker 1: August nineteenth, nineteen ninety one, a thirty two year old
1:47
Speaker 1: man named Bobby Curley stood in his recently renovated kitchen
1:51
Speaker 1: in the city of Wilkesbury, Pennsylvania. He walked over to
1:54
Speaker 1: his fridge, opened it up, reached inside, and grabbed his
1:57
Speaker 1: bag lunch along with his thermos, and he was just
2:00
Speaker 1: just about the head out the door and go to work,
2:02
Speaker 1: but he stopped and gave his wife, Joanne, a kiss
2:04
Speaker 1: on the cheek and said he loved her, and then
2:06
Speaker 1: he left for the day. So Bobby and Joanne had
2:09
Speaker 1: been married for a year and they lived with Joanne's
2:12
Speaker 1: four year old daughter, Angela in a duplex in a
2:14
Speaker 1: working class neighborhood. Bobby was an electrician and so he
2:18
Speaker 1: made pretty good money, but the Curlyes were by no
2:20
Speaker 1: means rich. However, Bobby knew that that actually might change
2:24
Speaker 1: soon because Joanne was on the verge of winning this
2:27
Speaker 1: big court settlement. Joanne had actually been married once before,
2:31
Speaker 1: but her husband had died in a car accident about
2:33
Speaker 1: three years ago. His card collided with a tractor trailer,
2:37
Speaker 1: and the driver of that tractor trailer was eventually found
2:40
Speaker 1: to be the one at fault, And so now Joanne's
2:43
Speaker 1: lawyers and the trucking company's lawyers were finally closing in
2:46
Speaker 1: on a financial settlement to compensate Joanne for her first
2:50
Speaker 1: husband's wrongful death. It had been a really stressful process,
2:54
Speaker 1: and Bobby had definitely noticed that Joanne had been more
2:56
Speaker 1: sullen and stressed than usual as they were going through it.
3:00
Speaker 1: But now that the case was finally wrapping up, Joanne
3:02
Speaker 1: did appear to be sort of back in good spirits.
3:05
Speaker 1: And you know, while nothing was official yet, it looked
3:08
Speaker 1: like they were going to receive approximately a million dollars
3:11
Speaker 1: in compensation, which was obviously really exciting. In fact, the
3:16
Speaker 1: two of them were already mapping out how they might
3:19
Speaker 1: spend some of this money. Some of the ideas they'd
3:21
Speaker 1: come up with included taking Angela on a few big
3:24
Speaker 1: trips and also maybe using some of that money to
3:27
Speaker 1: finally fund Bobby having his own business, something he'd always
3:31
Speaker 1: wanted to do but lacked the resources for. But for now,
3:35
Speaker 1: you know, the settlement was not complete, and so Bobby
3:37
Speaker 1: had to go to his normal nine to five and
3:39
Speaker 1: you know, punch the clock and keep earning money for
3:41
Speaker 1: the family. So for today, once he was outside, he
3:45
Speaker 1: simply got into his car and made the short drive
3:47
Speaker 1: to his current job site. Ten minutes later, Bobby parked
3:53
Speaker 1: outside of a science building on the campus of wilkes University,
3:56
Speaker 1: which was a small college in Wilkesbury. He saw some
3:59
Speaker 1: of the guys on his crew was standing out front
4:01
Speaker 1: waiting to be let into this building. So Bobby, who
4:04
Speaker 1: was the foreman of their crew, he got out of
4:06
Speaker 1: his car and said good morning to everyone and then
4:08
Speaker 1: walked up and unlocked the doors. Then they all went
4:11
Speaker 1: inside and got to work. And working at this location
4:14
Speaker 1: had really become a pretty big routine for this croup
4:18
Speaker 1: because by now Bobby and his crew had been coming
4:20
Speaker 1: here working here for a few months now, and this
4:23
Speaker 1: job was a really big job. Bobby and his team
4:26
Speaker 1: were helping renovate the entire building, which included all the classrooms,
4:30
Speaker 1: all the laboratories, hallways, everything, and so they still had
4:33
Speaker 1: quite a bit of work to do. But there was
4:35
Speaker 1: another reason this job was taking as long as it was,
4:38
Speaker 1: and that was because when Bobby's crew had first shown
4:41
Speaker 1: up at the building, they had expected it to be
4:43
Speaker 1: totally prepared for them, meaning all furniture and equipment would
4:46
Speaker 1: be cleared out, But instead they found a ton of
4:49
Speaker 1: stuff just kind of everywhere inside the building because the
4:53
Speaker 1: building clearly had not been prepped at all. The chemistry lab,
4:56
Speaker 1: for example, still had random flasks and chemical bottles and
5:00
Speaker 1: you know, wet rags with weird substances on them, just
5:03
Speaker 1: laying around the room. So as a result, Bobby and
5:06
Speaker 1: his crew had been forced to do a ton of cleanup,
5:09
Speaker 1: you know, before they even got into their jobs, that
5:12
Speaker 1: they had not planned on, and it really set them back.
5:15
Speaker 1: And so now, just to stay on schedule, they were
5:18
Speaker 1: regularly putting in twelve hour days basically every day they
5:21
Speaker 1: were there. And so all these extra hours had Bobby
5:25
Speaker 1: feeling completely exhausted, and lately he had sort of felt
5:28
Speaker 1: kind of sick almost, and he just sort of chalked
5:31
Speaker 1: that up to basically overworking, but Bobby never complained. The
5:35
Speaker 1: overtime pay was great and he really enjoyed working with
5:38
Speaker 1: these particular guys on this crew. You know, these guys
5:41
Speaker 1: were basically his friends, so normally the long workdays were
5:45
Speaker 1: actually kind of fun, as exhausting and awful as they were.
5:48
Speaker 1: Later that afternoon, Bobby was standing on a ladder inside
5:51
Speaker 1: of 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 Squall, 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 of soda. Bobby cringed, I mean, this
6:35
Speaker 1: was absolutely disgusting. Even as a prank, this was awful,
6:39
Speaker 1: But it was also sort of par for the course
6:41
Speaker 1: for the guys on Bobby's crew. This is sort of
6:43
Speaker 1: what they did. They were always playing pranks on each
6:45
Speaker 1: other to kind of lighten the mood on long work
6:48
Speaker 1: days like today. And everybody was laughing, even Sammy, who'd
6:51
Speaker 1: been the butt of the joke, and so eventually, you know,
6:54
Speaker 1: Bobby joined into He thought that this was ultimately good
6:57
Speaker 1: for morale, as gross as it was. After a minute
7:00
Speaker 1: or so, Sammy recovered from his coughing fit from drinking
7:03
Speaker 1: this disgusting liquid and vowed sort of comically to get
7:07
Speaker 1: payback on whoever switched his coat can. Then after that,
7:11
Speaker 1: all the guys got back to work, and so Bobby
7:13
Speaker 1: he left the group and went back over to his ladder,
7:16
Speaker 1: and as he was climbing back up, he paused about
7:19
Speaker 1: halfway because he felt this sudden wave of sickness come
7:22
Speaker 1: over him. It almost felt like he had a flu
7:24
Speaker 1: coming on, which didn't really surprise him because he had
7:27
Speaker 1: been doing all these overtime hours and he really had
7:30
Speaker 1: felt run down as a result of it, and so
7:32
Speaker 1: again he's just sort of chalking up the way he
7:34
Speaker 1: feels too overworking. And so as Bobby is standing on
7:37
Speaker 1: this ladder, he kind of told himself, you know, just
7:39
Speaker 1: suck it up. This will pass. And he just stood
7:42
Speaker 1: there on the ladder, and after a minute or two,
7:44
Speaker 1: that sensation of being sick did sort of pass. And then,
7:48
Speaker 1: because he was not a complainer, he was a hard
7:50
Speaker 1: working guy, he just pushed the sickness feeling he was
7:53
Speaker 1: having out of his mind. He climbed back up and
7:55
Speaker 1: got back to doing his wiring. But four days later,
8:03
Speaker 1: on the morning of Friday, August twenty third, Bobby felt
8:07
Speaker 1: worse than ever. As he made his way across the
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Speaker 1: college parking lot towards the science building where his crew
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Speaker 1: was still working. He felt like his feet were heavy
8:15
Speaker 1: and he was constantly short of breath. And then as
8:18
Speaker 1: the workday went on, you know, continuing to run wires
8:21
Speaker 1: in that chem lab, Bobby got really sweaty and really hot.
8:26
Speaker 1: His coworkers noticed and kept coming up to him to
8:28
Speaker 1: ask if he needed to go home early. But even
8:31
Speaker 1: though Bobby totally did need to go home early and
8:33
Speaker 1: felt awful, he would just tell them, nope, he was
8:36
Speaker 1: just fine, and so Bobby would manage to get through
8:38
Speaker 1: that particular work day. But then at the end of
8:41
Speaker 1: the day when it was time to go home, Bobby
8:43
Speaker 1: felt 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. That's what you need right now.
9:28
Speaker 1: So that's exactly what Bobby did. For the rest of
9:31
Speaker 1: that Saturday and all day the next day Sunday, Bobby
9:34
Speaker 1: didn't do anything except lay in bed. But by that
9:37
Speaker 1: Sunday evening, Bobby still felt horrible, so he picked up
9:41
Speaker 1: the phone and did something that Bobby basically never did.
9:46
Speaker 1: He called one of his co workers and told them
9:48
Speaker 1: that unfortunately, he would not be able to come to
9:51
Speaker 1: work tomorrow. When Bobby woke up the next morning on
9:54
Speaker 1: Monday morning, the day he had taken off from work,
9:56
Speaker 1: he was in so much pain that he couldn't even
9:58
Speaker 1: stand up on his own. His wife, Joanne, tried to
10:01
Speaker 1: help him get out of bed and go to the bathroom,
10:04
Speaker 1: but he was physically too heavy for her to lift,
10:07
Speaker 1: and so Joanne actually ended up calling Bobby's brother David
10:10
Speaker 1: to come over the house and help. But even with
10:13
Speaker 1: David there, who could now basically help move Bobby around
10:16
Speaker 1: the house, it was very clear to Bobby that whatever
10:19
Speaker 1: was happening to him was not some minor issue like
10:22
Speaker 1: this was serious, and it clearly was not going away
10:25
Speaker 1: with rest like the doctor had said it would, and
10:27
Speaker 1: so at some point that day the family called an ambulance,
10:30
Speaker 1: which came and took Bobby to a nearby hospital, But
10:34
Speaker 1: by the time they got there, the pain in Bobby's
10:37
Speaker 1: legs had gotten so bad that Bobby was literally periodically
10:41
Speaker 1: screaming in pain, and he also 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: and 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. His hair started falling
11:52
Speaker 1: out on September seventh, so now a week and a
12:04
Speaker 1: half after Bobby came back from the hospital, well he
12:08
Speaker 1: was back there again, and to Bobby's horror, this time
12:11
Speaker 1: his doctors actually seemed kind of baffled by his symptoms.
12:15
Speaker 1: They told him that sudden extreme hair loss was definitely
12:19
Speaker 1: not a symptom of gion Bari syndrome. So they told
12:23
Speaker 1: Bobby that it seemed like their initial diagnosis must have
12:26
Speaker 1: been wrong, despite the fact that the medication they gave
12:29
Speaker 1: him to treat GBS had helped him for a little while.
12:32
Speaker 1: And so the problem now was the doctors were basically
12:35
Speaker 1: at a total loss as to how to help Bobby.
12:38
Speaker 1: They really didn't know what was going on, and so
12:40
Speaker 1: for the next nine days, doctors ran test after test
12:44
Speaker 1: on Bobby, and all the while, Bobby's pain intensified so
12:49
Speaker 1: much and became so constant that he basically fell into
12:52
Speaker 1: this almost delirious state, like the pain was completely too much.
12:56
Speaker 1: And then eventually all these doctors who ran all these
12:59
Speaker 1: tests came back to Bobby and his family and they
13:02
Speaker 1: just told them that we don't know what's wrong, like
13:04
Speaker 1: all 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 miles away from Wilkes Barre. A
13:23
Speaker 1: few days later, a neurologist named doctor Robert Brennan walked
13:26
Speaker 1: 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 into 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
14:12
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 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 and
15:45
Speaker 1: jests it or even just inhales its fumes. And he
15:48
Speaker 1: told them that this is really unusual because thallium is
15:53
Speaker 1: highly controlled in the United States. It's actually banned in
15:56
Speaker 1: household products. So this is not a chemical that, you know,
16:00
Speaker 1: Bobby just could have accidentally stumbled upon. 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? At that point, doctor Brennan
16:27
Speaker 1: just shook his head and said, unfortunately, there's no cure
16:31
Speaker 1: 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 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 that lab was five vials
18:50
Speaker 1: of thallium. In one of the store rooms, they'd also
18:53
Speaker 1: found a rag that was laying out on a countertop
18:56
Speaker 1: that presumably was there when Bobby first arrived and he
19:00
Speaker 1: and his crew began cleaning everything up, and next to
19:03
Speaker 1: this rag was a handwritten note that had a warning
19:05
Speaker 1: on it that literally said thallium wiping rag, Touch me
19:10
Speaker 1: and die. The rag had actually caused a huge amount
19:13
Speaker 1: of panic amongst the investigators when they had gone in
19:17
Speaker 1: to begin sweeping the lab for signs of thallium, because
19:20
Speaker 1: people were fearful that maybe they'd brushed up against it
19:23
Speaker 1: and touched this rag and were they going to get
19:25
Speaker 1: thallium poisoning. However, they actually tested the rag and it
19:28
Speaker 1: came back negative for thallium, as did all the surfaces
19:32
Speaker 1: in the lab and also the air in the lab,
19:35
Speaker 1: and so the investigators had finally decided that that note
19:38
Speaker 1: must have been a joke or something. Also, the university
19:42
Speaker 1: insisted that all of its thallium was accounted for, meaning
19:45
Speaker 1: none of it could have been stolen or misused in
19:48
Speaker 1: some way to poison Bobby because they would know about it.
19:51
Speaker 1: And so at this point the university had actually been
19:54
Speaker 1: sort of ruled out as where Bobby got poisoned, which
19:58
Speaker 1: really didn't make sense to Detective Collie or the other
20:01
Speaker 1: investigators at this dinner, because again, thallium is hard to
20:06
Speaker 1: come by. The idea that Bobby was working in a
20:09
Speaker 1: lab that contained thallium but that wasn't where he was
20:14
Speaker 1: poisoned by thallium seemed almost impossible. It had to have
20:18
Speaker 1: happened there. But they had gone out and tested all
20:22
Speaker 1: of Bobby's coworkers who had also worked in that lab
20:25
Speaker 1: with Bobby for so many days and so many hours,
20:27
Speaker 1: and they all came back negative for thallium exposure. However,
20:32
Speaker 1: Bobby's own family, his wife Joanne and her four year
20:35
Speaker 1: old daughter Angela, they had tested positive for thallium exposure.
20:39
Speaker 1: Granted it was on a near microscopic level, because any
20:43
Speaker 1: amount of exposure could actually be lethal, and those two
20:46
Speaker 1: were okay, so obviously they had not received a lethal doze,
20:49
Speaker 1: but there were very small traces of thallium in both
20:52
Speaker 1: of them, which was odd, and so everybody at the
20:55
Speaker 1: table agreed that the right thing to do here was
20:57
Speaker 1: to speak to Joanne and see if maybe she had
21:00
Speaker 1: some ideas of how she and her daughter and obviously
21:03
Speaker 1: Bobby could have maybe come in contact with this very
21:05
Speaker 1: rare and lethal chemical. And then also they need to
21:09
Speaker 1: get inside of the family's duplex to search it literally
21:12
Speaker 1: for thallium. But first there was the problem of jurisdiction.
21:16
Speaker 1: Bobby had died in Hershey, but he'd gotten sick in
21:19
Speaker 1: wilkes Bury. So after some discussion, the men decided that
21:22
Speaker 1: the Wilkesbury police should be the ones to head up
21:25
Speaker 1: the case, because that is where Bobby actually got poisoned.
21:29
Speaker 1: The next day, Detective Collie invited Bobby's siblings, David and Suzanne,
21:34
Speaker 1: to the Wilkesbury Police station, and right away it was
21:37
Speaker 1: quite clear that both of them were very suspicious of
21:41
Speaker 1: Bobby's wife, Joanne. They told Colly that Joanne had been
21:45
Speaker 1: acting really strange for months, both before and also after
21:49
Speaker 1: Bobby's death. David said when his brother had first gotten sick,
21:53
Speaker 1: Joanne had barely lifted a finger to help him. She
21:56
Speaker 1: called David to come over and look after Bobby, acting
21:59
Speaker 1: like she needed somebody strong enough to move Bobby around,
22:01
Speaker 1: which was true. But while David was upstairs literally carrying
22:06
Speaker 1: Bobby to and from the bathroom, Joanne stayed downstairs with
22:10
Speaker 1: her daughter and totally ignored them. She didn't even pretend
22:13
Speaker 1: to want to help. She basically let David do all
22:15
Speaker 1: of it. And Susan said, even though she didn't know
22:18
Speaker 1: for sure, her impression of Joanne right after she had
22:22
Speaker 1: taken Bobby off life support and he's died, her impression
22:25
Speaker 1: of Joanne was she was hugely relieved. Colly listened and
22:30
Speaker 1: nodded and sort of gave the impression that he was
22:32
Speaker 1: following along and basically believed them, but inside he wasn't
22:36
Speaker 1: really convinced that what they were describing was highly suspicious behavior.
22:41
Speaker 1: When David came over to help Bobby, I mean that
22:43
Speaker 1: was because she had asked him to do that, after
22:46
Speaker 1: trying at first unsuccessfully to move her husband around. And
22:50
Speaker 1: then when David was there, I mean, you know, she
22:52
Speaker 1: does have a four year old daughter. She can't just
22:54
Speaker 1: leave her unsupervised, or maybe she doesn't want her daughter
22:57
Speaker 1: to see Bobby, and so she has to keep her downstairs,
23:00
Speaker 1: so there's like an explanation for that. And as for
23:03
Speaker 1: Joanne being relieved after her husband's death, you know, everybody
23:07
Speaker 1: dealt with grief differently, and Bobby's death had been a
23:09
Speaker 1: really traumatic, drawn out process for everybody involved. So maybe
23:14
Speaker 1: she was relieved, but not because she was happy about it.
23:17
Speaker 1: It could have just been the end of a nightmare
23:19
Speaker 1: chapter in all of their lives. And so after he
23:22
Speaker 1: had listened to their concerns, Cally began to redirect the
23:25
Speaker 1: conversation and he began asking David and Susan about their
23:29
Speaker 1: relationship with Bobby. They both said they were very close
23:33
Speaker 1: with their brother, even as adults. They said they lived
23:35
Speaker 1: nearby and they saw each other quite a bit. David
23:38
Speaker 1: in particular, said he spent a lot of time with Bobby.
23:41
Speaker 1: He said they often went fishing, and recently together they
23:44
Speaker 1: had renovated Bobby's kitchen, and this caught Colly's attention because
23:49
Speaker 1: it sounded like David and Bobby had finished this renovation
23:52
Speaker 1: project around the same time that Bobby first got sick.
23:56
Speaker 1: Collie didn't know if this was relevant or not, but
23:58
Speaker 1: it was interesting. So at the end of their discussion,
24:02
Speaker 1: He just thanked David and Susan for all the information
24:04
Speaker 1: and told them they were free to go. A few
24:17
Speaker 1: days later, on the morning of October twenty fifth, nineteen
24:20
Speaker 1: ninety one, Detective Collie and three other investigators sat at
24:24
Speaker 1: an interrogation table in the Wilkesbury Police station, right across
24:27
Speaker 1: from Joanne Curley and the lawyer that she had brought
24:30
Speaker 1: along with her. Collie didn't know what to make of
24:32
Speaker 1: Joanne yet. Obviously, she and her daughter had also been
24:36
Speaker 1: exposed to thallium, so that could mean that they too
24:39
Speaker 1: accidentally were exposed to this chemical, same as Bobby, but
24:43
Speaker 1: obviously on a much smaller scale because they lived. Or
24:47
Speaker 1: they could have also been the target of somebody trying
24:50
Speaker 1: to poison this family and ultimately just Bobby was killed
24:53
Speaker 1: from this poisoning. Or Joanne could be the poisoner. She
24:57
Speaker 1: could have poisoned her own husband. I mean, you know,
25:00
Speaker 1: Bobby's siblings are talking about how awful Joanne was acting
25:03
Speaker 1: towards her husband in the wake of his illness. You know,
25:06
Speaker 1: maybe she poisoned him and in doing so, she accidentally
25:10
Speaker 1: exposed herself and her daughter. Basically, Collie couldn't tell yet
25:13
Speaker 1: if Joanne was a victim or a perpetrator, so he
25:17
Speaker 1: made sure to watch her very carefully. While another investigator
25:21
Speaker 1: began asking her to explain how and when her husband
25:25
Speaker 1: first got sick. Joanne said that Bobby had been complaining
25:28
Speaker 1: about feeling pretty run down for what felt like weeks
25:31
Speaker 1: or maybe even months, but he hadn't had any major
25:34
Speaker 1: symptoms until a week before his hospitalization in August, and
25:38
Speaker 1: she said that much like Bobby, she had just kind
25:41
Speaker 1: of chalked it up to he had been overworking, or
25:44
Speaker 1: maybe he had some standard illness that would just go
25:46
Speaker 1: away with rest, like that first doctor had said. She
25:49
Speaker 1: said that she had never even heard of thallium, and really,
25:52
Speaker 1: at no point had it ever crossed her mind that
25:55
Speaker 1: maybe Bobby had been poisoned by thallium. As Collie listened
25:58
Speaker 1: to Joanne tell this story, he was struck by a
26:01
Speaker 1: couple of things. First of all, Joanne said Bobby had
26:05
Speaker 1: been feeling pretty run down for a while before his death.
26:08
Speaker 1: This seemed to conflict with investigator's assumption that a single
26:12
Speaker 1: massive dose of thallium had sent Bobby to the hospital
26:14
Speaker 1: and ultimately killed him. It seemed more likely based on
26:17
Speaker 1: what Chuanne said that this poisoning happened over a period
26:20
Speaker 1: of time. And the second thing Colly was struck by
26:23
Speaker 1: was actually just Joanne's general demeanor. She had just recounted
26:27
Speaker 1: in detail. You know, the story of her husband dying,
26:31
Speaker 1: this awful death. Fallium poisoning is a horrible way to die,
26:36
Speaker 1: and as she's describing it, she's not shedding a single
26:39
Speaker 1: tear or really acting at all like she's even upset
26:42
Speaker 1: about it. And so at this point, Colly was beginning
26:44
Speaker 1: to wonder if maybe Susan and David had been right
26:48
Speaker 1: about Joanne. She really did not seem to care much
26:51
Speaker 1: about her husband's death. And so what Colli did is
26:54
Speaker 1: he stopped the other investigator and he leaned forward and
26:57
Speaker 1: he just asked Joanne, point blank, how do you explain
27:00
Speaker 1: how you and your daughter were exposed to thallium? And
27:04
Speaker 1: immediately Joanne had a story, a bizarre one. She said,
27:08
Speaker 1: Bobby really liked to drink iced tea when he was
27:11
Speaker 1: at work, so every morning she would fill his thermos
27:14
Speaker 1: up from this big picture of pre made iced tea
27:17
Speaker 1: that she kept in their fridge, and so Bobby would
27:19
Speaker 1: take that thermis with him to work, and he would
27:21
Speaker 1: drink the tea all day and then come home with
27:23
Speaker 1: the thermos. And some days when he would come back,
27:27
Speaker 1: Bobby had not drank all the iced tea, there'd be
27:29
Speaker 1: some left inside the thermos. And so Joanne said what
27:33
Speaker 1: she would do in that case was she would take
27:35
Speaker 1: the remaining iced tea still in the thermos, and she
27:38
Speaker 1: would pour it back into the pitcher in the fridge,
27:42
Speaker 1: basically to salvage what was left of the tea. And
27:45
Speaker 1: she said she and her daughter also drank from that pitcher,
27:49
Speaker 1: so in essence, she sometimes was drinking from the same
27:53
Speaker 1: tea that Bobby was drinking from directly. And so perhaps
27:57
Speaker 1: in that way, if he was being exposed to thallium,
28:00
Speaker 1: maybe it was getting into that tea that he was
28:02
Speaker 1: bringing home. And you know, she believed that maybe that
28:05
Speaker 1: was how she was being exposed by drinking the leftover
28:08
Speaker 1: iced tea. Collie glanced over at the other investigators in
28:11
Speaker 1: the room, and they all looked as baffled as he was.
28:14
Speaker 1: This iced tea explanation was pretty out there, but it
28:18
Speaker 1: was so weirdly specific that they 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. Basically,
28:35
Speaker 1: Bobby could be having this huge exposure to thallium outside
28:39
Speaker 1: the house, and then basically remnants of the thallium exposure
28:42
Speaker 1: are finding their way back into that leftover tea. So
28:45
Speaker 1: it's a really small amount of thallium that's coming back home.
28:49
Speaker 1: It's being mixed in inside that picture. And so when
28:52
Speaker 1: Joanne and her daughter are drinking from that picture, you
28:55
Speaker 1: know they're only getting a very small amount of thallium.
28:57
Speaker 1: 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 for 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. Colly 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 thermis 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 iced 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 thermos 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,
30:59
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 co workers,
32:05
Speaker 1: Sammy di Pesqual and Robert Marconi, had failed their polygraph exams.
32:10
Speaker 1: In fact, the polygraphic examiner said those two had literally
32:14
Speaker 1: gotten the worst scores he had ever seen. So very quickly,
32:18
Speaker 1: 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. 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 they didn't put thallium in Bobby's thermos.
32:48
Speaker 1: It 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 thoughts 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, Choann 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 about
37:12
Speaker 1: opening up his own business with that settlement money his
37:15
Speaker 1: family was going to get, and the killer just could
37:18
Speaker 1: not let that happen because if Bobby went into business
37:21
Speaker 1: for himself, he would ruin everything. The killer believed that
37:25
Speaker 1: by poisoning Bobby one time that that would kill him
37:29
Speaker 1: and then all their problems would be solved. But the
37:32
Speaker 1: next day Bobby actually seemed fine, sort of unfazed by
37:35
Speaker 1: the poison. So the next time the killer got the chance,
37:39
Speaker 1: they added a little more poison to Bobby's thermos, and
37:42
Speaker 1: when Bobby again stayed healthy the next day, well, the
37:45
Speaker 1: killer just added a little bit more the next time,
37:48
Speaker 1: and they just kept on doing that. They were afraid
37:50
Speaker 1: that if they added too much at once, Bobby might
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
38:27
Speaker 1: hospital and while Bobby was sleeping, the killer slipped a
38:31
Speaker 1: final massive amount of the poison into a soda cup
38:35
Speaker 1: that 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 trust the killer. Because the killer
38:50
Speaker 1: was his own wife, joe Anne Curley, she had actually
38:56
Speaker 1: started poisoning him almost a year before she actually murdered him,
39:01
Speaker 1: but investigators didn't realize this until a new type of
39:04
Speaker 1: toxicology test allowed them to figure out exactly when Bobby
39:08
Speaker 1: was being poisoned. This test worked by analyzing some of
39:12
Speaker 1: the hairs that Bobby still had left on his body. Basically,
39:15
Speaker 1: every time Bobby was poisoned, a chemical marker was left
39:18
Speaker 1: behind in his hair, so as his hair grew out,
39:22
Speaker 1: the strands sort of became timelines that showed exactly when
39:26
Speaker 1: he had been poisoned and when. Coley, 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. She
40:25
Speaker 1: did not want him to have any of it. That
40:26
Speaker 1: was her money. So that was one motivation financially, and
40:30
Speaker 1: the other financial motivation was by killing Bobby, she would
40:34
Speaker 1: also receive the life insurance payout. As for where Joanne
40:38
Speaker 1: actually got the thallium, she would admit that she had
40:41
Speaker 1: used an old container of rat poison that did contain
40:44
Speaker 1: thallium that was manufactured in the US before thallium was
40:49
Speaker 1: banned in household products. On December twelfth, nineteen ninety six,
40:53
Speaker 1: five years after Bobby's death, Joanne was finally arrested and
40:57
Speaker 1: charged with first degree murder. Joanne ultimately pled guilty, and
41:02
Speaker 1: so was sentenced to ten to twenty years in prison.
41:05
Speaker 1: She would wind up serving all twenty years and was
41:07
Speaker 1: released from prison in twenty sixteen. Thank you so much
41:20
Speaker 1: for watching. Let me know what you thought of today's
41:22
Speaker 1: episode in the comments. And remember, we have a whole
41:24
Speaker 1: playlist of true crime episodes ready for you to binge
41:27
Speaker 1: right now, so click here and give them a watch.
41:31
Speaker 1: All Right, until next time, Seeya