Forensics Helps Avenge Electrician With Thallium Poisoning | The New Detectives | Real Responders

a young electrician suffers an agonizing death the victim's hair may determine whether it was a job-related poisoning or a deliberate act of murder [Music] the wife and mother-in-law of a police officer die from apparent heart attacks just weeks apart a paper trail leads to a possible double homicide and a bizarre double life an engineer with no apparent health problems becomes mysteriously ill and dies bounce check triggers a relentless search for the truth poison is a silent killer but not completely undetectable by utilizing advances in forensic technology detectives can now expose the perpetrator of an invisible death [Music] [Music] on the evening of september 7th 1991 paramedics were called to the home of robert and joanne curley in wilkes-barre pennsylvania [Music] joanne told emergency technicians that her husband robert was in unbearable pain though they could not immediately identify the source of the problem they found his vital signs were dangerously low the 32 year old electrician was rushed to the hospital doctors there were already familiar with robert curley they had treated him for a rare nerve disease just a few days earlier at that time curly complained of pain in his hands and feet as well as hair loss and severe nausea now the escalation of curly symptoms caused them to reconsider their diagnosis the hospital's neurologist quickly ordered new tests this time for exposure to toxic chemicals [Music] two weeks later doctors confirmed that robert curley was suffering from exposure to thallium a toxic heavy metal [Music] thallium a naturally occurring element was widely used in pesticides until the early 1970s but was banned from widespread use after researchers determined that exposure to concentrated amounts could be deadly its use is now restricted to industrial purposes [Music] forensic toxicologist dr frederick readers explains the effects of thallium poisoning it's a nerve poison and it starts out very often with burning feet and then you start getting ascending paralysis you know you can't walk and then eventually you can't use your arms then your eyes start to droop and your neck starts to go and then your brain on your heart and everything goes so it's a very insidious poison for robert curly the information came too late the damage had already been done and the effects were irreversible after suffering a massive heart attack he was placed on life support so it's just best for him soon after he was declared brain dead [Music] robert's wife joanne gave permission for her husband's life support to be turned off a few hours later robert curley was pronounced dead the official cause of death was cardiopulmonary failure due to thallium poisoning now they had to determine how and where he came in contact with the deadly chemical a representative of osha the occupational safety and health administration was sent to investigate joanne curley stated that prior to his death robert had been working on a major renovation on the campus of a local university that sounds good soon after he began the job curly complained to co-workers of flu-like symptoms by the end of the first week he could barely walk he said his feet felt like lead his colleagues noticed that he looked sweaty and red-faced robert curley would spend the next month in and out of hospitals going from one medical crisis to another the facility where robert curley worked housed chemistry labs as well as rooms where chemicals were stored including five containers of thallium salts osha investigators began a painstaking examination of the chemistry lab they needed to identify the source and remove it before others were injured the team took numerous air samples and exhaustively tested various objects and rooms to determine if there was another source of exposure they came up empty there were no signs of tampering or leakage from any of the containers they learned that curley was storing cabinets in his garage that he had taken from the university chemistry labs they searched his home but found no traces of thallium on the cavities [Music] with no answers to explain her husband's death joanne curley contacted a toxicologist at the hospital she seemed terrified that she and her daughter might also have been exposed she demanded that they be tested for thallium [Music] joanne curley tested positive but the amount of thallium in her system was not at a toxic level she would not require treatment her daughter had even smaller amounts in her system about 10 times less than her mother robert curley had over 900 times the lethal dose of thallium doctors insisted that the high levels of the toxic chemical could not have come through skin absorption he must have ingested a fatal dose the hospital passed the test results on to the police after ruling out suicide police concluded that the poisoning was no accident robert curley had been murdered but who would want him dead investigators needed to know every aspect of robert's daily routine as police collected items from the house joanne told detectives that her husband would routinely take a half gallon thermos filled with iced tea to work with him each day any tea left over at the end of the day was shared by the family that night at dinner the half gallon container was collected for future analysis two other thermoses were also collected one quart sized and the other a pint size joanne told investigators that neither of these two containers had ever been taken to work by her husband [Music] all of the items collected were sent off to the lab and tested while waiting for the results police continued their investigation they spoke with robert's fellow employees there were over 150 tradesmen on the renovation team at the university [Music] since they all worked at the place where robert got sick they were all considered suspects police had to determine if any of them had a motive to kill robert curley but no one seemed to dislike the electrician honey come here let me show you something robert's co-workers revealed that joanne had recently come into a large sum of money she had been awarded over a million dollars in a wrongful death suit after her first husband died in a traffic accident [Music] the financial windfall was a source of friction robert wanted to use the money to start his own electrical contracting company i've waited six months for that plus you wanted the yard to be joanne made it clear she had no intention of bankrolling her husband's dreams it's my money well we can talk about it we can't it's my money and you're not getting it [Music] investigators learned that as a result of robert's death joanne stood to collect an additional 300 000 as the sole beneficiary of several insurance policies the information was enough for police to put joanne on the suspect list but since she and her daughter had also been poisoned it seemed unlikely that she was the killer in the lab examiners tested nearly 100 items taken from the curley's home [Music] only two of the items from the curly home tested positive for thalion the half gallon thermos robert took to work with him each day and one of the smaller thermises joanne insisted never left home [Music] for police the findings were troublesome since thalium was found in a thermos robert never took to work there was no direct link between the poisoning and the university [Music] police began to suspect they had been looking in the wrong place for robert's killer the lab results were leaked and published by a local newspaper that was following the investigation [Applause] [Music] joanne told police that she remembered something that would explain why the smaller thermos tested positive she said that shortly after her husband was hospitalized he called her and asked that she bring in pizza and iced tea for a farewell party for his roommate joanne said she transferred the remaining tea from the half gallon thermos to the smaller container and took it with her to the hospital as long as the half gallon thermos remained the focal point of the investigation robert's co-workers could not be dismissed as suspects and none of them had a reason to kill the electrician [Music] the investigation hit another dead end one that would last for the next three years three years after the poisoning death of robert curley the pennsylvania state police took over the investigation with no leads or suspects investigators faced a challenge sergeant dave wandalski was assigned to the case the very first step i you know i made a determination we're going to start right back from scratch right at the very beginning and treat this as if the crime had occurred yesterday investigators began with the forensic findings the original autopsy had not determined when and how often the murder victim had ingested thallium investigators feared the answers they needed had gone to the grave with robert curley on august 23 1994 robert curley's body was exhumed for examination [Music] hair and nail samples were taken from the body dr frederick readers wanted to establish a timeline using robert curley's hair what you can find out with the hair is when the poison was administered the hair grows at the rate of about a third of an inch every month so that you can take a small piece of a hair that's right at the root and you see what's happened just a few days ago you take it at the tip in this case it was a 19 centimeter tip it's basically what happened just about a year earlier the air samples were tested using a furnace atomic absorption in this test a sample is placed in a graphite tube and heated to the point of vaporization a light is shined through the tube [Music] the amount of light absorbed by the vapor determines if thallium is present and how much [Music] robert curley's hair samples told an especially revealing story the hair is long enough so that we can say that in november of 1990 he started getting thallium and probably even earlier and that apparently then there was a you know he got another dose around march of 1991 another one smaller one perhaps sometime in april and then he got a whopping dose in june and then he continued to get doses because instead of going up and down it just kept going up then there was a pause and then we found actually that towards the very end that it was going up like crazy robert curley had started ingesting thallium well before he began working at the university [Music] he had been slowly and methodically poisoned to death then a final massive dose had been administered around the time he was last hospitalized the one person with both motive and access was joanne curley investigators scoured joanne's previous statements of particular interest was her account of bringing pizza and tea in a pint-sized thermos to robert and his hospital roommate in the days before robert's death investigators questioned the roommate richard bonan he gave them a very different story than the one joanne had given a few years earlier [Music] according to bonen neither he nor robert had asked joanne to bring them food or drink nor were they celebrating bonan's departure which did not take place for another two days that night according to his roommate curly's condition worsened dramatically he was screaming in pain summoned help i think the next biggest one would be like he distinctly recalled that joanne served the iced tea in a large half gallon thermos police believed joanne had administered the last fatal dose to her husband as doctors tried in vain to save his life on december 12 1996 joanne curley was arrested and charged with first degree murder [Music] as part of a plea bargain agreement joanne confessed [Music] only months after she and robert wed she realized that the marriage had been a mistake divorce was a possibility but the thought of robert's life insurance policy tantalized her an old jar of rat poison she discovered in the basement seemed to be the answer she could rid herself of her husband and net nearly 300 000 in the bargain [Music] joanne laced robert curley's iced tea each day to divert suspicion she administered a harmless dose to her daughter and herself for a time her cover-up and frequent diversionary tactics worked joanne curley eluded police for over five years according to pennsylvania state trooper robert mcbride the forensic findings were invaluable the forensics gave us a timeline and time periods when people or the murderer would have had to have access to him and by that means we were able to exclude other potential suspects this wasn't really an investigation normally an investigation starts and you zero in on a suspect this was totally opposite this was an investigation of exclusion we went about eliminating people until we got down to one joanne curley was sentenced to serve 10 to 20 years in the pennsylvania state penitentiary curly poisoned her victim slowly over time while other killers aren't as methodical the technique proves just as deadly in this case the names of the victims and killer have been changed on january 30th 1985 patrolman walter wallace raced to memorial general hospital [Applause] as a veteran of the roselle new jersey police department he had often responded to medical emergencies but this call was personal the doctor informed wallace that his wife beth had collapsed and suffered a seizure is she on any medication whatsoever wallace was stunned his wife was fine when he left for work that evening beth had no history of seizures and though she struggled with a weight problem she had been in relatively good health as beth's vital signs rapidly failed doctors could offer the patrolmen little hope [Music] nor could they find an explanation for her symptoms three hours later beth wallace was dead beth and walter had been married for 24 years and had three children together beth's mother rose parker was living with them when the tragedy occurred [Music] because of the sudden and mysterious nature of beth wallace's death the doctor requested an autopsy cause of death was determined to be cardiac arrest a month later tragedy struck the wallace home again rose parker suffered a massive heart attack [Music] paramedics worked frantically to stabilize her and swiftly transported to the hospital but it was too late shortly after her arrival rose parker died at the union county prosecutor's office investigators learned of the deaths from rose parker's lawyer the fact that two healthy women had died suddenly and within a month of each other seemed suspicious he asked investigators to look into walter wallace assistant prosecutor richard rodbart followed up on this information anytime you have a public official much less a police officer who is suspected as being the perpetrator of a crime you have to be extremely sure that the evidence points in that direction before you proceed and before you bring a case against that individual to rule out foul play investigators contacted dr rang lang lin chief toxicologist for the state of new jersey an examination of the file showed that no toxicology testing had been done rose parker's body they quickly learned would yield no clues there had been no autopsy she'd been embalmed and buried but at beth wallace's autopsy tissue samples had been taken these were sent off for extensive toxicological testing it would be six weeks before investigators would receive the results captain edward johnson requested walter wallace's personnel file from the roselle police department from its contents a portrait of the man emerged wallace was an exemplary police officer he was popular with his superiors and peers nothing in the file was out of the ordinary or raised suspicions captain johnson read the file in its entirety including wallace's military discharge papers it showed him to have won several important medals and listed a lot of combat service over in vietnam for whatever reason i can't remember exactly what what sparked it but i was looking at it and i was at first impressed by the record that this fella had then there was something on the 214 that just didn't look right johnson contacted the u.s army to verify the record his suspicions were confirmed he never had any of those medals he was never in special forces in fact we can only we can't verify overseas service on the part of this man so the 214 that was in the police department file was a forgery walter wallace was a liar but was he capable of murder [Music] to find out investigators would need to talk with the people who knew him best his fellow officers there is a certain difficulty obviously in investigating a police officer for for crime because you have to go into his department talk to people that he works with every day and the more people you talk to the more you're signaling where your investigation is going hi jeff you got that investigators made a low profile visit to the roselle police department while wallace was off duty i'll get it back to you in a couple of days okay they didn't expect wallace's colleagues to be forthcoming but one officer surprised them according to the officer there was something perplexing about walter's marital status he suspected that walter had married a woman named jacqueline diehl while he was still married to beth investigators wondered was walter legally divorced or living a double life through beth's friends investigators learned walter was away from home a lot he told beth he was being treated at a va hospital for exposure to agent orange and that's why sometimes for a week or so he might be gone or he might be gone for the whole weekend and she's not going to see her hear from and she's not going to be able to get in touch with him because the ward that he's in over at the hospital doesn't have any kind of telephone he was pretty and for a while he was pretty good at juggling all of this investigators traveled to nearby elizabeth new jersey to question wallace's other wife thank you well jacqueline diehl confirmed that she and walter had been married on november 2nd 1984 three months prior to beth wallace's death she said walter had divorced his wife the summer before walter had brought over the divorce papers when it was final and the two had celebrated [Music] i'm so excited investigators found the divorce decree among documents provided by rose parker's lawyer numerous irregularities made them question its validity investigators searched for the original divorce degree at the county courthouse there was no record under the name of wallace they then searched under the case number only to discover it belonged to somebody else's divorce the case name clearly read martin vs martin not wallace versus wallace police surmised that wallace used his badge to obtain the martin's divorce decree wallace altered the document in order to obtain a marriage license with jacqueline investigators sent the document to the fbi lab for further analysis they had caught walter in another lie and this one indicated a possible motive for murder but investigators were perplexed why would wallace fake a divorce and kill his wife rather than legally end the marriage [Music] looking for a potential financial motive investigators scrutinized beth's will walter stood to inherit everything including the family house but something about this document also caught the investigator's eye the will was dated just two months prior to beth's death the timing seemed too convenient further investigation revealed the existence of an earlier will in this version beth had left everything to her mother she left only one dollar to her husband investigators wondered if he had forged the second will and then killed his wife the new will was notarized by a secretary in the roselle police department but she denied ever witnessing the will or affixing her seal to the document the secretary noted that wallace often worked at her unlocked desk he could have easily used her notary seal to certify a document without her knowledge investigators had built a strong circumstantial case against walter wallace but they needed proof that his paper trail led to murder investigators in roselle new jersey suspected officer walter wallace was responsible for the death of his wife beth now they hope to support their circumstantial case with hard proof that wallace poisoned her four months into the case the new jersey state lab reviewed the results of a general toxicological screening of beth's blood tissue and urine because the screen only tested for the use of illegal drugs and alcohol it came up negative laboratory technicians went further subjecting the samples to a battery of tests to rule out prescription drugs heavy metals and a number of ingestible toxins [Music] still they found nothing to explain why beth died but they had yet to test for one particularly insidious killer cyanide samples from the victim were prepared in test tubes [Music] a color reagent was then added if cyanide is present a reaction occurs ultimately the sample turned a dark shade of purple [Music] beth wallace had cyanide in her system when she died [Music] to determine the concentration of the poison the sample was read by a spectrophotometer a lethal dose of cyanide is about 2.5 milligrams per liter results showed that beth wallace had nearly twice that much in her blood and more than three times that amount in her spleen [Music] the detective's next move was to tie walter wallace to the cyanide every detective that we had in the major crimes unit went out there and started banging on doors in the factory district that they have over in roselle we went to every every one of us like whether you think they have cyanide or not stop and ask do you have cyanide are you missing any did anybody ever come looking for any of hands make sure you wash your hands because the canvassing paid off a clerk at a metal plating factory revealed that wallace purchased a quantity of potassium cyanide the officer told him he needed the chemical to raise the serial number on a handgun on june 18 1985 walter wallace arrived at police headquarters and was asked to report to the chief's office there he was placed under arrest and escorted to jail a warrant was issued to search the wallace residence due to the nature of their work team members are skilled at conducting meticulous searches james durkin was a member of that team [Music] once we got to the house it was somewhat evident why the chief had asked us the house was a littered mess from attic to basement on that particular day we had a team up in the attic as well as the basement and we were going to meet in the middle police removed some 100 items from the wallace home a manual typewriter was found hidden behind the couch [Music] legal documents including the original martin divorce decree were found in a drawer [Music] upstairs the narcotic squad found a trap door leading to the attic writing samples along with a page of forged signatures were collected within 15 minutes a team member discovered a crucial piece of physical evidence bingo an empty bottle have you got the handwritten label read potassium [Music] cyanide the items were examined in the laboratory along with the divorce decree and will a confiscated typewriter was found to have a spacing error consistent with the altered documents [Music] more damaging signatures on several of the papers were determined to be forged by tracing finally cyanide was found in the bottle recovered from wallace's attic the label was in his handwriting in may 1986 walter wallace was found guilty of bigamy and the first degree murder of his wife police theorized that walter wallace's double life was becoming too complicated instead of filing for divorce walter chose murder [Music] but his attempt to finance a new life at his wife's expense was his undoing [Music] wallace was sentenced to serve from 30 years to life in prison he was never charged or tried for the murder of his mother-in-law rose parker due to lack of evidence the secret life of walter wallace was motive for murder for other killers the motive is far less complicated in this case the names of the victim and killer have been changed on july 17 1991 dana jacobs awoke to find her husband larry violently ill it seemed like food poisoning he had intense stomach pain with vomiting and diarrhea when his condition hadn't improved by morning she decided to take him to the emergency room she stopped at the neighbors to drop off their children [Music] larry had been in and out of the hospital for weeks with gastrointestinal problems jacobs was admitted at humana suburban hospital in louisville kentucky doctors administered intravenous fluids to keep him from dehydrating there was cause for concern although he displayed the classic symptoms of food poisoning he did not respond to treatment [Music] the next day dana called john ballier with tragic news her husband larry was dead she asked him not to say anything to the children until she could tell them in person i think it had an impact on us just having the kids there having a good time oblivious to the fact that their father had died and that their lives were going to change probably dramatically an autopsy was performed with dana's permission doctors wanted to know what had killed the otherwise healthy 41 year old man apparently jacobs had suffered a massive heart attack yet there was no indication of heart disease or what triggered the attack his sudden death was considered a mystery on monday morning john ballier related the sad events of the weekend to his colleagues at the commonwealth attorney's office of course the kids play together hey john how are you shortly afterward ballet received intriguing news from a fellow attorney [Music] his brother-in-law owned a chemical company dana jacobs had been a recent customer in fact she came in the day her husband got sick she purchased a chemical called colchicine his brother-in-law only remembered the purchase because dana's check had bounced and his brother-in-law had called him complaining about the fact that this check had bounced and he thought it was kind of an interesting coincidence that the two events involved the same family ballet researched the chemical he found that colchicine in small doses is used to treat gout larger amounts could be fatal he contacted barbara weekley jones assistant chief medical examiner for the commonwealth of kentucky there is a fine line between therapeutic levels meaning giving relief from gaddy arthritis and levels of the drug that can cause significant side effects and the main side effects of this drug are nausea vomiting and diarrhea which when it reaches a bad severe state can cause death of an individual dr weekley jones was aware that the general drug screen performed at autopsy would not reveal a specific toxin such as colchicine she prepared blood and tissue samples for further testing she was not optimistic the test results would prove definitive if jacobs had ingested colchicine it had probably been eliminated from his bloodstream prior to his death their only hope was to find traces of the chemical in specific organs because the gastrointestinal tract absorbs it i get partially metabolized in the liver and it gets excreted in the kidney so those three organs would be the most likely areas to find any residual coaches seeing at the time of the autopsy it would take two weeks to obtain the test results investigators would have to wait for the answer to a crucial question had larry jacobs been murdered [Music] larry jacobs a 41-year-old father of two had died of a mysterious stomach ailment john valier jacob's neighbor and a commonwealth attorney was suspicious [Music] he assigned detective pat conklin of the jefferson county police department to investigate ballet told conkling that the dead man's wife had purchased a potentially lethal chemical called colchicine just days before his [Music] death the detective's first order of business was a visit to the state medical examiner's office [Music] the results of larry jacobs toxicology test had finally come in [Music] he had 160 nanograms per milliliter of colchicine in his system more than enough to kill him [Music] it was time to confront dana jacobs because i just have a few questions i'd like to ask you first i have to inform you that but investigators were surprised by the reception they received she invited us in there was no hint of any problems she was very cordial with us we never had the first bit of hesitation on her part of talking with us she readily admitted to buying the culture scene she said she needed the substance to kill algae growing in her swimming pool investigators asked if she still had any left she said she had used it all in the pool i asked her how she came across the chemical and she gave us the name of several businesses that suggested that she use this chemical to control the algae detectives contacted these businesses in an effort to confirm dana's story no one remembered telling her that colchicine could be used to control algae in fact most had never even heard of the substance investigators were at an impasse they knew how larry jacobs died but not why perhaps an examination of the couple's marriage would yield more clues investigators visited larry's sister she told police that the couple was in financial trouble as a result of dana's compulsive spending members had lent them thousands of dollars [Music] none of which had ever been repaid larry told his sister that he had taken steps to keep dana's spending under control but to no avail their credit cards were at or over their limit one of larry's co-workers recalled having to lend him money on a business trip to pay for meals and a hotel room the embarrassed engineer explained that he had neither cash nor available credit at the time and there was insurance money [Music] larry had two life insurance policies on himself one for 138 thousand dollars and the other totaling 250 000 [Music] detectives dug deeper into dana jacobs background they learned that the respectable wife and mother had a troubled past before she was married dana had served time for bad check charges [Music] from her prison records investigators learned that a counselor had diagnosed her as a pathological liar who urgently needed psychiatric treatment [Music] dana jacobs was arrested and indicted on murder charges in january of 1992 police were certain they had cornered a killer but a new clue was about to emerge a clue that could possibly put her in the clear five months after larry jacob's death his widow dana was indicted for murder out on bail dana was back at home with her children just weeks before her trial she made a discovery that could exonerate her a suicide note from her husband in it he said the financial strain was too much to bear investigators were skeptical but the note did appear to be in larry jacob's handwriting moreover it was well known that the deceased had been depressed about money matters with his background in chemical engineering it was possible he was familiar with colchicine and used it to end his life the suicide note was forwarded to stephen slighter the commonwealth's document expert the first thing he noticed was that different pens had been used you'd have a paragraph or a sentence or two that's a fairly thin line a small point writing instrument and then it would shift to a medium or a broad instrument for another word or two or three and back again it quickly became apparent that the note had been created by cutting and pasting words and phrases from larry jacobs writings after it was pasted up the close examination of the note showed that it had first been copied by passing it through a fax machine to produce a copy in the five and a half months following her husband's death dana jacobs spent close to two hundred thousand dollars half of the insurance money she'd collected one of her first purchases had been a fax machine the suicide note she doctored represented a last desperate gamble to throw authorities off her trail another piece of damning evidence was provided by john ballier's daughter i know how she did it oh that's not something yeah dad i really do i know how she did it sarah ballet testified that she saw dana jacobs fill in clear gel caps with white powder mrs jacobs told the girl that she was making vitamins to put into her husband's food [Music] she explained it was the only way she could get him to take his vitamins police theorized that dana jacobs used a familiar household routine to poison her unsuspecting husband [Music] on november 23 1992 dana jacobs was convicted of first degree murder she was sentenced to 28 years in prison lethal but invisible poison has historically enabled killers to strike without fear of reprisal but unseen no longer means undetected thanks to advances in forensic science detectives have new tools to catch the killer and unravel the mystery behind an invisible death you

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 227,963

Keywords: new detectives documentary, true crime, crime documentary, crime documentary murders, crime documentary murders 2020, new detectives, crime reenactment, crime stories, serial killer documentary, crime documentary 2021

Id: SF2fbpePFPM

Length: 49min 49sec (2989 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 08 2021