Toxic Death | FULL EPISODE | The New Detectives

[Music] on maryland's eastern shore a couple's romantic weekend getaway turns lethal when a man dies in a deadly blaze though all of the evidence suggests a tragic accident a routine investigation exposes some troubling irregularities in florida an apparently healthy woman dies in her home and examiners can find nothing to explain to death though police suspect murder years will pass before new forensic technology offers any hope of proving it when an untraceable poison is used to commit murder homicide detectives face a difficult challenge for help they turn to forensic toxicologists to follow a killer's tracks and expose a toxic [Music] death [Music] st michael's is an historic fishing village turned resort on maryland's eastern shore quaint tree-lined streets and old homes and boutiques have made it a popular weekend getaway tugboat county in the early morning hours of february 15 1998 an emergency dispatcher received a frantic call from a clerk at a local resort is there anybody in the room one of the rooms was on fire and he believed a guest was trapped inside eastern i-36 respond to st michael's resort fire at least one subject in the room within minutes rescue workers from the talbot county fire department and officers from the maryland state police arrived at the location the blaze confined to a single room was quickly brought under control though the hotel clerks had managed to pull the guest from the room the victim 35 year old stephen frico was pronounced dead at the scene his face had been burned beyond recognition police learned that shortly before 1 30 a.m the victim's wife rushed into the hotel lobby to report that her room was on fire the clerks called 9-1-1 and then rushed to the room [Music] they found the victim lying in bed and quickly pulled him out but it was too late [Music] the victim's wife 33 year old kim rico said she and her husband steve were spending valentine's weekend together [Music] earlier that evening she and steve had dinner with friends at the hotel's dinner theater kim said steve had been drinking heavily and had taken antidepressants and cold medication kim said that steve became sloppy drunk she and her husband returned to their room a few hours later steve continued to drink then he began pressuring her for sex you're drunk when kim refused he became angry hey hey to avoid a fight she grabbed her things and left to go for a drive [Music] when she returned a few hours later she made her way into the room and was immediately overcome by smoke [Music] she couldn't believe her husband of 10 years was gone investigators searched for answers to explain the deadly blaze maryland deputy state fire marshal mike mulligan began by looking for the fire's origin the point of origin is key in determining the cause of the fire and determining whether it was accidental or purposely set and what you do is you begin at the the area of least fire damage and you progress into the most fire damage and the idea is that the spot where you have the most fire damage the fire has been burning the longest on the nightstand next to the bed investigators found their first clue a partially melted soft drink bottle the heat softened the plastic on the side that faced the fire while it was still cold on the other side and the plastic began to melt and pointed the neck of the bottle toward the point of origin the fire had apparently started near the pillow where steven rico's head would have been burn patterns showed its progress across the bed and down to the charred carpet then investigators uncovered a possible cause of the fire on the bedside table they found an open package of cigars one was missing for fire marshals the reason behind the blaze seemed tragically clear we could eliminate the electrical we could eliminate the heating and the air conditioning units we could eliminate the wood burning stove and what did that leave us with well one of the possibilities was careless smoking at autopsy the medical examiner found that steven rico had suffered severe burns to his head arms and torso but surprisingly no traces of soot or carbon monoxide were found in the victim's lungs that suggested he had stopped breathing before the room had filled with smoke having found no cause of death blood and tissue samples were collected for further analysis toxicologists at the maryland state police crime lab confirmed that there was no carbon monoxide present in the victim's blood or tissue and blood alcohol test results were percent examiners found no evidence suggesting that steve had been drinking or taking pills as his wife claimed [Music] the results were passed on to the maryland state police homicide detective joe gamble struggled to reconcile all the facts of the case they could not determine how he died they could tell us that he didn't die of any natural causes there was no alcohol in stephen's blood no no soot carbon monoxide in his lungs that did not jive with what kimberly rico told us that night to resolve the inconsistencies detectives questioned the victim's wife again [Music] kim krieko was surprised by the lab findings in addition to drinking heavily at dinner steve had purchased beer and cigars earlier that day she admitted her marriage had been rocky but claimed she and steve had managed to work out their problems everything had been going so well as the questioning continued kim grew nervous then she asked for an attorney and ended the interview to find out what kim rico was hiding police contacted the couple's friends [Music] all agreed that kim and steve had been working hard to salvage their marriage but none of the friends had ever known steve to smoke cigars [Music] the inconsistent information in addition to the autopsy findings led investigators to suspect that steve rico's death had not resulted from an accident as his wife suggested to prove it they would first need to determine exactly how the fire started [Music] they turned to arson investigators at the maryland state fire marshal's office [Music] at a training facility in eastern maryland fire marshals looked to recreate the damage observed at the scene they lit the same brand of cigar found inside the room and placed it on a pillow they'd obtained from the hotel it smoldered then went out the ash from the lit cigar failed to ignite the flame retardant pillow we took the cigars and placed them on the pillows that did this repeatedly for approximately an hour and a half and what the test showed us was that carol smoking could not have been the cause of ignition caused by the pillow though investigators now suspected an accelerant had been used to start the blaze lab tests fail to expose any traces of a flammable substance however the accelerant might have burned away during the fire [Music] the only other way investigators could ignite the pillow and recreate the burn damage was by applying a makeshift torch directly to it [Music] the test confirmed that the the fire was incendiary in nature that it was not an accidental fire it was not a cause of careless smoking the fire had been intentionally set the findings were passed on to police soon after stephen crico's death was officially classified as a homicide [Music] authorities on maryland's eastern shore proved that a hotel room fire that claimed the life of 35 year old steve rico was not the result of careless smoking as his wife kim suggested having found no traces of smoke in the victim's lungs it was also clear that steve rico was already dead when the fire was set but the medical examiner was unable to determine exactly how he died all of the findings led police to believe that kim rico had murdered her husband now they look for physical evidence to prove it police tracked down her co-workers at a washington dc hospital where she was employed as a surgical technician no one believed kim was capable of murder however one doctor did recall an unusual conversation he had with her a month earlier kim had been complaining about her marriage and jokingly offered him fifty thousand dollars to kill her husband what are you talking about not taking her seriously he joked back telling her she could put stephen to sleep forever by injecting him with a drug called succinylcholine [Music] now what would that do to someone kim's co-worker described the drug as a powerful muscle relaxant used to prevent involuntary movement during surgery as a surgical technician kim used it nearly every day homicide detective joe gamble kimberly rico's profession was significant working as a surgical technician and that she had access to certain drugs that other people in the hospital that normal citizens don't have access to one of those drugs is we learned with suctional choline though toxicology tests turned up no traces of the drug in stephen rico's body detectives learned that succinylcholine breaks down almost immediately leaving no detectable traces behind in essence the drug is a perfect murder weapon it's injected into the tissue doesn't have to go into the bloodstream and it causes your muscles to relax which includes your heart and your diaphragm and your breathing and uh with enough enough succinylcholine you just stop breathing and your heart stops and you die with the homicide investigation taking on a clearer focus detectives return to the crime scene [Music] while they search the hotel for a syringe or a drug vial divers combed the miles river located directly behind the resort they spent hours combing the bottom of the river and the surrounding area but their search turned up nothing [Music] a few days later however a hotel employee found something lying in the grass [Music] it was a discarded syringe the evidence was forwarded to the maryland state police crime lab a thorough analysis of the needle failed to produce any traces of the victim's blood or succinylcholine examiners applied a laser light to the evidence hoping to find fingerprints that may have been left behind but all of their efforts turned up nothing with no obvious motive or a murder weapon investigators would have to rely on the circumstantial evidence to prove that kim rico had killed her husband and their best hope was to establish that she had staged the crime scene to throw investigators off her trail so we set out of course to find out where the alcohol came from and where the cigars came from hopefully proving that kimberly bought these things or purchased these things and to stage the room to set the room up what if i could take a couple minutes detective gamble canvassed convenience stores near the resort he found a clerk who recalled a woman matching kim rico's description the store employee told him that around the time of the murder the woman came in to purchase a six-pack of beer and a pack of cigars the customer had made a lasting impression on the clerk the store clerk remembered kimberly that day because kimberly was particularly rude kimberly had been so abrupt with her and that stood out in the store clerk's mind that's how she was able to remember her police collected a package of cigars like the ones purchased by kim rico they were the same brand found in the rico's hotel room investigators also collected the stamp gun used to attach the price stickers to the merchandise the items were delivered to forensic document examiner joan dimartino at the maryland state police crime lab to establish a link between the evidence she began comparing the characteristics of the price sticker on the cigar pack found at the crime scene to the one collected from the convenience store the characteristic of most significance would be the uh design cuts the tamper proof die cuts that uh caused something to break away if if say a near to well person wanted to peel off the the price tag it would break away these are common to a partic to a particular manufacturer a visual inspection revealed no differences between all of the stickers collected using an infrared light source dimartino looked for commonalities and differences within the ink itself she found that the dyes and pigments that make each ink unique were the same on both cigar packs they had all originated from the same stamp gun collected from the convenience store kim rico had purchased the cigars found at the crime scene something she had previously denied police were building a strong circumstantial case against kim rico but having revealed no official cause of death and no obvious motive behind the homicide investigators were still a long way from proving murder maryland police were convinced that 33 year old surgical technician kim rico had murdered her husband with an untraceable drug then staged the scene to make his death appear as a tragic accident but so far all of the evidence amassed against her was circumstantial looking to uncover a motive police re-interviewed people close to the couple kimberly i understand that you're friends with her one friend admitted that just before steven's death kim said that she wanted to divorce him [Music] kim had been having an affair with a man she'd met a few months before they'd been spending a lot of time together and kim was no longer interested in salvaging her marriage to steve but kim was dreading a prolonged and costly divorce the information was enough for investigators to obtain a warrant to search kim's home [Music] there in a desk drawer they found two life insurance policies taken out on stephen rico kim stood to gain two hundred thousand dollars from her husband's death it was the break homicide detectives had been looking for we felt that kimberly had a motive she had a large amount of money to gain she had been involved in an affair that she wanted to move forward with and those are the two things that we felt that kimberly wanted to gain by the murderer stephen rico a warrant was issued for kim rico's arrest but before police could act they received some startling information kim rico had attempted suicide one of kim's friends had become concerned when she hadn't heard from her in some time when she went to check on her she found kim unconscious on the floor an empty bottle of pills lay nearby [Music] kim rico the prime suspect in her husband's death was rushed to a nearby hospital though she was in critical condition medical personnel had gotten to her on time [Music] a few days later kim rico was released from the hospital police were there waiting she was taken into custody and charged with murder based on the evidence investigators believe that kimberly rico was driven by greed and a desire to further her affair [Music] on february 15 1998 she injected her unsuspecting husband with the untraceable drug succinocholine it paralyzed him immediately she staged the scene to make it appear stephen had been drinking beer and smoking cigars [Music] then she set the room on fire kimberly rico was convicted of arson and first degree murder she was sentenced to life in prison in maryland the circumstantial evidence alone was enough to convict kim rico of killing her husband but in florida investigators would need irrefutable scientific proof in order to win a murder conviction situated in bay county on florida's coastal panhandle lies the affluent and peaceful community of panama beach there around 9 a.m on the morning of may 30 1991 18 year old jennifer cybers went into her parents bedroom to wake up her mother kaye [Music] but kaye wasn't responding panicked jennifer called her father florida state medical examiner [Music] he told her not to worry he was sending help and said he would be there shortly emergency workers and a doctor from the medical examiner's office were dispatched to the scene k was unresponsive and showed no signs of light the 52-year-old mother of three was pronounced dead at the scene the apparent victim of a heart attack a bay county sheriff's deputy heard the call over the radio and responded to the house [Music] he was informed that the death had resulted from natural causes and he wasn't needed a short while later the victim's husband medical examiner dr william cybers arrived at the house he learned that his wife of more than 20 years was gone dr cybers asked that her body be taken directly to the funeral home the following day agents from the florida department of law enforcement received a call an anonymous informant was troubled by several irregularities surrounding kaye's death and the actions of her husband after hearing all of the details special agent scotty sanderson agreed to take a closer look at dr cyber's certain red flags came up he was a medical examiner no autopsy had been performed k cybers was in apparent good health he did not call 911 after learning of her distress and the police were notified and sent to the home but were asked to leave by staff of dr cyrus as a medical examiner dr cybers knows that all unattended deaths require that an autopsy be performed his wife's was no exception to find out why he hadn't followed protocol investigators arranged for an interview it's important that an autopsy be conducted could you tell me why you didn't order it dr cybers admitted he had made a mistake he was distraught and wasn't thinking clearly he loved kaye very much and her death was completely unexpected the night before she died the two had gone out for a nice dinner later on she felt that uh she had a little she's got a really bad chest pain but around 4 am she woke him up i can hardly breathe it hurts when i breathe kaye was experiencing pain in her chest and left shoulder dr cybers was concerned kaye had a family history of heart disease and diabetes but she refused to go to the hospital dr cyber said he tried to draw some blood so he could have it tested the following morning but he said he botched the job after two unsuccessful attempts he gave up i'll be right back eventually kaye fell back asleep [Music] dr cyber said he called to check up on her several times the following morning but he never got through as a matter of routine agent sanderson asked for the syringe but dr cybers didn't have it he said that on his way to work the following morning he tossed the needle in the trash and then disposed of the garbage in a dumpster a few blocks away is that typically what your family does with household garbage most of our garbage yes all of the information including the manner in which the needle was disposed troubled agent sanderson he's a physician he has a uh a needle on a syringe exposed in a household garbage throwing it in the garbage bin supposedly down the street all of these different factors were alarming me and the other agents that were with me about what we were going to be working troubled by all of the irregularities investigators began looking deeper into k cyber's medical history fdle special agent dennis norid poured over her records looking for any clue that might help explain her death he found no record suggesting she suffered from diabetes or heart disease as her husband claimed we had gathered documents from the time that kaye was born up until the time that she had died in panama city and there was nothing to ever indicate that she would have experienced any type of health problems the information suggested that dr cybers was not being truthful about his wife's medical history to find out why investigators needed to examine the victim's body after obtaining a warrant authorities were dispatched to the funeral home to retrieve kaye's remains they arrived just in time agents were dispatched to that funeral home where they found she had been embalmed and was in a casket for showing and they were about to transport her body back to her home in iowa dr cyber's it seemed was in a hurry to bury his wife kay cyber's body was transported to an independent medical examiner's office located in pensacola it was now up to them to determine if her death had resulted from natural causes or something else authorities in bay county florida look to explain the death of kay cybers a seemingly healthy 52-year-old mother of three found dead in her home though her husband medical examiner dr william cybers claimed she had a history of heart disease and diabetes her medical records told a different story investigators hoped an autopsy would give them answers medical examiner dr gary cumberland looked to pinpoint a specific cause of death an external examination revealed the presence of two distinct puncture marks on the victim's right arm that was consistent with dr cyber's claim that he tried to draw blood from her shortly before her death but the marks were also consistent with something being injected into the body i've seen some fresh image around these and so i think that they occurred before she died so let's make sure that we get some of that tissue for toxicology as well as general histology dr cumberland focused his internal examination on the victim's heart there was no evidence of disease or any signs of damage in fact all of the victims organs seemed healthy dr cumberland found nothing to explain why k cybers had died so suddenly troubled by the findings he collected tissue and blood samples for further analysis basically what we have is a person who died with no natural disease process responsible for death and in those instances we start looking for toxicologic agents i is there some drug or poison that she had been given that resulted in her death the samples were forwarded to the dade county medical examiner's office but toxicologists were at a disadvantage k cyber's body had been embalmed soon after her death and those fluids had likely destroyed any traces of drugs or poisons that may have been injected into her system test results turned up negative the findings did little to ease investigators suspicions that k cybers had met with foul play we have agents that will be accompanying this material down to despite the lack of hard evidence they refused to close the case [Music] though the victim's husband explained the puncture marks on kaye's arms had resulted from an attempt to draw blood investigators formulated a different theory [Music] they speculated he had injected her with a lethal drug but a search of dumpsters near the couple's house failed to produce a syringe or any evidence that could prove it investigators turned to the couple's children hopeful they could shed light on a possible motive for murder but the cyber's daughter insisted that her parents relationship was strong she seemed normal her father was dedicated to kaye and the children the daughter said she had last seen her mother the night before she died yeah wonderful we went to that new restaurant when her parents returned home from dinner they seemed happy and both were in good moods she and her mother stayed up and talked for some time none of the children believed that their father had anything to do with their mother's death thank you the investigation was going nowhere jerry blover we do thank you for coming today authorities had no choice but to release the victim's body to her family remains were flown to her hometown in iowa there she was laid to rest but agents refused to give up they scoured through the case files looking for anything they may have overlooked in his statements to police dr cybers claimed he had tried to telephone his wife numerous times on the morning of her death to check on her [Music] investigators subpoenaed his cell phone records and found he was telling the truth but fdle agent dennis norrid noticed something else numbers that were called over about a three month time period there were approximately 140 some odd calls made from dr cybers to a particular phone number two of those calls took place on the morning of kaye's death the number was traced to a former lab technician who worked with dr cybers the woman admitted that the two were close friends at the hospital i cared for him he had called her the day of kaye's death but she said he was grief-stricken and just wanted to be consoled but investigators sensed she wasn't telling them everything [Music] under persistent questioning she admitted she and dr cybers were romantically involved initially she considered him a father figure same here but as they began spending more time together her feelings for him deepened and soon they fell in love [Music] how do you relate to him she didn't believe he was capable of murder investigators disagreed [Music] dr cybers wasn't the dedicated husband and father he portrayed himself to be they theorized he had murdered his wife in order to clear the way to pursue his affair police forwarded k-cybers tissue samples collected at autopsy to the national medical services lab in willow grove pennsylvania one of the most advanced forensic labs in the country there renowned toxicologist dr frederick readers agreed to look into the case [Music] and after reviewing k cyber's autopsy report he found a potential clue an elevated level of potassium had been detected in her eye fluid [Music] though potassium occurs naturally in the body in small amounts if a large dose is injected into a person's bloodstream it will cause the heart to stop immediately in the normal human body potassium and iron are found in equal amounts within red blood cells to find out if k cybers had an unnatural amount of potassium in her body toxicologists used a newly developed system that measures the ratio of potassium to iron [Music] the procedure was successful dr readers reviewed the findings the ratio of potassium to iron in critical areas were much higher than normal which led me to the conclusion that potassium had been administered to this person and that was potentially a cause of death for it the findings had provided powerful evidence that k cybers had not died of natural causes but to confirm the results examiners needed additional samples from the victim's body for investigators that presented a problem in the state of iowa where k cybers was buried state law will only allow a body to be exhumed if the family gives its consent dr cybers who insisted he had nothing to hide refused to give his permission desperate not to let their case slip away authorities turned to florida state's attorney harry shorestein for help he agreed to prosecute the case but almost immediately he faced a crushing setback the only scientific evidence that could prove murder had been challenged by defense experts because potassium occurs naturally in the body the judge ruled that without additional samples there was insufficient evidence to prove that k cybers had been administered a lethal dosage very simply stated when you die your red blood cells almost immediately break down they're full of potassium and as a result the potassium within your body goes everywhere and the general thought among the scientific community is that if you're injected with potassium unless you could get to the body almost immediately you couldn't distinguish between the potassium that had been injected in the body and the potassium that is within your body naturally despite the court's conclusions everything authorities had learned convinced them dr cybers had murdered his wife but until they could find irrefutable evidence they would be unable to prove it [Music] several years had gone by since the 1991 death of 52 year old k cybers though toxicology tests convinced florida authorities that her husband had injected her with a lethal dose of potassium the court ruled the findings were inadmissible still special prosecutor harry shorstein didn't believe that k cybers died of heart disease as her husband medical examiner william cybers had suggested the examination of the heart that had taken place at the autopsy showed no indication whatsoever of any heart disease and we were going to proceed with the trial without an actual cause of death just based on the circumstantial evidence in february of 1997 a warrant was issued for the arrest of dr william cybers he had since retired and married the woman he had been having an affair with he voluntarily turned himself into police because of health problems he was released on three hundred thousand dollars bail but not before being fitted with an electronic monitoring device he was only allowed to leave his home to visit attorneys and to attend church with the trial approaching prosecutors struggled to prepare their case for a jury then they received some unexpected news in the years since k cyber's death toxicologists at the national medical services lab in willow groves pennsylvania had developed new forensic tests that could detect previously untraceable poisons though the samples collected at autopsy were several years old according to dr kevin ballard they had been well preserved [Music] the tissues from his cybers were taken from her at the time of her original autopsy but she had already been embalmed those tissues those organs were maintained frozen all during all the years between the time of her death and the time of our analyses first dr ballard wanted to test the samples for the presence of paralyzing drugs these drugs are known to increase potassium levels in the body which might explain why high levels of potassium were found in k's tissue samples years earlier he subjected the samples to a process called qtof which stands for quadrupole time of flight essentially the process acts as a molecular microscope first all of the molecules that are present in the sample are separated each individual molecule is then broken down into pieces [Music] using sophisticated detection equipment the individual pieces are then weighed the molecular weight of the samples is then compared to the molecular weight of known paralyzing drugs in tissue samples taken from k cyber's kidney the analysis revealed lethal amounts of the drug succinyl choline suctional choline and these other paralyzing drugs when they're administered to a person they paralyze the skeletal muscles of our bodies these are the muscles that move our limbs they also paralyze the specialized skeletal muscle which is the diaphragm which is the primary muscle that we use when we breathe so part of the effect is to stop a person's breathing the analysis had finally given investigators the evidence they needed to prove murder as a physician the victim's husband had easy access to the drug and the knowledge to use it with deadly effect [Music] driven by the desire to further his affair and to avoid a costly divorce police believe that on may 30th 1991 dr william cybers injected his wife with a lethal amount of the paralyzing drug he then tried to use his position as chief medical examiner to conceal his crime state of florida in january 2000 dr william cybers was convicted of the murder of his wife kaye he was sentenced to life in prison killers believe that by using an untraceable drug their crimes will go unpunished but with each advance in forensic science there are fewer poisons that can escape detection and that means a better chance for investigators to solve those once elusive cases of toxic death [Music] you

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Id: 41AaPY8Y_2Q

Length: 48min 54sec (2934 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021