00:00:04
[Music]
00:00:06
When Bobby Curley was brought to the
00:00:08
hospital hallucinating and in extreme
00:00:10
pain,
00:00:11
doctors could not find the cause.
00:00:14
At first, they diagnosed a neurological
00:00:17
problem,
00:00:18
but his condition deteriorated.
00:00:21
Something he was given in the hospital
00:00:23
wasn't curing him.
00:00:25
It was killing him.
00:00:30
[Music]
00:00:54
32-year-old Bobby Curley was a young man
00:00:56
with a ready smile, many good friends,
00:00:59
and a loving family. My brother Bobby,
00:01:02
he was a a fun-loving guy. He really
00:01:04
was. He cared for his family very much,
00:01:07
myself and his mom and my other brother
00:01:09
Dave.
00:01:11
Um he was just an all-around great guy.
00:01:13
Bobby was a perfect brother, a great
00:01:15
brother.
00:01:17
We fished together a lot. We'd go to
00:01:18
Canada twice a year fishing,
00:01:20
and we'd have a ball up there.
00:01:23
In August of 1990, Bobby married Joanne
00:01:27
Chopak, a young widow with a 4-year-old
00:01:29
daughter.
00:01:31
Bobby and Joanne had been dating for
00:01:32
about a year following the death of
00:01:34
Joanne's first husband in an automobile
00:01:37
accident.
00:01:39
I gave them my blessings. I said it was
00:01:41
time for him to get married
00:01:44
and have a life of his own.
00:01:46
They had a beautiful wedding. Bob really
00:01:49
wanted to meet a nice girl and start a
00:01:52
family and just enjoy life.
00:01:56
And he said he really loved her, and I
00:01:59
was very happy for Bob.
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The couple moved into Joanne's home on a
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quiet street in Wilkes-Barre,
00:02:06
Pennsylvania.
00:02:08
Bobby worked for the Morgan Corporation
00:02:10
as an electrician, and in May of 1991,
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he and his crew started work on a major
00:02:15
renovation project in a local chemistry
00:02:18
lab.
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We'd go in.
00:02:20
Supposedly,
00:02:22
we were told that everything would be
00:02:23
cleared out of the labs. There would be
00:02:24
nothing in there. But we'd go in a lab
00:02:27
and
00:02:27
there'd be bottles of chemicals here,
00:02:30
stuff over there spilled and that, and
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uh
00:02:34
it was kind of
00:02:36
you know, uh
00:02:37
I thought hazardous.
00:02:39
3 months into the project, Bobby became
00:02:41
ill.
00:02:42
His brother noticed something was wrong
00:02:44
when they met at a local bar one day
00:02:46
after work.
00:02:47
After one beer, he was ready to leave. I
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asked him why, and he said he he just
00:02:53
didn't feel right.
00:02:54
His feet were burning for some reason
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and his feet hurt, and he had a hard
00:02:58
time walking.
00:03:00
And I didn't know what was the problem.
00:03:01
Bobby also complained of numbness in his
00:03:04
hands and pain in his feet. When he went
00:03:07
to the local hospital, doctors diagnosed
00:03:10
his illness as Guillain-Barré syndrome,
00:03:13
a rare condition that causes numbness
00:03:16
and weakness of the extremities.
00:03:18
Although it can be serious, most
00:03:20
patients recover.
00:03:21
Bobby's condition gradually improved and
00:03:24
he was released from the hospital,
00:03:26
but the pain returned, this time even
00:03:29
worse than before. He was also vomiting.
00:03:32
He couldn't even stand up.
00:03:34
And he had to go to the bathroom. I
00:03:36
remember my sister and I had to
00:03:37
literally carry him to the bathroom.
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Once we got him into the bathroom, he
00:03:42
looked at me and he said, "Sue, please
00:03:43
call the ambulance." He knew he was that
00:03:46
sick.
00:03:48
This time, Curley was taken to a
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regional medical center about a hundred
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miles away.
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When he got there, he was hallucinating
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and had to be restrained.
00:03:57
I thought maybe at one point that he
00:03:59
would get better, but he never did. He
00:04:02
got worse and worse. He couldn't sit, he
00:04:05
couldn't lay, he couldn't do Everything
00:04:07
was bothering him.
00:04:09
Although Curley's blood tests were all
00:04:11
normal, Dr. Donovan had a hunch,
00:04:14
and if he was correct,
00:04:16
Bobby Curley was dying.
00:04:21
When Bobby Curley was examined by
00:04:22
doctors in the regional medical center,
00:04:24
his blood tests were all normal,
00:04:27
but his doctors noticed something that
00:04:29
had previously been overlooked.
00:04:32
Bobby Curley was losing his hair.
00:04:36
He had had weakness and numbness in the
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extremities, and he particularly had had
00:04:41
burning and pain on the soles of his
00:04:43
feet, which is a classical description
00:04:45
of arsenic and thallium poisoning. That
00:04:47
coupled with the hair loss almost makes
00:04:49
the diagnosis.
00:04:52
A special urine test confirmed Dr.
00:04:54
Donovan's suspicion.
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Curley was suffering from thallium
00:04:58
poisoning.
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Thallium is a rare and highly toxic
00:05:02
poison, which doesn't show up in routine
00:05:04
lab tests. Before it was banned in the
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United States in the early '70s,
00:05:09
thallium was commonly used in rat
00:05:11
poison.
00:05:12
It can take months to build up in the
00:05:14
body before causing symptoms.
00:05:17
Unfortunately, there is no known
00:05:19
antidote for thallium poisoning.
00:05:22
Well, my first thought was could I save
00:05:24
this patient? Unfortunately, by the time
00:05:26
I was involved in this case and the
00:05:30
diagnosis was being established, there
00:05:32
was very little that can be done.
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And I remember him
00:05:37
pointing to all his
00:05:39
um diplomas and everything else, his
00:05:41
certificates on his walls and saying,
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"All of these
00:05:45
can't do anything for your brother."
00:05:47
He said, "There is just nothing that we
00:05:49
can do. Your brother is going to die."
00:05:54
On September 26th, Bobby Curley lapsed
00:05:57
into a coma.
00:05:59
When there were no longer any signs of
00:06:01
brain activity,
00:06:03
he was taken off life support.
00:06:06
We said our goodbyes to Bobby and
00:06:09
we were we went in and I couldn't see
00:06:11
Bobby going. I couldn't.
00:06:14
Oh, it wasn't easy. I talked to him.
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Uh
00:06:18
who knows, maybe he did hear. We don't
00:06:20
know.
00:06:21
But
00:06:22
it wasn't good. It wasn't fun.
00:06:26
The autopsy confirmed that Curley died
00:06:28
of complications caused by thallium
00:06:31
poisoning, most likely one large dose.
00:06:36
Hospital officials notified the
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Occupational Safety and Health
00:06:39
Administration to see if Curley could
00:06:41
have ingested the thallium while working
00:06:44
at the chemistry lab. One of Curley's
00:06:46
coworkers believed the work site was
00:06:48
unsafe. In one lab, I found a wiping rag
00:06:52
that had a note put on it, "Thallium
00:06:54
wiping rag, touch me and die."
00:06:57
And I remember this was after Bobby was
00:06:59
already sick.
00:07:00
And I remember going to tell the brother
00:07:02
Joey and the other guys uh
00:07:04
"You don't go in that room and work.
00:07:06
You know, there's thallium. It's a heavy
00:07:07
metal. It's a poison and uh
00:07:10
I don't think we should bother going in
00:07:11
there."
00:07:12
Thallium can be ingested, it can be
00:07:14
absorbed through the skin, or it can be
00:07:15
inhaled. So, any one of those routes
00:07:17
could give you um a poisoning-type
00:07:19
exposure.
00:07:21
To find out if thallium could have been
00:07:24
accidentally ingested by workers in the
00:07:26
lab, air samples were collected, counter
00:07:29
and shelf surfaces were swabbed, and
00:07:32
dust and dirt samples were all taken for
00:07:34
analysis.
00:07:37
Joanne Curley told investigators that
00:07:40
her husband had brought home some
00:07:42
cabinets from the laboratory which were
00:07:44
going to be discarded.
00:07:46
The cabinets were also tested for
00:07:48
thallium.
00:07:50
The results of all of these tests were
00:07:52
negative,
00:07:53
and none of the other electricians who
00:07:55
worked with Bobby Curley at the
00:07:57
chemistry lab had thallium in their
00:07:59
systems.
00:08:01
Joanne Curley requested a thallium test
00:08:03
for herself.
00:08:05
Both Joanne and her 4-year-old daughter
00:08:07
Angela tested positive for thallium.
00:08:11
It was not enough
00:08:13
to either cause symptoms or even to need
00:08:15
treatment,
00:08:16
but it did indicate that there had been
00:08:19
abnormal exposure to thallium for both
00:08:21
of them.
00:08:22
Investigators found traces of thallium
00:08:25
in Curley's home.
00:08:27
They found it in two thermoses Bobby
00:08:30
took with him to work every day,
00:08:32
thermoses that usually held iced tea.
00:08:37
I did not know who
00:08:39
placed the thallium in the iced tea
00:08:42
containers.
00:08:43
I cannot confirm that, but I think that
00:08:45
somebody certainly did, and that caused
00:08:48
his death, and homicide is one person
00:08:50
causing the death of another.
00:08:53
Police turned their attention to Bobby
00:08:55
Curley's coworkers and the possibility
00:08:58
of a practical joke gone bad.
00:09:05
When traces of thallium were found in a
00:09:07
thermos Bobby Curley took to work,
00:09:10
police questioned his coworkers. They'd
00:09:13
ask me how well he got along with the
00:09:15
other guys on the job.
00:09:17
Was there any bad blood? Did he have any
00:09:18
arguments? Uh
00:09:21
stuff like that.
00:09:23
Bobby Curley was only 32 years old when
00:09:25
he was named foreman of the electrical
00:09:28
job at the chemistry lab. His promotion
00:09:31
bypassed several older, more experienced
00:09:34
electricians.
00:09:36
Was jealousy a possible motive?
00:09:39
Investigators also discovered that
00:09:41
Curley was sometimes the victim of
00:09:43
practical jokes. Coworkers would
00:09:46
sometimes lace his food with seasonings
00:09:49
as a joke. Curley was just one of uh
00:09:52
uh several people that had jokes played
00:09:54
on him, but it would be like uh hot
00:09:56
pepper and chewing tobacco or
00:09:58
things of that nature.
00:10:00
And it was theorized that possibly
00:10:02
somebody put the thallium in his iced
00:10:04
tea mistaking it for Valium
00:10:08
just to see what it would do to him.
00:10:11
When investigators looked closely at the
00:10:13
thermoses in Curly's home,
00:10:15
they found thallium in the threads of a
00:10:18
pint-sized thermos that Bobby never took
00:10:21
to work.
00:10:22
JoAnn Curly offered an explanation.
00:10:25
[Music]
00:10:28
She recalled that once after her husband
00:10:30
came home from work, she poured some
00:10:32
leftover iced tea from his work thermos
00:10:35
into the smaller pint-sized one so it
00:10:37
wouldn't go to waste.
00:10:48
JoAnn said that she and her daughter may
00:10:50
have consumed some of that iced tea
00:10:52
later, which would explain how they had
00:10:54
thallium in their systems.
00:10:57
Bobby Curly's family grew increasingly
00:11:00
suspicious of JoAnn's possible
00:11:02
involvement in Bobby's death, especially
00:11:05
after thallium was found in Bobby's
00:11:07
thermos.
00:11:09
Curly's family asked authorities if
00:11:11
there was any way to prove whether JoAnn
00:11:14
was involved.
00:11:16
To find out, the district attorney had
00:11:18
Curly's body exhumed for a second
00:11:21
autopsy.
00:11:22
Forensic toxicologist Dr. Frederick
00:11:25
Rieders was particularly interested in
00:11:27
analyzing Bobby Curly's hair.
00:11:31
When a substance like thallium is
00:11:32
circulating in the bloodstream, it will
00:11:34
attach to the hair root, which is a
00:11:36
cell. Thallium then stays on the hair
00:11:39
shaft even as the hair grows out.
00:11:43
Hair grows at the average rate of 1.3 cm
00:11:46
per month, which means that a strand of
00:11:48
hair can contain 6 months or more of
00:11:50
medical history.
00:11:53
Dr. Rieders took samples of Bobby
00:11:55
Curly's hair and cut them into smaller
00:11:58
pieces, a process called segmental
00:12:01
analysis of the hair samples.
00:12:05
Those segments were then analyzed with
00:12:07
the test called atomic absorption
00:12:10
spectrophotometry,
00:12:11
which shows which sections of hair
00:12:14
contain thallium and which sections did
00:12:16
not.
00:12:18
The results were plotted on a calendar
00:12:21
and indicated that Bobby Curly was
00:12:24
exposed to thallium long before he
00:12:26
started work in the chemistry lab.
00:12:30
Curly received a dose of thallium, not a
00:12:33
very large one,
00:12:35
essentially 2 months after they got
00:12:37
married, about a year before he died.
00:12:40
Forensic tests would soon provide police
00:12:43
with even more shocking evidence,
00:12:45
evidence that pointed in only one
00:12:49
direction.
00:12:53
Segmental hair analysis indicated Bobby
00:12:56
Curly had been systematically poisoned
00:12:58
with thallium for almost a year, long
00:13:01
before he started work in the chemistry
00:13:03
lab. And the tests also indicated Bobby
00:13:06
had ingested a massive dose of thallium
00:13:10
as he lay dying in the hospital.
00:13:13
This horrifying scenario was confirmed
00:13:15
when Dr. Rieders discovered a large
00:13:18
concentration of thallium in Bobby
00:13:20
Curly's intestines. He got a very large
00:13:23
dose not too long before he died. The
00:13:26
concentrations in the intestine were a
00:13:29
thousand times higher than the
00:13:31
concentrations in his blood and in his
00:13:33
autopsy tissues,
00:13:36
which meant that they were of very
00:13:37
recent origin.
00:13:39
Using the timeline of ingestion,
00:13:42
investigators eliminated individuals who
00:13:45
had no contact with Bobby Curly during
00:13:47
the times he had been poisoned.
00:13:50
This was an investigation of exclusion,
00:13:53
eliminating people that couldn't have
00:13:55
done it until you got down to the one
00:13:57
person left that had to have done it,
00:13:59
which was JoAnn.
00:14:02
Police also learned that JoAnn and Bobby
00:14:05
were not always a happy couple.
00:14:08
At first, I do think Bob was very happy,
00:14:11
but then
00:14:12
even just even a few months into the
00:14:14
marriage, I wasn't quite sure.
00:14:17
Bob um made some different comments,
00:14:20
maybe that he wished he never got
00:14:21
married.
00:14:23
[Music]
00:14:24
Police discovered that shortly after the
00:14:27
wedding, Bobby made JoAnn the sole
00:14:29
beneficiary of his life insurance
00:14:31
policies worth nearly $300,000.
00:14:35
Forensic tests showed that the
00:14:37
poisonings began approximately 2 months
00:14:40
after Bobby and JoAnn married.
00:14:42
That was a shocker. I couldn't believe
00:14:44
that.
00:14:45
It's like she planned it right from day
00:14:46
one.
00:14:47
When the papers were signed making her
00:14:49
beneficiary
00:14:51
of everything, that's when she started.
00:14:54
Family members recall JoAnn's disturbing
00:14:56
behavior the moment Bobby was taken off
00:14:59
life support.
00:15:00
Remember, none of us could go into the
00:15:02
room and stay there and watch this
00:15:04
happen,
00:15:06
but JoAnn could.
00:15:08
She wanted to stay in the room
00:15:10
and um
00:15:13
see Bob die.
00:15:15
On December 12th,
00:15:17
1996,
00:15:18
JoAnn Curly was arrested and charged
00:15:22
with first-degree murder.
00:15:25
Facing overwhelming forensic evidence
00:15:27
and the possibility of the death
00:15:29
penalty, she pled guilty to a lesser
00:15:32
charge of third-degree murder.
00:15:35
At her sentencing, JoAnn publicly
00:15:38
admitted what forensic testing had
00:15:40
already confirmed, that she had
00:15:43
systematically poisoned her husband with
00:15:46
thallium.
00:15:47
Today, JoAnn Curly is a confessed
00:15:50
killer.
00:15:52
Today, JoAnn Curly surrendered.
00:15:57
In open court and under oath,
00:16:00
JoAnn Curly admitted that she personally
00:16:02
poisoned her husband over a lengthy
00:16:04
period.
00:16:06
She openly admitted to how it was done,
00:16:09
when it was done,
00:16:11
and to the type of poison used.
00:16:14
She placed the thallium in her husband's
00:16:17
iced tea about a dozen times.
00:16:20
Her confession matched almost perfectly
00:16:23
Dr. Rieders' timeline.
00:16:26
And that her confession paralleled it,
00:16:29
I I frankly I was amazed. I wasn't proud
00:16:33
or delighted. I mean, it was good, but I
00:16:35
was amazed.
00:16:37
JoAnn's confession told a horrific tale
00:16:41
of murder motivated by greed. Her answer
00:16:45
when asked point-blank why she did this
00:16:47
was for the money.
00:16:49
I killed him for the money.
00:16:52
JoAnn said she used rat poison she found
00:16:55
in her grandmother's basement.
00:16:59
At first, she used only a small amount
00:17:02
in her husband's iced tea, but later
00:17:05
increased the amount when she feared it
00:17:08
wasn't working.
00:17:17
[Music]
00:17:19
Here's your tea. Uh I think so.
00:17:22
Good day. You too.
00:17:26
[Music]
00:17:30
In the hospital, JoAnn finished what she
00:17:33
started.
00:17:36
[Music]
00:17:47
She poured a massive amount of thallium
00:17:51
into his soda and gave it to him as he
00:17:54
lay dying.
00:18:02
I'll bring you something cold to drink.
00:18:08
[Music]
00:18:14
That's
00:18:15
unbelievable. Be married 2 months and
00:18:17
start killing your husband.
00:18:19
And the last one, that's the one that
00:18:21
that really bothered me.
00:18:23
That he got it while he was in the
00:18:25
hospital cuz I was there that day
00:18:28
and JoAnn was there. I was sitting next
00:18:29
to her and her purse was right there
00:18:30
between us. And to know
00:18:33
now that the thallium was in her purse
00:18:34
at that time was really that that
00:18:36
bothered me. That really bothered me.
00:18:40
Tests revealed that JoAnn and her
00:18:42
daughter ingested minute traces of
00:18:44
thallium sometime after Bobby's death.
00:18:48
JoAnn may have ingested the thallium
00:18:50
intentionally and given a small amount
00:18:52
to her daughter in order to divert
00:18:54
police suspicion.
00:18:57
JoAnn Curly denies this and says she has
00:18:59
no idea how she and her daughter
00:19:01
ingested the trace amounts of thallium.
00:19:04
Ironically, JoAnn Curly was not aware
00:19:07
that thallium was present in the
00:19:09
chemistry lab where Bobby was working
00:19:11
before his death.
00:19:13
Her not knowing what the chemical was
00:19:14
that she was poisoning him with and then
00:19:16
to have found it at the university where
00:19:18
he had last worked, you couldn't ask for
00:19:20
a bigger coincidence when you were
00:19:21
sitting there as JoAnn Curly.
00:19:24
But forensic science had established a
00:19:26
toxicological timeline of a blushing
00:19:29
bride's evil plan.
00:19:35
JoAnn Curly was sentenced to 10 to 20
00:19:37
years in state prison.
00:19:43
Well, obviously she was somebody who was
00:19:45
intent upon carrying out her plan. She
00:19:47
was intent on on a result, and the
00:19:50
result that she wanted was was Bob
00:19:52
Curley's death. And uh
00:19:54
um it was it was obviously a a
00:19:58
a ghoulish type of
00:20:00
a crime that you don't see very often
00:20:03
anywhere in this country.
00:20:05
I could never forgive JoAnn for what she
00:20:07
did to Bob.
00:20:09
To watch him die like that.
00:20:13
It was heartbreaking for me to watch him
00:20:15
die. Any human being to die like that.
00:20:18
No one deserves to die like that.
00:20:22
I know there's evil out there, but you
00:20:24
know, I I just that's the first time I
00:20:26
ever ran into anybody that could
00:20:27
methodically poison somebody and watch
00:20:29
them die.
00:20:31
She's a monster. That's what she is.
00:20:34
I'll always believe that.
00:20:36
In my heart she took somebody away from
00:20:38
us that was very dear to us and we miss
00:20:41
him terribly. I couldn't believe that
00:20:44
they got so much from so little.
00:20:46
From a few strands of hair they were
00:20:48
able to tell
00:20:49
when she gave him the poison, how often
00:20:52
she gave him the poison,
00:20:53
and basically in how how big a doses she
00:20:56
gave him poison.
00:20:58
Right up to the last day.
00:21:00
It's amazing.
00:21:02
[Music]
00:21:17
[Music]
00:21:25
[Applause]
00:21:29
[Music]
