00:00:06
in 10 months time carol heller went to
00:00:09
the hospital 31 times complaining of
00:00:11
various ailments that her doctors
00:00:13
thought were all in her head
00:00:16
that is
00:00:17
until she died
00:00:21
this is how a forensic toxicologist and
00:00:23
the middle aged woman in a cheerleader's
00:00:26
outfit cracked the only known case of
00:00:28
its kind in the history of forensic
00:00:31
science
00:00:32
[Music]
00:00:33
[Applause]
00:00:35
[Music]
00:00:42
[Music]
00:00:46
[Applause]
00:00:46
[Music]
00:00:59
[Music]
00:01:01
after her divorce carol heller moved to
00:01:03
the small town of perry oklahoma to be
00:01:06
closer to her family
00:01:09
[Music]
00:01:13
with only 5 000 residents and almost no
00:01:16
violent crime perry seemed like a good
00:01:19
place to start over
00:01:22
carol was fighting a lifelong battle
00:01:24
with manic depression also known as
00:01:26
bipolar disorder
00:01:28
[Music]
00:01:31
although carol became active in the
00:01:34
local church and developed a circle of
00:01:36
friends
00:01:37
it wasn't enough
00:01:39
there are a lot of people who don't feel
00:01:42
fulfilled unless they have a spouse
00:01:45
they want someone in their life
00:01:47
and she wanted a man in her life
00:01:51
so carol decided to place a personal ad
00:01:54
in a local christian newspaper
00:01:56
she was looking for
00:01:58
a christian male person
00:02:00
who could take
00:02:02
charge of
00:02:04
household finances
00:02:06
and
00:02:07
dennis was the one that answered the ad
00:02:12
dennis heller was a 51 year old handyman
00:02:15
when the two started dating carol's
00:02:17
family made sure dennis was aware of her
00:02:20
past
00:02:21
my parents
00:02:22
talked to him about it so he was aware
00:02:25
that she had had some
00:02:28
mental health problems
00:02:30
within a year carol and dennis were
00:02:32
married
00:02:34
and it wasn't long before some of
00:02:36
carol's old demons resurfaced
00:02:40
she'd wander away from her house and and
00:02:41
we would go find her and take her back
00:02:43
home
00:02:44
sometimes she wound up in the emergency
00:02:46
room at the hospital
00:02:47
sometimes she was taken to a mental
00:02:49
health facility
00:02:51
for evaluation they were trying to get
00:02:52
her get her own medications
00:02:55
my dad asked her one time
00:02:57
said carol have you ever thought about
00:03:00
killing yourself
00:03:01
and she says
00:03:03
well yes she said i have thought about
00:03:06
it before
00:03:08
doctors prescribed lithium a common
00:03:10
medication for bipolar disorder
00:03:13
like maybe a lot of people with the
00:03:15
bipolar
00:03:16
she
00:03:18
had a lot of manic phases but as far as
00:03:21
being real depressed
00:03:23
she
00:03:24
she handled that pretty good
00:03:27
the medication caused nausea drowsiness
00:03:29
and slurred speech her doctors reduced
00:03:32
her dosage of lithium but her symptoms
00:03:34
persisted
00:03:36
to get relief carol sought the advice of
00:03:38
other doctors but none were able to help
00:03:41
her
00:03:42
she had been in perry still stillwater
00:03:46
ponca oklahoma city and
00:03:48
denver colorado hospitals in those 10
00:03:51
months
00:03:52
i think the doctors and nurses who
00:03:54
treated her
00:03:55
tended to tune her out after a while
00:03:58
she'd get to the hospital and they'd
00:04:00
stabilize her and they'd
00:04:03
just determined that they either had
00:04:04
solved the problem or couldn't figure
00:04:06
out what the problem was and they'd send
00:04:07
her home and a month later it would
00:04:08
start again it would happen again
00:04:11
carol's health problems were also
00:04:13
causing strains in her new marriage
00:04:16
when i talked to carol she was just so
00:04:19
down and out she said
00:04:21
i think dennis is getting disgusted with
00:04:23
me she said i have been sick the whole
00:04:26
time we have been married
00:04:28
carol was convinced that it was the
00:04:31
lithium that was causing these symptoms
00:04:33
so against doctor's orders she stopped
00:04:36
taking the medication all together
00:04:38
that's when her problems really started
00:04:45
[Music]
00:04:49
one sunday about a year after her
00:04:51
marriage carol heller was
00:04:53
uncharacteristically
00:04:54
absent from church
00:04:57
her husband dennis told the congregation
00:04:59
that carol's condition had taken a turn
00:05:02
for the worse
00:05:04
later that night
00:05:06
dennis called for an ambulance
00:05:09
carol was in a coma so they transported
00:05:11
her by helicopter to a larger hospital
00:05:14
in oklahoma city some 60 miles away
00:05:18
about an hour later
00:05:20
i got a phone call and when the phone
00:05:21
rang i knew what it was
00:05:26
i knew that that she had died
00:05:30
carol had never regained consciousness
00:05:34
doctors believe carol died of natural
00:05:37
causes
00:05:38
the cause of death was congestive heart
00:05:40
failure that's what they believed that
00:05:42
she had dying from
00:05:44
the medical examiner was overwhelmed
00:05:46
with cases from the oklahoma city
00:05:48
bombing which had happened just six
00:05:50
weeks earlier
00:05:53
many of the 168 victims of that blast
00:05:56
still were unidentified
00:06:00
so no autopsy was performed on carol
00:06:02
heller
00:06:03
in accordance with her wishes carol's
00:06:06
body was cremated
00:06:08
that was her wish so my dad said there
00:06:10
was no sense of embalming her
00:06:14
in a town as small as perry
00:06:17
news of carol's death spread quickly
00:06:20
so did word of her husband's
00:06:23
insensitivity
00:06:27
paramedics when the ambulance crew
00:06:29
arrived
00:06:30
at his home
00:06:32
dennis was on the couch on the telephone
00:06:34
when they walked in he did not
00:06:35
acknowledge them nor would he speak to
00:06:37
them
00:06:38
they asked him what room she was in
00:06:41
he did not respond and so they went
00:06:43
looking through their apartment
00:06:45
and found carol unconscious in a coma
00:06:48
on the bed
00:06:50
and there was another peculiar incident
00:06:52
at carroll's funeral service
00:06:54
dennis was sitting back in behind us
00:06:58
about four rows or so
00:07:01
and
00:07:02
of course we got reports that he had
00:07:05
been
00:07:06
dozing off to sleep during the memorial
00:07:09
service
00:07:12
curious about the situation detective
00:07:14
pharaoh went to the heller's apartment
00:07:16
where the building manager told him
00:07:19
an even more bizarre story
00:07:22
the day before carol's death
00:07:25
she saw huge flames coming from the
00:07:27
outdoor grill behind the couple's
00:07:29
apartment
00:07:30
she thought at first he was cooking
00:07:32
something
00:07:33
but then after he had went back in she
00:07:35
had looked into the grill and there was
00:07:36
nothing in there but a bunch of burnt
00:07:38
pieces of paper so she really wasn't
00:07:40
sure what he was doing out there but and
00:07:42
this was all prior to carol's death
00:07:44
[Music]
00:07:46
and later that same night the apartment
00:07:48
manager saw dennis carrying boxes and
00:07:51
boxes of trash to the dumpster
00:07:55
pharaoh discovered those boxes were
00:07:58
filled with carol's personal items
00:08:01
i found a bible that belonged to carol
00:08:04
it was a gift from her father and it was
00:08:06
very old so you could tell it was an
00:08:07
heirloom there was documents there was
00:08:10
letters oh god there's just i mean just
00:08:12
basic stuff that you would find in
00:08:14
someone's uh you know
00:08:16
drawers you know like dresser drawers
00:08:18
and stuff that had been tossed in there
00:08:21
but why would dennis dispose of carol's
00:08:24
belongings on the day before she died
00:08:28
in the heller's apartment
00:08:30
investigators found something odd in the
00:08:33
kitchen pantry a container of
00:08:35
anti-freeze
00:08:37
i've never known anyone to keep
00:08:39
antifreeze in a kitchen a garage yes but
00:08:41
not a kitchen
00:08:43
but according to dennis it was carol's
00:08:45
idea to keep the anti-freeze in the
00:08:47
kitchen
00:08:48
he said she had drank a half a gallon of
00:08:50
antifreeze back in november
00:08:52
and that he had bought a new gallon of
00:08:54
antifreeze and half of it was gone so he
00:08:56
thought that
00:08:58
she might have drank it again
00:08:59
[Applause]
00:09:01
corroborating this unusual story was the
00:09:04
fact that dennis told carol's sisters
00:09:06
the same thing shortly before her death
00:09:10
he said i found some antifreeze in
00:09:12
carol's closet and some of it's gone you
00:09:15
know it just really flew all over me why
00:09:17
would somebody mention something like
00:09:20
that
00:09:22
yet on the night carol died doctors
00:09:24
found absolutely no sign of ethylene
00:09:26
glycol in her system which is the
00:09:29
primary ingredient of antifreeze
00:09:33
if investigators suspected foul play
00:09:37
they had no way to prove it
00:09:39
since there had been no autopsy
00:09:42
and carol's body had already been
00:09:44
cremated
00:09:48
[Music]
00:09:50
homicide detective david farrell joined
00:09:52
forces with his colleague buzz busby to
00:09:55
look into the suspicious death of 52
00:09:58
year old carol heller
00:10:00
almost everyone they talked to told
00:10:02
stories about dennis heller's unusual
00:10:05
behavior both before and after carol's
00:10:08
death
00:10:10
to get to the bottom of the mystery
00:10:12
busby and pharaoh sifted through 4 000
00:10:15
pages of carol heller's medical records
00:10:19
to organize the materials they used the
00:10:22
spare courtroom and sorted the records
00:10:24
by month
00:10:26
each chair represented a different month
00:10:29
in carol's life
00:10:31
when all the records were arranged
00:10:33
the chair representing march of 1995
00:10:37
was empty
00:10:38
this was just three months before her
00:10:41
death
00:10:42
we can understand that
00:10:43
since we hadn't had a chance to go
00:10:45
through the records and read all of them
00:10:47
yet why would there not be records when
00:10:49
there was records for every other month
00:10:52
they soon discovered a possible
00:10:54
explanation
00:10:56
in march of 1995 dennis heller was in
00:10:58
jail in oklahoma city for shoplifting
00:11:02
district attorney mark gibson responded
00:11:05
to the news with caution
00:11:07
well my policy has always been that i
00:11:09
will not
00:11:10
file charges on a case of any kind until
00:11:13
i'm convinced beyond a reasonable doubt
00:11:15
that i have evidence to show someone
00:11:17
beyond a reasonable doubt
00:11:18
that the crime was committed
00:11:21
and a little deeper in carol's medical
00:11:23
records
00:11:24
investigators found another clue
00:11:28
shortly before her death
00:11:30
carol went to a hospital 50 miles away
00:11:32
in ponca city complaining of slurred
00:11:35
speech and confusion
00:11:38
dr danny cassidy treated carol that day
00:11:42
and found evidence that the acid levels
00:11:44
in carol's blood were elevated a
00:11:47
condition known as metabolic acidosis
00:11:50
when he saw the elevated metabolic
00:11:53
acidosis levels
00:11:55
he realized that there was only a couple
00:11:56
of things that would cause that
00:11:59
in response dr cassidy ordered more
00:12:02
tests
00:12:03
i was testing for
00:12:05
other unusual forms of acidosis things
00:12:08
like
00:12:10
methanol or
00:12:13
i believe wood alcohol that is highly
00:12:16
toxic
00:12:17
dr cassidy told carol those test results
00:12:20
would take about a week but carol didn't
00:12:22
want to wait for the results
00:12:25
she did not want to be in the hospital
00:12:27
and she didn't represent a threat to
00:12:29
anyone or to herself and so she could
00:12:32
not be forcibly
00:12:34
detained to be in the hospital
00:12:37
and so she left willingly
00:12:40
with her husband
00:12:42
those gas chromatography tests found
00:12:45
ethylene glycol in carroll system six
00:12:48
milligrams per deciliter
00:12:51
sadly carol was already dead by the time
00:12:53
her personal physician got the results
00:12:57
now there was an even bigger question
00:13:01
how did the ethylene glycol get into
00:13:04
carol's system
00:13:06
we've never found another case in the
00:13:08
united states or anywhere for that
00:13:10
matter
00:13:11
where someone was gradually being
00:13:13
poisoned with
00:13:15
antifreeze
00:13:16
but investigators had no way of knowing
00:13:19
whether carol ingested it intentionally
00:13:22
in a crude suicide attempt or whether
00:13:24
her husband had poisoned her
00:13:27
[Music]
00:13:28
to find out
00:13:29
investigators look for an expert in
00:13:32
anti-freeze poisoning we took his book
00:13:35
and we contacted some of the people in
00:13:37
there and seemed like everybody we
00:13:38
talked to and kind of give them our
00:13:39
story they pointed us to dr pochlas in
00:13:42
in virginia
00:13:45
noted toxicologist dr alphonse pokeless
00:13:48
is one of the world's foremost
00:13:49
authorities on ethylene glycol
00:13:52
he reviewed carol heller's medical
00:13:54
records and immediately noticed a
00:13:57
discrepancy
00:13:59
carol told doctors she had slurred
00:14:02
speech confusion a lack of coordination
00:14:05
nausea and dehydration
00:14:07
her doctors attributed this to lithium
00:14:10
but the symptoms of ethylene glycol
00:14:13
poisoning were virtually identical this
00:14:16
is almost the greek tragedy
00:14:18
you read the medical records
00:14:21
the sicker she gets the more she becomes
00:14:24
convinced the medications the physicians
00:14:27
are giving her are making her ill
00:14:29
the more she complains about it the more
00:14:31
the physicians think that she's becoming
00:14:33
paranoid
00:14:35
the six milligrams of ethylene glycol
00:14:38
found in carroll's system was about
00:14:40
one-third the lethal dose
00:14:43
says this amount is consistent with
00:14:46
slow poisoning
00:14:48
not suicide
00:14:50
that's a strange way to commit suicide i
00:14:52
don't know anybody that's going to
00:14:54
poison themselves with ethylene glycol
00:14:57
arsenic or anything
00:14:59
and make themselves repeatedly yield for
00:15:02
nine or ten months to kill themselves
00:15:04
but there was no scientific evidence to
00:15:07
prove dr poclus's hypothesis there had
00:15:09
been no autopsy carol's body had been
00:15:12
cremated and there was no ethylene
00:15:14
glycol in her blood the night she died
00:15:18
it appeared that if dennis heller had
00:15:20
poisoned his wife with antifreeze
00:15:23
he was going to get away with it
00:15:29
investigators in perry oklahoma faced a
00:15:32
dilemma
00:15:34
gas chromatography found six milligrams
00:15:37
of ethylene glycol in carol heller's
00:15:39
system just a few weeks before she died
00:15:43
at least on 13 different occasions
00:15:45
dennis heller would talk to people about
00:15:47
antifreeze
00:15:49
and the effects it would have on you if
00:15:51
you drank it
00:15:52
one of the common things he would say
00:15:53
and it seemed like this was
00:15:55
always out of context and i'm not sure
00:15:57
what context
00:15:58
discussing antifreeze poisoning would be
00:16:00
appropriate but people would say we were
00:16:03
talking
00:16:05
and dennis just came up with a statement
00:16:06
did you know that one teaspoon of
00:16:08
antifreeze
00:16:09
taken every day for 10 days will kill
00:16:11
you
00:16:13
so investigators tried a different tank
00:16:16
they knew that dennis heller spent quite
00:16:18
a bit of time in oklahoma city about 60
00:16:21
miles away
00:16:23
he had a girlfriend there for most of
00:16:25
the time he was married
00:16:27
her name was karen dawson
00:16:30
and she was more than willing to talk to
00:16:32
police
00:16:33
after carol died the girlfriend kind of
00:16:36
put it all together
00:16:38
and was very willing to work with us
00:16:40
to assist us in any way she could
00:16:42
he had actually taken carol's wedding
00:16:44
rings down to karen to have her trial
00:16:47
them on this is prior to her death had
00:16:49
karen to try these things on to see how
00:16:51
they fit because they would soon be
00:16:53
hers according to dennis
00:16:56
karen told police that dennis was
00:16:59
attracted to girls wearing cheerleaders
00:17:01
outfits and he bought one in a
00:17:04
second-hand store
00:17:06
it's a lemon yellow 1960s cheerleading
00:17:09
outfit with pleats that he gave to her
00:17:11
that he had bought for carol to wear at
00:17:13
53 years old
00:17:15
investigators convinced karen to wear
00:17:18
that cheerleader's outfit on the
00:17:20
couple's next date along with the hidden
00:17:23
microphone
00:17:26
the two went to a drive-in restaurant
00:17:29
undercover officers listened from a van
00:17:32
across the street
00:17:35
karen began by telling dennis that if
00:17:38
they were to have any kind of a life
00:17:39
together dennis would have to be
00:17:41
completely honest with her
00:17:44
then karen asked dennis
00:17:46
if he had anything to do with his wife's
00:17:49
death
00:17:50
i put it in her food myself and
00:17:52
detective pharaoh were listening on a
00:17:54
receiving device
00:17:56
he even described how he'd done it with
00:17:57
an eyedropper etc he had bragged to her
00:18:01
that he was
00:18:02
kind of proud that he had managed to do
00:18:05
this and fool everyone
00:18:07
that was a huge moment that was a
00:18:09
confession
00:18:12
ethylene glycol
00:18:14
has a distinctive taste and odor
00:18:17
how dennis placed antifreeze in carol's
00:18:20
food without detection will not be
00:18:22
revealed in this program
00:18:25
surprisingly when investigators arrested
00:18:27
dennis heller he wasn't at all concerned
00:18:30
he did say to the investigators that it
00:18:33
only takes one person on a jury with
00:18:36
reasonable doubt
00:18:38
and slow poisoning is hard to prove
00:18:41
dennis heller
00:18:42
thought he had committed the perfect
00:18:44
murder
00:18:45
he thought he had covered his tracks
00:18:46
medically
00:18:48
but there was one thing
00:18:50
he hadn't counted on
00:18:52
although there hadn't been an autopsy on
00:18:55
carroll due to the oklahoma city bombing
00:18:57
the medical examiner took some tissue
00:19:00
samples for analysis
00:19:02
when tested he found calcium oxalate
00:19:05
crystals in her brain and kidney samples
00:19:09
prolonged exposure to ethylene glycol
00:19:12
can cause calcium oxalate crystals to
00:19:15
form causing renal failure and death
00:19:19
they were getting clogged up
00:19:21
she probably got a pretty good dose
00:19:26
two days before she died from what we
00:19:28
know
00:19:29
he's a cold hearted killer is what he is
00:19:33
and
00:19:34
anyone who can sit around and see
00:19:36
somebody suffer i couldn't even stand to
00:19:38
see an animal
00:19:39
suffer all that time much less
00:19:42
your spouse
00:19:44
but what was his motive
00:19:46
dennis was of even fewer means than
00:19:49
carol
00:19:50
she had an apartment she had a car she
00:19:52
had a
00:19:54
jc penney's life insurance
00:19:56
policy or at least dennis believed that
00:19:58
she did
00:19:59
he wanted what she had and he wandered
00:20:01
out of the way
00:20:03
when confronted with this forensic
00:20:05
evidence
00:20:06
dennis heller pled guilty to
00:20:08
manslaughter in return he was sentenced
00:20:11
to life in prison
00:20:13
had it not been for investigators
00:20:16
persistence
00:20:17
one doctor's suspicions and the
00:20:20
cheerleaders outfit
00:20:22
dennis heller might have gotten away
00:20:24
with murder in all those visits to
00:20:26
doctors
00:20:27
none of them had ever discovered
00:20:30
detected the antifreeze poison in her
00:20:32
system
00:20:33
and
00:20:33
[Music]
00:20:35
that's one of the most fascinating
00:20:36
things about the case
00:20:38
from my perspective
00:20:39
is that there is a
00:20:41
relatively simple test that will detect
00:20:43
it
00:20:46
carol's family credits forensic science
00:20:49
for bringing dennis heller to justice
00:20:52
i would like to say to the doctor who
00:20:54
finally figured out what was going on
00:20:57
thank you very much
00:20:59
from the whole family from the bottom of
00:21:02
our hearts and i hope that it saves some
00:21:04
lives and i hope that this program will
00:21:07
save more lives
00:21:08
and people can
00:21:10
be tipped off to symptoms that
00:21:14
what is happening
00:21:16
i don't think that there's anything that
00:21:18
we can't find or do when we use
00:21:20
forensics and anyone who wants to go out
00:21:22
here and commit a crime
00:21:24
you know you're going to leave something
00:21:26
you're going to say something we're
00:21:28
going to find it one way or the other by
00:21:30
using forensics
00:21:34
[Music]
00:21:48
[Music]
00:22:07
you
