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what happens when a healthy middle-aged woman suddenly collapses and dies and medical science can't find the cause of
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death months later a second forensic look discovered evidence that had been right under their noses the entire time
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[Music] [Music] [Applause] Dana Point California just 60 Mi South and a world away from Los Angeles is a
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Haven for those seeking a quiet Oceanside lifestyle in 1988 it was home to Janet
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and Richard Overton and their 17-year-old son Eric 60-year-old Richard was a successful computer consultant and
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part-time Professor 46-year-old Janet was a member of the local school board she was such a genuinely nice
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person uh smiling and and um had good things to say the Overton lived on a tranquil
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cuaac after 19 years of marriage they seem to be a classic example of when Opposites Attract While Janet was
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outgoing and high school educated Richard held a PhD and was much more reserved he was always the loner and I
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don't uh I understand that he graduated from high school after 3 years he was
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editor of one of his campus newspapers uh as I said he was a very smart man Janet was passionate about her work on
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the school board a job she took seriously at one point she served as president but her number one priority
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was her son she took such pleasure in him and I know that one of her goals was to hand him his diploma when he walked
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across the stage uh graduating from Dana Hills High School on January 24th J and her son
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Eric packed up the family van to spend a day on a yacht with some [Music] friends but before leaving the house
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Janet collapsed Eric told his father who immediately called for an ambulance by the time emergency
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Personnel arrived Janet was unconscious when they got to the hospital she was dead an autopsy found no indication of
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how she died they did not find anything that they were comfortable calling a cause of death or even close
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surprisingly Janet's medical records indicated she had made 60 visits to different doctors clinics and hospitals
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in the last year there was just an amazing amount of work up done on the deceased Janet Overton uh in the
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previous year because she had been very sick and had been to all sorts of special clinics working things up they
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didn't find anything she had complaints of of pains in various parts of her body
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um she began to get like ulcerated areas on her skin Janet had complained of a number of
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various ailments from nausea to skin irritations to General Pain she was walking very slowly and had a a
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cane to help her walk and was really looking miserable it appeared to the medical
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examiner that Janet's death was as mysterious as her other medical problems over the past year her death would have
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remained a mystery had it not been for a telephone call about an incident 14 years earlier tried to kill me and
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[Music] I Janet Overton's death at the young age of 46 was officially listed as pending
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investigation which is another way of saying unknown but the next 6 months there was
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no further investigation into Janet's death that is until the local sheriff's
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department received a telephone call from darthy Boer who was once married to Richard
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Overton Dorothy had heard about Janet's death and had a story to tell about Richard's past Dorothy said she divorced
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Richard when she found out that he was a bigamist he was married to another woman
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at the same time he was married to her and had children with both women he maintained a two households and he
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deceived two women he consistently had troubled relationships with women all of his adult life which went to his first
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marriage the bigamous marriage with Carolyn Hutchinson and his uh third marriage with Janet there was a definite
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pattern there when the couple divorced Dorothy gained custody of their children and took possession of their house which
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infuriated Richard almost immediately Dorothy began to suffer from skin lesions NAA and pain the same symptoms
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that plagued Janet Overton one day after their divorce Richard visited daroy to discuss some
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issues relating to their children after he left Dorothy noticed an unusual odor coming from her milk
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she took the milk to police for testing scientists discovered large amounts of selenium a type of
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poison Dorothy accused Richard of placing the selenium in her Milt during his visit when confronted with the
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evidence Richard confessed in return Dorothy refused to press charges against Richard he had to
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admit yes I did do this and he was sent into anger counseling when he came out of anger counseling he made another
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attempt which he denied and that was when Dorothy confronted him and just told him you make any more attempts on
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me or anybody in my family and I'm going to have you taken away in handcuffs and
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from then on he backed off and he didn't do anything to Dorothy after hearing
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this news Lieutenant Carney wanted to exume Janet Overton's body for another
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autopsy but there was a problem Janet Overton had been been cremated toxicologist Paul sedwick's
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only option was to re-examine Janet's Blood and Tissue samples left over from
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the autopsy when he tested those samples for selenium he could find none present despite the setback
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investigators pressed on and soon discovered the Janet had a secret life of her own she had been involed involved
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in a longtime affair with Bill Dawson someone she worked with on the school board and who owned the yacht she was
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going on the day she died Mr Dawson was very forthright very honest he knew his career was on the line by revealing this
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Mr Dawson was also adamant that he had nothing to do with Janet's death in Janet's home police discovered 133
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computer discs and dozens of Diaries written by Richard Overton some were written in Russian and
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Spanish as you read the Diaries and read the uh diset it tells a whole different story
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of Richard Overton's relationship with Jen the relationship Richard pointed out
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to me at my time of interview of they're having a loving relationship uh and the bonds of Love
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were strong was totally inconsistent with what he wrote in his Diaries and Lieutenant Carney noticed an
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interesting deletion in the Diaries I opened up the diary for January 24th the handwritten Diary of January 24th this
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is the date that Janet died he had cut the page out of the Diary many of the discs contained
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portions of documents that had been deleted the discs were sent to a computer forensic examination firm for
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analysis when material in a computer document is deleted it's not actually deleted
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instead the material is identified on the disc as space available to be reused if needed if that space isn't needed the
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deleted material is still there the recovered information from Richard's hard drive revealed that
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Richard knew of his wife's affair with Bill Dawson and was angry about it overall his writings chronicled a deeply
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troubled relationship approximately one week before her death he made an entry that
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said the love hate relationship between Jan and I has turned to Pure hate I will
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deal with this soon some passages of the handwritten Diaries had been covered with correction
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fluid Carney suspected incriminating information might be underneath to find some way to see
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underneath the deletions the Diaries were sent to the forensics lab the forensic document examiner um had
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brought the diary for us to look at and was curious if we could use some type of
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a light source that was available to us in the dentification bureau to illuminate that information that was
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underneath the correction fluid black used what a decade ago was a new and untested piece of equipment a
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laser it was a very simple procedure using the light source of through the laser shining it through the back of the
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paper uh trying to illuminate what was underneath the correction fluid the process worked some of those
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hidden entries corroborated the severity of the problems in the Overton's marriage I recall him documenting words
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that they had had what she had said to him about how they were getting along or not getting along the Overton marriage
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was a marriage that slowly deteriorated over uh a period of time and then quickly deteriorated to the
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point where uh there was no uh uh contact between Richard and Janet Overton they had separate bedrooms they
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took meals separately um she confided to a couple of her friends that as soon as
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Eric graduated from high school she was out of there and he knew it too the Diaries were important because it showed
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motive we saw the relationship between Jan and Richard on a daily basis there was everything listed in these Diaries
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and when I say everything I mean everything but if Richard was somehow involved in Janet's death the Diaries
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gave no hint of how he killed [Music] her forensic scientists suffered a major setback when they could find no Trace of
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the poison selenium in Janet Overton's tissue samples years earlier Richard Overton
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admitted putting selenium in his ex-wife's drink because he was angry about the financial terms of their
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divorce but his ex-wife never filed charges but this admission of an earlier poisoning prompted forensic scientist to
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take a second look at Janet Overton's tissue samples almost immediately medely the
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toxicologist made a startling Discovery he detected the odor of bitter almonds within
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seconds the odor of cyanide didn't really overpower me but it just jumped out I was 2 or 3 feet away and there was
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just no question this was this was Cyanide and large amounts only one person in three has the ability to
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detect cyanide in this way but he would need more proof than his nose no Sedrick performed a Prussian Blue
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test a sample of Janet's stomach contents were mixed with water and sodium hydroxide then after adding some
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Ferris sulfate the mixture was heated to Boiling if there was cyanide present the
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mixture would turn a deep Prussian Blue the result was positive cyanide in Janet's stomach
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meant she had ingested it shortly before her death and toxicologists found something
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else traces of cyanide in Janet's brain tissue an indication she had ingested
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cyanide on previous occasions cyanide was found in Trace Amounts in some herbal and prescription
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medicines that Janet Overton had been taking to see if any of Janet's herbal
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treatments could have produced the iide sedick tested all of the substances she was taking I ground them up I took them
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fresh without grinding them I put them in tubes I made them slightly acidic somewhat mimicking stomach
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contents I I tried crushing them and grinding them in the acid I tried blending them any way I could
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to bring out any cyanide that might be might possibly evolve from these compounds and then I smelled them and I
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tested them chemically and I found no cyanide in any of the compounds another obstacle was reports
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that cyanide can be created in blood samples after death these reports of cyanide being created in systems in
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stored blood after death are actually measurable amounts of cyanide but they're extraordinarily
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small before heading to trial prosecutors needed to know whether the storage process caused the iide in
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Janet's tissues and wanted testing done by an internationally known expert I
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called Scotland Yard because Scotland Yard dealt with more poisonings than we did here in the state so I called up and
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I said do you know of an expert that deals in cyanide that would know exclusively about Cyanide and I was
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referred to Brian Valentine One of the foremost experts in the world on cyanide the level of cyanide found in
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Janet's blood sample 7 months after her death was 2 microG per 100 ml of blood
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while that amount was consistent with other fatal cases of cyanide poisoning balentine's personal standard was much
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higher he studied the storage conditions in the lab containing Janet's tissues
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and mathematically determined cyanides conversion and evaporation rates when this was complete Dr Valentine knew that
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the s in Janet system was the result of Foul Play This was a death of from of acute
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cyanide uh poisoning the quick acting cyanide that killed Janet had to be administered minutes before her death
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this fact eliminated Janet's lover Bill Dawson as the killer since he had an
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alibi that he was on his boat at the time of Janet's death but if Richard Overton had given his wife the
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cyanide where did he get it it wasn't long before investigators discovered the answer Richard's friend
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owned a gold and silver mine and he kept a lab in his house which contains cyanide since it's used in mining
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operations to extract precious metal from the raw core this individual was uh frequented
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these these mines mining operations and while he was gone Richard would go over to his house and
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pick up the the person's mail and feed the animals Etc prosecutors could now
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prove Richard had access to the murder weapon and had opportunity and motive 3 years after Janet's death
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Richard Overton was arrested and charged with first deegree murder [Music] Richard Overton was charged with the
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first-degree murder of his wife Janet he insisted he was innocent there is a very famous and
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inspired saying that says you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free the truth is I am
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innocent it's one thing to say look we have a cause of death and it's cyanide
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but it's another thing to be able to prove it in front of 12 people and that was our job is to prove it to
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the jurors in the Box prosecutors believe that Richard Overton was jealous of the notoriety his wife achieved as
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president of the local school board their marriage deteriorated when Richard learned that Janet was having an affair
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he was hurt when you're finished with the working day um and you're married
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whether it's been a long-term marriage or a short-term marriage there should be
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something to come home to and in Janet's case there wasn't anything to come home to when Richard
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discovered that Janet planned to divorce him he got angry and sought Revenge just as he had done to his
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previous wife darthy when she divorced him at the trial Dorothy testified against Richard about her poisoning
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incident Richard Overton also testified in his own defense he could not explain logically uh the prior poisoning of uh
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Dorothy Boer and uh came off uh by making a comment that he thought that the poison of her was
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just a neat joke and I think that was a uh a damning thing to say and something that the
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certainly this jury could not understand in my opinion the forensic evidence against Overton was overwhelming
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not just the toxicology which found the cyanide and Janet system but also the forensic document examination of
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Overton's Diaries which clearly shows Overton's frame of mind at the time of
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Janet's death the theory is that Richard Overton really fixed her a real good
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cocktail in the morning with her orange juice after she drank it uh she uh went she was going whale watching with her
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son Eric and collapsed in the driveway he was very clever very good and U Almost Got Away With
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It 7 years after Janet's death Richard Overton was found guilty of first deegree
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murder this defended is sentenced to the term of life without parole Richard Overton dropped down his
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guard he thought that he was so intelligently uh far above these investigators that uh they weren't on to
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anything and uh he didn't realize really how wrong he was until it was it was
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really too late I felt a great sense of relief that uh justice indeed had been served that she did have her day in
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court and that um he did it and he was going to pay for it and I was still sad that she was gone and especially under
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those conditions sadly in 1999 darthy Boer died of lymphoma there is a possibility that the
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years of selenium poisoning could have cus this U it's nothing that right now
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science or art technology can can prove Beyond a reasonable doubt we get people off in our job as well as finding the
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guilty and either one is satisfaction but I will have to admit that finding murderers and getting them off the
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Street's a big one we had to show the cause of death and the only way we were
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going to show a cause of death is forensically and the forens those are scientists those are facts
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those don't lie that you can't beat forensics you can't beat science the
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forensics were very important to this case this case was primarily a science case uh and uh if I were to put a number
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to it I would say it was probably 90% science and 10% [Music] investigation one [Music]
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[Music] [Music]