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