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[Music] just after opening a vintage car restoration business phil rouse became seriously ill
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doctors had difficulty finding the cause but to forensic scientists it looked like foul play
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[Music] [Music] [Music] from the day he found an abandoned model a ford in an old cotton warehouse phil
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rouse knew that vintage automobiles would be his life for most of his career phil was a
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salesman in 1997 he quit to finally pursue his dream of starting an antique car restoration business
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he called it top quality and it was housed in a garage near his home in bartlett tennessee
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phil was real excited about going into business he had that was his dream to no one's surprise
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the shop was successful from the day it opened and with that success came the need to
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expand for capital phil turned to his best friend and next door neighbor steve white
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who was anxious to invest in the business in exchange for part ownership bill's good friend kimo coelho also
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joined the company as a matter of fact uh everybody was happy with the with the way things were going everybody was
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happy we got off to a good start it was phil's knowledge talent and experience that made the company so
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on them since i successful 15 years old i guess i bought my first antique car when i was i think i was 16.
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when phil rouse became ill just two months after the shop opened it was a serious blow
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i got to where i didn't have any energy and my stomach gave me a lot of trouble
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i had trouble with digestion i had severe chest pains my hands and feet began to get numb
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and to make matters worse medical tests couldn't find the cause i had an ultrasound done a cat scan and
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an ultra ultrasound and all those tests came up negative inexplicably bill's condition continued to get worse
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he lost 30 pounds and had difficulty walking and his cognitive abilities were also affected
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he came home and he says joe i think i've got alzheimer's i'm getting alzheimer's
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and i said why phil he said i've i forgot my way to the shop to protect his investment while phil was
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ill steve white ran the day-to-day operations of the business by december phil was convinced
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he was going to die i was so sick that night i was in such bad pain that i actually took my shirt off and
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laid on the kitchen floor on the linoleum i thought maybe that cold floor would take the pain and burning out of
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my stomach restoring automobiles sometimes involves chemicals and solvents that can cause
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illness if the workplace isn't properly ventilated phil wondered whether this had been his problem
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but his doctors were doubtful since no one else in the shop became ill [Music] then phil became convinced
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that someone was trying to kill him [Music] so he went to police headquarters with
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an unusual request he said if he died he wanted the police to perform an autopsy because
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he thought someone was poisoning him the police were skeptical i noticed that the other detectives were
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walking around and in fact one of them was kind of doing this and i got upset i got i got i got very
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aggravated with that phil's family thought he was exaggerating i wanted proof
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that something was being done to him and uh i always said you should have waited
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nothing in the world could have convinced me that i was wrong that night or i'd have never gone to the police
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station if you didn't think it took some cajones to go on the police station
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you're wrong phil was desperate he was afraid that nothing would be able to save his life
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just months after opening his vintage car restoration business phil rouse was so sick he could no
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longer run the business on a day-to-day basis his best friend next door neighbor and
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business partner steve white was now running the business my business partner told me not to worry
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about it he said if you're sick you stay home stay home and get well while sitting home phil rouse heard
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rumors that his company wasn't paying its bills we were taking money in but money was never
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distributed back to our suppliers to pay their bills rouse went to the bank and discovered
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the 10 company checks written by his partner had bounced because of insufficient funds
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and he also learned why the company had no money and when i got copies of the checks i
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can be honest with you i was not happy with what i saw he was paying for his personal cell
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phone bill 70 80 a month he was paying for his own military insurance he was making checks to this local wine and
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spirits company somewhere close a store buying booze and phil noticed that steve white had
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written a check to a company called american national for twenty seven dollars when he didn't recognize the company
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rouse decided to call she said it's life insurance i says can you tell me more about it she
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said well it's for a hundred thousand dollars and uh the beneficiary and owner of the
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policy is steve allen white but the life insurance policy wasn't on steve white's life
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it was on phil rouses and there was no reciprocal policy on steve white's life naming rouse as the
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beneficiary leona white says her husband did nothing wrong that they were only trying to
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protect their investment in the event of phil's death steve wasn't into auto
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restoring his involvement in the business had been more from a business management standpoint
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we kept trying to have business meetings so we could see the checkbook which we have never seen
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and every time we go to have a meeting steve would get up and get angry and storm out
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of the house so we were getting a little bit suspicious the final straw came when steve white closed the company's
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bank accounts without telling phil who found out through the bank teller she said well mr white came in two days
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ago walked out of the bank with uh 2 943 dollars and closed the account and she said the reason i mentioned to
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you mr rouse is because there were checks outstanding and he said he didn't care he just wanted the money rouse
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believed that as 50 owner of the business he had the power to halt all such transactions
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but he was wrong when phil's lawyer reviewed the partnership agreement he discovered that
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phil only owned two percent of the business steve white owned the remaining 98 well i signed a lot of things in 1997.
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if steve came over and said you need to sign this because this is whatever we signed it
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he was completely duped into signing this contract phil now began to suspect his partner
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and decided to visit dr kevin marigian one of the top forensic toxicologists in the united states
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he was one of the worst cases that i had seen so i mean it's very very sick and i said well i think i'm being
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murdered i don't know how i don't know how i don't know what's being used on me
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dr morigian analyzed phil's urine tests which had been done earlier and he also
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performed a physical examination but before the results were in phil had more bad news
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all of the business assets he brought with him to the company which included the building and real estate had been
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transferred to his partner steve white and put up for sale phil rouse was not only dying
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he was now penniless phil rouse began to suspect that the improprieties in his business
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and his suspicions of being poisoned might somehow be related mr rouse wasn't
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very functional if you would say cognitively he had a lot of the he had inability to concentrate focus
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he was very anxious define the cause of the illness phil's urine was sent for a heavy metals test
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the test revealed phil had arsenic in his system a level of 63 is in the high range but far from
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lethal normally there is no arsenic in one system unless the person has consumed
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large amounts of seafood which phil had not he said mr ass do you know of anybody
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that wants you that might want you dead i said what are you telling me dr morigian suspected phil
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was being poisoned the poisoned cells do not continue to exhibit arsenic in them
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arsenic does the damage and then it's excreted from the body or it's sequestered in the bone
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so by any measure you're not going to be able to identify the actual compound
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itself even though the damage is there phil tried to recall anything suspicious about the time he spent with his partner
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steve white and then he remembered every time he and steve had a meal or a drink together bill's health
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deteriorated i noticed that several times we ate together i'd get sick afterwards the
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next day or two and i just kept getting sick every time we eat together i'd get sick
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even more alarming steve white was a chemist by training and taught chemistry at the local high
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school as a final forensic test dr morigian gave bill rouse very specific instructions
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i told him don't cut your hair and then i would be able to clip it and send it
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to a laboratory for analysis when someone is exposed to poison it goes through the body and is usually
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excreted but it also gets deposited in the hair root at the time of exposure when the hair grows out the shaft
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becomes an historic record of when the exposure took place when phil's hair grew longer
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a strand was sent for an icp test which tests for 22 different metal components at the same time
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hair grows at a pretty regulated rate and someone could take the a shaft of hair divide it into
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segments and determine you know what was present a month ago what was present two months ago
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depending on that piece placement on the original shaft the hair was cut into quarter inch
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pieces marked then each piece was placed in a separate vial mixed with acidified water
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and boiled for seven hours this cocktail was then put through the icp the test results
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were startling [Music] when phil was in the hospital his hair showed no exposure to poison
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but prior to that when phil was living at home dr morigian found traces of another
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poison mercury i believe that he was ingesting it i didn't know who or why it would be delivered to him
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but i had no doubt that he was poisoned with heavy metals state law requires that police be
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notified when any poison is found in someone's system when the bartlett police department
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learned of the poisoning and the financial dispute between phil and his partner they took out a search warrant
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to search steve white's home i thought that at that time well now we have something to look into
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and we were going to investigate it as a criminal matter [Music] in white's backyard in a storage shed
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they found a laboratory it kind of looked like a little mini science lab like a chemistry lab
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makeshift lab you know there were several different jars of unusual looking powders
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strange looking like burners and things like that that you would see in a science lab
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leona white says the reason her husband had the lab was for their children as a way to interest them in science
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he would do things like mix baking powder and vinegar to make a volcano but investigators soon discovered items
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in the shed that were anything but child's play in a glass jar labeled baking powder
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forensic scientists found traces of mercury and arsenic the arsenic was a special formulation
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which won't be identified here except to say it was odorless and tasteless detective bailey confronted white with
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the lab results and he had told me that was crazy absurd and ridiculous he said there's no way there's arsenic
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in that i tell you what bring it to me and i'll drink every bit of it a few minutes later he had said if i was
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going to kill this guy i sure wouldn't use arsenic i'd do it with something
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much quicker and legal everything in his statement that he gave to the police a 21-page rambling
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statement was false and i'm not even sure if steve white is his real name a search of the car restoration office
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produced an envelope found hidden behind the electrical panel analysis of the materials inside
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revealed arsenic antimony mercury and lead each a highly toxic metal a forensic document examiner compared
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the handwriting on the envelope to known samples of steve white's and concluded
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they were both similar steve white was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of phil rouse
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but important questions remained how did the poisons get into phil rouse's body
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[Music] forensic toxicology proved phil rouse had been poisoned by heavy metals and
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similar poisons were found in the home of his business partner steve white but prosecutors didn't have enough
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evidence to show how phil rouse was poisoned we were never able to prove conclusively
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how he got these compounds into mr rouse's system we were able to prove that he had ample
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opportunity phil rouse recalled a number of incidents with steve white marked by
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unusual behavior prior to his illness phil and steve were having dinner at a local restaurant
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not long after placing their order white complained about the poor service he got up and went into the kitchen
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and came back with phil's entree but not his own there was another incident involving a
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bottle of wine mr white made a bottle of wine brought it to mr rouse insisting that he drink
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all of it and insisting that he get the the bottle back because he wanted to give mr ralph
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some more and white would often visit phil at home to share a cup of coffee and talk about
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work but phil says steve would frequently ask phil to get something from another room
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leaving steve alone with the coffee phil and kimo coelho both recalled a time when white offered to get them
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hamburgers for lunch after eating these they became they both became very ill and they actually made a joke about how
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they're never going to send steve white after food again because it's going to
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make us sick again when confronted with the evidence steve white denied any involvement with
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phil's illness his lawyer claimed that the accusations were circumstantial and that there was
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no proof white was in any way involved the defense also pointed out that the lab results showed only trace amounts of
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the various heavy metals in rousey's body but never a lethal amount the prosecution claimed this was
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intentional that mr white wanted phil to die slowly after a prolonged illness so
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there would be no suspicions i hate to say ideal but it actually is the ideal way of trying to harm someone
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because if you're not focused or you're not suspicious of it the physician won't see it
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the fact that there were poisons found the amount of these poisons that it would take to kill mr rouse was
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irrelevant the mere fact that the defendant had arsenic antimony lead mercury at his disposal
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was the relevant fact the prosecution says the motive was money that phil rouse's
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death would have enabled white to get out of debt white had over 90 thousand dollars in
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credit card debt a substantial amount for a public school teacher the prosecution subpoenaed several
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waitresses from the bartlett area all attractive women with the same story they said steve white was a very
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generous tipper in one instance for a fifteen dollar check white tipped the waitress
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sixty dollars a hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy could pay his way out of debt
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if mr rouse had died he would also had inherited a hundred percent of a of a small business
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after a week-long trial the jury found steve white guilty of first degree attempted murder theft and
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sales tax violations he was sentenced to 31 years in prison if it hadn't been for the heavy metals
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test and dr morgan running all the tests on my husband he would have been dead his antique automobile restoration
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business is now closed to this day white maintains his innocence these people were our friends for 14
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years i mean we thought they were our friends i i couldn't believe that he had made
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that that charge against steve i know steve didn't do it phil still has numbness in his
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extremities and is unable to walk due to nerve damage this guy that i know he was my business
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partner he's going to jail i don't know for how long i don't know i may be crippled the rest
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of my life i said two families are devastated who won today you tell me tell me you won here today
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[Music] [Music] [Music] you