We’re using our medical background to focus on the strange, baffling, and downright unsettling world of medical mysteries. We’re gonna dig into unusual cases, diagnostic puzzles, unexplained symptoms, and medical misadventures.
Our first three seasons covered a little bit of everything, including crime, conspiracy, mystery, and the occasional rabbit hole we probably shouldn’t have gone down.
Those episodes aren’t going anywhere, so the archives remain open for anyone who likes their mysteries, a little more broad spectrum.
But from season four on, the prescription is different. More medicine, more mysteries, more questions. So grab a drink, hit the follow, and tune in every Tuesday for a new episode.
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Hey guys. Hey guys. Hiya. Welcome back. Let’s shout out to our new Patreon subscriber, Judy. Thanks, Judy. Thank you, Judy. She’s a real supporter. I think she got us coffee a few weeks ago. She did. What a girl. What a fan. But yeah, if you guys want more content from us, go check out Patreon. If one or if two episodes a week right now is not enough, three scheme queen time, there’s more for you.
Don’t you worry. And don’t miss the episode on the rocks. R-O-C-K rock. R O C K in case you know how to spell it. Yeah.
And I think we have another consult queen segment coming soon as well. Yes. When we deep dive into Scrubs. Yep. Is the accuracy of an episode of Scrubs? So I’m so excited about this story because it’s sort of true crime, meets medicine, meets Diet Coke, meets murder mystery party. Oh, that’s like that’s hitting all, you know, the our top things. Yes, our favorite things. Yeah. Uh, because you know, we do have a famous, locally famous in our very small group, annual murder mystery parties. Yes. And if you hadn’t seen the Instagram reel, we do it every year, and Bourbon Boy dies every year, and it’s so funny because it’s not intentional. And Dr. Andrew is always the murderer, but he’s a little less enthusiastic about being the murderer than Bourbon Boy is about being the victim. Yeah. Before we get into it though, was it time for our Drink Chat Drink Chat? Well, we’re talking about Diet Coke. Yeah, I hate to I hate to do this because I think we had Diet Coke like in the last month as a drink check, but it’s appropriate. When in London. Right. When in Rome? Yeah. When in London. So yes, drinking a crispy marinated Diet Coke right now. Only marinated for like three days, but are you sure?
Yeah.
Are you sure it’s marinated tonight? And that’s your Kate, and you don’t trust, you don’t trust the process. Uh it’s refresh, get refreshing, right, guys?
Yeah. It’s delicious.
It’s my favorite drink. Do you need a little more ice calling? Always, preferably. But I will say for Christmas or for my birthday, Megan got me a soda can chiller. How do I explain what this is? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m sure people have seen it. It’s on Amazon and your can over ice and it makes it marinated in minutes.
I think the best way to drink a Diet Coke is when there’s a little bit of ice on the on the can on the outside. When it’s frosted. Yes, frosted. That’s the word I’m thinking of. A little bit frosted, and you open it’s like just the hint of slush. Oh, so good. I was at work last night, guys, and I went to the um doctor’s lounge to try and get some diet coke. Let me guess. The machine was broken. The machine wasn’t broken, but there was no soda water. It was just straight syrup. I was so upset. I said, I just wanted it. It wasn’t even like I wanted a Diet Coke, but if there it would, if the Diet Coke was out, that’s fine. I would just have some seltzer.
I just wanted something else to drink, and it was then I had to go drink a diet shasta. No, I’ve been there in the desperation, and you’re like, I’m just gonna do it. And you know what I always do is I always open the chasta and I get a lot of ice and then I pour it over the ice and then so cold you don’t even really taste it in my brain. That’s how I tell myself it’s better. You know, we probably sound very spoiled. In the lounge, the coffee maker has been broken for over a month. The point is, Dye Coke Machine is always broken, and the coffee maker is always broken. No one needs some caffeine like a healthcare provider, shift work. Okay, and there’s like a nice they’ve put up a sign that says, like, we know how important caffeine is for you all to do your jobs. We’re working on it.
Honestly, let’s just go to the staples and get a new coffee maker. You know what I mean? It’s around the corner.
On that note, we’re gonna sip our Diet Coke and we’re gonna get into the story, okay? Yeah, cheers. And let’s get into it. Disclaimer: the views, opinions, and commentary expressed on this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not represent the view or opinions of our employers, organizations, or professional affiliations. Colleen, picture this you’re a nurse working the ER in small town Al Touris, Florida. Population 500. Oh, a woman comes in complaining of nausea, abdominal pain, and strange neurological symptoms. Her condition is getting worse, but no one can explain why. Then other members of her family start getting sick. 500 is is that call out qualified as a village? You know, not a question I’ve ever had before.
Like, not a town. That’s gotta be like a village.
What year is this?
Did you already say it? 1988.
Oh, okay, the year I was born. So here’s the story. Peggy Jean was a single mom to three children before she met and married Pi Carr after a whirlwind courtship. That’s Pi P Y E, which was like an abbreviation for his actual name. Oh, okay. Okay, what a weird name. The couple in their blended family of five kids and one grandchild moved into Pi’s Al Tourist home. So Alturis is in Florida, it’s surrounded by citrus orchards and lakes. They date for like six months. I have this whirlwind courtship, they get married. The honeymoon phase did not last very long, and they started bickering. So she was distrustful of his long hours working the mine. And she actually drove to the mine one day when he was supposed to be working and caught him cheating with his ex. But her it was her car there and his car there, and that was it. Good tea. I have a question. Were they in the mine while they were cheating? Were they doing it underground? You know what? I saw this story on about four different documentaries. Everyone just says the kids are like, and she drove and saw his car at the mine and saw the girlfriend’s car at the mine, and there was no other car there. That’s all I know. So whether they were hooked up in the car or in the mine or in an office, I DK. I mean, it’s like a trailer out there, probably, or something. I don’t know. I just I just picture I don’t think a mine is a very romantic setting to be.
No, I I also I agree with that. I mean, going underground, that’s crazy. I just imagine being a mine worse. Just imagine your asthma, the black long.
Yeah. After this happens, they briefly separated, and Peggy took her kids to a motel, and she wrote him this like long letter about how she loved him, but they weren’t going to continue on as they as they were. And then they ended up reconciling. So immediately after they reunite, like she moves back into the house of their kids and he heads off on a hunting trip that was already planned, leaving her behind with all the kids. So during this trip, she came home one day from work. She was working as like a waitress and she was complaining of pain in her hands and feet. Her feet hurt. Her son said, you know, it’s probably just for being on your feet all day as a waitress, but the symptoms escalated. So what started as tingling and pain in her hands and feet progressed to a stomach ache, followed by aching legs, blurred vision, and overwhelming fatigue. What do you think? Achey hands? What other symptoms? Like, well, that’s all we have to start. Okay. All we have to start. Aching hands and feet, and then it progressed up her legs. So I’m thinking something like, well, the aching hands and feet, some kind of neuropathy. And I’m like, did she have like a virus before? It’s like a post-viral neuropathy. Yeah, like is this making her sicker? Yeah. Like, did she have a cold and now we have this? Then when you’re telling vasculitis, it’s ascending up her the pain and tingly is going up her legs. I’m thinking, would you have like a Guillaume Bray situation? Because the belly, I’m thinking of vasculitis because of the it’s traveling up.
There’s a lot of vascular processes with vasculitis. And then like the blurred of the blurred vision, that’s all related to like the arterial.
I’m thinking like, yeah, giant cell arteritis. Yeah, yeah, giant cell arteritis. Yeah. Do we know anything about her medical history? Did you say that already? No, I don’t, I don’t know. I’m wondering if she has like some type of autoimmune that this could be a flare of, maybe.
I don’t know.
Okay. Well, we’re all wrong because this case actually does have a resolution. Oh, that’s what I would be thinking. If you’re like, you know, someone’s telling me they’re having this pain.
I’m so happy to hear that there’s a resolution. I hate these crimes that don’t have any.
So her husband gets home from his hunting trip, and the kids, her kids are like, You got to take her to the hospital, you gotta take her to the hospital. And he’s like, She’s fine. She probably just has like the flu. It’s she just has a virus. Eventually, her son and daughter convinced him to take her to the ED, where she’s treated for her full body aches and pains with pain medications. And when they saw her in the ER, they noted she had bilateral facial weakness, but the remainder of the workup was unremarkable. I cannot imagine anyone being discharged from the ER with the nuance that like facial weakness. That’s weird. What about calcium? They said the workup was unremarkable, but again, I don’t know how much how thorough that workup was because the next thing they say after documenting that she has bilateral facial weakness is that I think this is just psychogenic from stress and fatigue. I’m so over this psychogenic bullshit.
Now that you’re saying this, I’m thinking about um electro, it almost sounds like mag overdose. You know what I’m talking about? When people are on a mag drip for too long and they get really tired and heavy and they get like a neuropathy fluid vision. Yeah, break pregnant women when they’re pre-clamptic.
Like our Fred, you had to turn off her own mag drip in the hospital. That’s crazy.
Although it’s like so hard to overdose on mag, like unless you’re kids work, yeah.
Oh no, I would just say we’re like four episodes in, four weeks into our medical mystery rebrand here. And I feel like every week the working diagnosis has been psychogenic. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I hate it. So her pain is better after some pain meds, they send her home. She didn’t get any better the next day. And so the next day, when Pi, the husband goes to work, the kids take her back to the hospital. And this time she ends up in the intensive care unit. Whoa, that escalated quickly. That’s crazy. Two different providers were credited with making the diagnosis that I’m gonna tell you about. Okay. A neurologist, Richard Hosler, noted her hair was falling out on the hospital pillows, and he remembered seeing something similar in residency. Infectious disease specialist stop Dr. Robert Van Hook was also consulting on the case, and he reported that when she sat up for him to listen to her lungs in her back, he noted hair on her pillow. And the two of them said hypothyroidism, mixemicoma. Damn. They suspected heavy metal poisoning. Oh, sent off a heavy metals panel, which also I love that it’s idea neurology because these are the two teams that like punishment the most. And then they always are like, Let’s send off this obscure mayo clinic panel. It came back positive for thallium. Thallium. My gosh, is this guy mining thallium and poisoning her? I forgot about the mines already. Yeah, her toxicology report report revealed 26.5 milligrams per liter of thallium in her system. So thallium is a heavy metal. Medicinally, it was used 100 years ago as a therapeutic agent to treat syphilis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, and ringworm. Interesting. And it was also used for excess hair as a depilatory. By 1934, 692 cases of thallium poisoning reported with at least 31 deaths. It’s called poisoner’s poison because it is water soluble, so it will absorb it whenever you mix it in. Uh-huh. Odorless, tasteless, and toxic.
Does it build up over time or is it like immediate over? Because to me, this feels like he’s been doing it for a while. Actually, you know what? It’s water soluble. So when it’s water-soluble, it’s more easily metabolized. And I would I would assume that it would be like a vitamin that’s water soluble. So like it’s almost impossible to overdose on like a water-soluble vitamin because they’re so easily excreted, where it’s like a fat soluble will build up in your system because it’s not as easily excreted. So that’s what I would think. So I answered my question about like I maybe it’s not a buildup thing. Maybe they she was just dosed all at once and interesting.
What are examples of water-soluble vitamins?
Like vitamin C. Okay. But you’re but it’s easier to what’s the fat-soluble ones because it’s A, D, E, and K. And that’s why when people eat a lot of carrots or sweet potatoes, they’re high in vitamin A.
And that wise, that’s why you turned your hands orange. Which happened to my happened to my sister-in-law. It happens to my brother. Yeah. So what is thallium used? Because it’s no longer used for medicine after we had 692 cases of poisoning, right? Okay.
So and then I’m assuming it’s not going to be used in anything that like leaks into our food system since it’s poisoned.
That’s correct. It is used in electronic manufacturing, it is used in nuclear medicine for cardiac stress tests.
Interesting.
And it was used in rat and ant poisons until it was banned in the 1970s.
Because it was too poisonous.
Yes, because it can enter the body via inhalation, absorption via skin, or via ingestion. Wow. Interesting. So because it’s water soluble. When we talk about what you would see with thallium poisoning, thallium mimics potassium ions in the human body and it enters the body via potassium uptake pathways.
The sodium potassium pump.
Yes.
I’m with you.
Within three to four hours of exposure, patients develop abdominal pain, nausea vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation, emesis, and potentially bloody stool.
And metabolic. If you’re leaking potassium out of the cell, it should be low alkali. Yeah. So I was thinking, yeah, metabolic alkalosis.
At 24 hours to five days, patients develop rapidly progressive ascending peripheral neuropathies. So particularly in the palms and the soles of the feet. Interesting. Oh, this is what happened to her. Then ataxia, which you know is like when your balance, your gait is off, tremor, cranial nerve palsies, headaches, seizures, coma, and death. Whoa. Other symptoms include anxiety, confusion, delirium, hallucinations, and psychosis. You get acute agitation, aggression, personality changes, depression, apathy, and confabulation. That’s what I mean. I know that people get it when they get like Alzheimer’s, dementia, but I didn’t know that it would be like a side effect. Right. Interesting. You also get diplopia, so like double vision, abnormal color vision. And I said it affects all these cranial nerves.
Yeah, cranial nerves, which is why she would have the facial weakness. Yeah, interesting.
Cranial nerve five. Five. It starts with like alopecia at the lateral half of the eyelids. Uh-huh. You get ptosis, so uh-huh, like a droopy eyelid, cranial nerve seven. Um, you getsues with eyes with eyes laterally. Yeah. During weeks two to three, you get scaling of the palms and soles with pustular eruptions on the face, nystagma. So, like when your eyes just vibrate back and forth, vibrate. Yeah, like you get tachycardic and hypertension. And then Metscape told me that a lot of patients develop pleuritic chest pain, which is interesting because she was complaining of pleuritic chest pain. Uh also on her initial presentation. Now, if you identify thallium intoxication and initiate treatment within 72 hours, you may have improvement. So the drug of choice is Prussian blue, which is potassium ferric hexacyanoferrate, okay, which absorbs thallium and excretes it via the GI tract. Oh, you can also pump the stomach and use activated charcoal. Uh and it’s making them poop.
Okay, so it sounds like I was wrong, and it’s not easily excreted. Because I feel like if it was water, water soluble and it was easily excreted, then you would just like dialyze them.
Well, and then dial the other treatment is dialysis.
Oh, okay. Okay.
They also used to dialyze or they would do lake, Lasix and potassium. Oh, yeah. Lasix, potassium, make it. Because it sounds like you got to get the potassium to shift. Shift back. Yeah. Mortality is six to fifteen percent. But again, if you if you would seek treatment within 72 hours, usually you do pretty well. Uh, although about a third to half of the survivors do not have a full recovery. So you might still have like chronic issues with like neuropathy or that kind of thing. The lethal dose is 10 to 15 megs per kig. So Peggy is in the hospital and she has a diagnosis, but it’s too late for her. For her. So she so she remains hospitalized for four months. We’ll come back to her because in the meantime, Peggy’s son and stepson are also sick. Oh my god. They’re reporting shooting pain in the hands and feet, and they also have thallium in their system. Oh no. So Peggy remained in the hospital for four months, deteriorating. She initially lost the ability to communicate and to talk, but she she but she knew sign language because her parents were deaf. And her sister would come visit her and she would sign to her sister, and she signed a lot of like why why like why me? So the children ended up getting better. So everyone else recovers except Peggy. She was after four months, her family made the decision to take her off life support and she passed. Now, while Peggy was sick in the hospital, police were already trying to figure out what how like how she had been poisoned, what had happened. Because we figured out that this family all has thallium in their system. Where did it come from? So I told you this was a there were a lot of lakes and there were a lot of orchards in this area. So they looked for water sources but couldn’t find one that had high thallium, and actually the family shared a well. So they were like, the other family should also be sick, but nobody outside this house is sick.
But the dad’s not sick.
Dad’s not sick.
I just don’t understand. Okay. How did I make the jump so fast? And these police officers are not making a jump.
That it’s it, that it’s the husband? Yeah, you’re a my you’re mining. So then they looked at insecticide contamination, but they ruled those out. And again, they were like, the only people in this who are sick are people in this house. And so if it was something else, like like food coming from a factory or you know, insecticides in the orchard or something on the water source, there should be a lot more sick people. Whatever this was was in the house. They go into the house, they swabbed hundreds of items looking for a source of contamination, and they found Coke bottles that were positive for thallium. Interesting. There, there was a six-pack of like the old-fashioned glass coke bottles. Yeah. Three of them were missing, three were remaining. Okay. So they take those three to the lab and they look at them under a magnifying glass. And like, while these Coke bottles all looked normal under a magnifying glass, it appeared that the metal cap had been tampered with. There were little scratch marks matching that of a mini screwdriver, like the eyeglass screwdrivers. And each bottle contained over a gram of thallium, which is a fatal dose. Oh my god. They looked at the bottling company. They’re like, okay, so maybe this was like a plant contamination. But again, it would have been impossible in the factory to only poison like six bottles. It would have had to have been a much larger scale, yeah, based on how it comes down the conveyor belt. Right, right. And there should be more sick people. So they’re like, we don’t think this is coming from the bottling plant. Oh my gosh. This bitch was a targeted attack on this individual family. It was the ex.
Interesting.
I just know it. So who is who was your suspect?
Let’s look at our list of suspects.
Who is your suspect? So there’s there’s the husband, the wife, and then the husband was cheating on the wife with the girl at the mine. Yeah, the hussy. Yes, but the husband they did not divorce after the cheating scandal. They separated and then they got back together. And as soon as they got back together, like they move in, they have a celebratory meal, and then he goes off on a hunting trip.
Yeah. Okay. It’s the hussy. It’s the hussy.
Okay. Well, it’s either the husband who wants to kill her off, so then he doesn’t look as bad going to the hussy, or the hussy.
Yeah. It’s husband or hussy, or secret answer C, a kid who’s not happy that their parents are back together.
Okay. Interesting plot point there. Well, I would say it’s always the husband. Yeah. Well, and guess what? The husband is a minor and a mine and miners allegedly have access to thallium. This is this is what the cops are thinking, okay? He’s a miner. Go ahead. Is is thallium like in every mine? I’m so happy you asked Colleen because the cops didn’t really have the correct story. Like they’re like, like Kate thought, someone Don’t really work in a mine thinks mine metals, metal, you know, yeah, thallium, thallium. Well, miners are exposed to thallium because thallium can occur alongside sulfide minerals containing lead and zinc, copper-bearing ores, certain gold deposits, and industrial residues during metal ore processing. So, someone employed in mining, smelting, refining, or industrial chemical operations might encounter thallium-containing materials. But there’s a major difference between encountering ore containing trace amounts of thallium and having access to concentrated toxic thallium. So they brought in Pi, the husband, to be questioned. And he’s like, it wasn’t me, but I have this note that my stepson found in the mailbox weeks ago. Oh my gosh. Why, uh sir, your wife is dead. The letter was addressed to Pi, who I told you spells Pi P-Y-E. Yeah. But the letter was addressed to P-I-E. Oh, which indicated to the investigators that whoever this was didn’t really know him. Like knew who he was, but obviously wasn’t like family close friend. Right. The note said, You and your so-called family have weeks to get out of Florida forever, or else you all die. This is no joke. Whoa. What? I’m sorry. You’re just sitting on this note, sir. Why the f did he do this? That’s crazy. Peggy’s son had given it to her before she got sick. She took it from her son. She’s like, I’m gonna take this to the police, but somehow it ended up shoved in a junk drawer and kind of got fixed. Forgot about.
How do you forget about that? You think she likes, I’m gonna take it to the police, chugs of Diet Coke, and then is like Well, this was all regular Coke, but Diet Coke comes into the store.
Okay, okay.
Chugs of regular Coke, and then is like, oh no, my hands and feet, and I’ve had blurry vision. You think that was the I don’t know.
She’s she was home alone with five children, okay? And a grandkid. Five children. I’m thinking there’s only two. She had three, he had two, and then her daughter had a daughter as well. Okay, so it could be secret answer answer C. Okay. The whole family ends up getting tested because you’re like, okay, well, here’s what we know: if if we test everyone, and Pi is the only one without thallium in a system, it’s probably him, right? Yeah. But Pi had thallium in his system.
Wait, like a lot or a little bit?
He had a little bit.
Maybe from exposure from the mines. What does he touch the diet coke bottle or the coke bottles? Because it’s easily absorbed through your hands, your skin.
That’s what Megan said. Okay. So he has a low amount of thallium in his system, and all the other, all the rest of the family has thallium in the system, except for Pi’s teenage daughter. Secret answer C. Guess who else in retrospect had been poisoned before all this happened? You guys are gonna be devastated. The dog, the two dogs, had gotten sick, started losing hair, and died in close succession before Peggy got sick. But this is like now in retrospect, they’re like, wait, the dogs also Oh my gosh, somebody was doing experiments on the dog and and was like, if I do this, will someone die?
And then they did. That’s what happened. Okay. Secret answer C, that bitch.
So every one of the community’s 500 residents are interviewed, but the police have nothing. So they call in the FBI’s BSU to create a profile. So here’s the profile they create. What is BSU? Behavioral science unit. They do all of the like the unibomb or whatever, and like, oh yeah, who could this be? And then John Douglas is like the famous one. Okay. They help like what is it? Profilers profilers, yeah. Yeah. So the profile they create is an intelligent white male in his 30s to 40s. He’s methodical, indirect, a person who avoids confrontation, but exercises control at a distance. Those who poison, they claim, often feel wronged and probably enjoy talking and reading about murder. Interesting. So us? Yeah, I was like, I was like, me? What? No. I enjoy hold on. We are not direct.
I enjoy yeah, I was about to say, I enjoy confrontation.
Thallium is not easily accessible. So who had access and how do they do it? So actually, Coca-Cola steps up. It’s the Hussie’s husband. No. Well, was there no one has no one? We’ve not even met the suspect, and none of you guys are right. But the Coca-Cola factory, we’ve already proven it wasn’t in the factory and it wasn’t in the distribution center, but Coca-Cola really steps up. We love Coke, we love Diet Coke. We did talk about how they did sketchy things during World War II. Yeah. Okay. But you know, I digress. But I digress. They were who didn’t do sketchy things in World War II. We the Americans sure did. Well, we they really stepped up here. Okay. Okay. They did an experiment. They were like, we’re going to help you figure out how this could have happened. So thallium has four different salts, but only one of them could be added to Coke and not cause discoloration or excessive bubbling before you could get the cap back on the Coke bottle. Oh my gosh. Is this Walter White? That’s what I’m I wrote in my notes. I think this is a Walter White situation. It gets Walter Whitey. Oh my gosh. They were like, we’re going to help you identify what specific thallium salt this was. Yeah. And they’re like, well, some of these they either make the Coke, they put it in Coke and it turns like blue, or they put it in Coke and it foams. I was like, there’s no way you could have gotten the cap back on without it foaming over. So Coca-Cola, the Coca-Cola scientists are the ones who are like, this was had to have been thallium-1 nitrate. And so they’re like, this is very specific. Whoever did this has to have has to know, like, you can’t just use any thallium. Yeah. There’s only this one specific thallium that works. So they’re like, this person must be very intelligent. A Kim Little teacher.
That’s why we said you guys are able close. That’s why we said Walter White. You know who Walter White is, right? I know. I know. I know. Okay.
As they’re going back through the 500 residents, they look into the closest neighbors on this rural road. They’re kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but there’s their house and one other house on this back road. And that’s and then no one else around. It’s just orchards around. Oh my gosh. Okay, now that I’m moving on from the hussy, I’m thinking neighborhood drama. Like, I don’t like where you parked your car, I don’t like where your fences, your like white trash. Like, that’s what I’m thinking. You’re right, Colleen. So the neighbors are George Tripal and Donna Carr. Anyway, they discover a number of complaints from the couple about the car children playing their music too loud.
Yep. Here we go.
Her children remember altercations in the yard in which their mother would try to be conciliatory, but George would rant and rave at her. There were similar encounters with Donna. George threatened to report them for renovating without a permit. And Peggy told her kids, like, you know, we just have to try to get along with them. So the police were like, well, this really isn’t much of a motive because that does seem crazy. Yes. The kids next door being loud, and so you kill them all. Yeah, but we’ve had some crazy neighbors growing up, and I’m like, it it could definitely be a motive. Well, also I feel like Colleen’s house probably was this house. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we five kids, five kids and a bunch of animals running around, chaotic. We are the white trash neighbor. So the police are like, the peace police are like, this doesn’t seem to make much of a motive. That’s crazy, but let’s just go chat with George. Okay. That could definitely be a motive. George denies knowing anything about chemistry or thallium. When the police say, Why do you think someone would poison them? George says, quote, perhaps to get them to move. End quote. Oh, like the note? Like the directly from the note. Wait, Sky. Yes, what an idiot. Actually, he had a very high IQ and he was a member of Mensa, meaning he’s in the he’s in the top two percent of IQ.
Yeah, he was asked a direct question that he should have lied about.
And instead, he told the direct, honest truth. They run a background check, and he actually has a chemistry background, which he used to manufacture methamphetamine in the 1970s. And I wrote the original. That’s crazy. A police officer who arrested him in North Carolina in the 70s said he was the smartest chemist he had ever met. And guess what is a byproduct of methamphetamine manufacturing. Oh, yes. He actually taught chemistry to inmates while incarcerated. So when he’s like, I have no chemistry background, bullshit. Let me tell you a little about George TriPal. He was born in 1948 to a New York City police officer and an elementary school teacher, and he was always an intelligent kid. He studied chemistry and psychology at guess where? George University. Clemson. Boo. Well, they are smart there. And he dabbled in drugs. Who didn’t? But not like this, Kate. Okay. He used to cover the doorknobs in hallucinogens as payback for people he thought were breaking in. So if they touched his doorknob, they would get high. Wait, this man is a so psychopath. He claimed that he would pick up hitchhikers and feed them LSD laced Oreos and then just watch them trip. After he served his time for meth production in the 70s, he became a computer program and joined Mensa, where he met his wife Diana, who is an orthopedic surgeon. Oh gosh. But they’re like, we don’t have proof, but here’s what we figured out happened. When the family got back together, yeah. That you know that she’s in the motel with her three kids, he’s at home with his two kids, they they reunite. When they got back together, they had the celebratory dinner and they’re all drinking coke. Except the stepdaughter, because she’s worried about her figure. So she’s drinking Diet Coke. So that’s why she’s safe. Diet Coke saves lives. Pi was not drinking Coke, he was drinking bourbon, but he reached over and picked up someone else’s Coke and poured a splash in his cup. So that’s why he had these low doses. Ah my god. Peggy drank the most, and then the two sons, and then the daughter and the granddaughter, they had levels of lower levels as well. So the police are like, we know what happened, but we have to prove it. How do we prove it? So they launched undercover operation Pale Horse, which was named after a 1952 Agatha Christie novel in which a murderer utilizes thallium poisoning to dispatch victims while blaming the murders on black magic. Whoa. So they send an undercover investigator, Susan Gorick, to join the Mensa group and befriend George. I I just said, we gotta talk about what a BA she was. She had been surveilling him for months and he had a photographic memory. So then when they’re like, okay, you’re gonna go in undercover, she’s like, all I could think was like, if he just saw me one time, like watching him at a CDS, he’s gonna bust me. Yeah, that’s crazy. Also, I’m like, to have to go and you have to be very smart to go in undercover mensa and like for sure, like be able to play off like your it’s pretty hard to get into a mensa, right? We have to be in the top two percent, yeah, on your IQ test. I used to think I could be mensa. I I believe that because you have no lack of confidence. George and Donna are hosting a mensa murder mystery weekend. A three-day event. Oh, we need three days.
Megan, we need to do that.
You guys couldn’t even focus for like the four hours. We needed a three-day event for the last murder mystery that we need to have a murder mystery at a castle rental. Maybe for the 10th anniversary. Okay, maybe for my wedding. I’ll fly, I’ll do uh we’ll get I’ll get married in Scotland and we’ll have a murder mystery wedding.
In in the midst of the clown attire.
Yeah. Okay. Let’s be honest. It does sound fun. She goes in undercover as Sherry Gwyn, uh-huh, a Texas divorcee, to this murder mystery weekend. And she goes, they walk in at first, you know, she checks in with him, he gives her a little handout. They’re having a happy hour where they like mingle, and she’s schmoozing, and she goes, at first I heard he had made a toast and he told a joke about a lawyer. And I was like, Oh, he hates lawyers. So then she develops her background story to be like the ex-husband that she has left is a lawyer. So he’s gonna really hate him and he’s gonna take her side and they’re gonna bond. She’s schmoozing with George when the first murder occurs. And guess what it was? Thallium poisoning. Yep. Wow. And the victim received a threatening note. Uh he passed out a pamphlet that said, When a death threat appears in the doorstep, prudent people throw out all their food and watch what they eat. Hardly anyone dies from magic. Most items on the doorstep are just a neighbor’s way of saying, I don’t like you, move or else. It’s a very weird thing to be in your very specific in your pamphlet. Sounds very much like what happened to this family, right? He tells Susan, aka Sherry, that Don is going to relocate her practice and they may be moving. So he invites her to check out his house in case she wants to buy, because she’s like, I’m looking to buy a house, I’m going getting divorced. So she’s like awesome. She gets into his house, she’s looking around, but this investigation’s a bust. She doesn’t really see anything, no clues to help help uh also charge him. The investigation is a bust, but she continues this friendship and continues to meet George for lunches. She pretended to be in the process of divorce of divorcing a narcissistic lawyer, and he suggested at one point that she poison her ex, but he never confessed to the crime. So it’s like the more she spent time, just like the more convinced we are that this is exactly what happened.
Right. That’s crazy.
She’s really playing the long game. Yeah. Uh, it was like 18 months. Oh my gosh. Wow. Months later, just as law enforcement is about to terminate the undercover mission, George tells her that they are finally moving and he offers to rent her the house. As soon as the first rent check clears, police enter and investigate. Oh my gosh. Investigators searched the property and discovered a container with thallium in George’s workshop. Additional evidence included a notebook general poisoning guide with handwritten notes, including entries about thallium. In his new home, they found the mini jeweler’s screwdriver set, and it was missing a screwdriver which matched the tool used to pry open the Coke bottles, like based on the magnifying glass information. So this is his new house they just moved to, okay? They also found a secret soundproof room with a bed and stirrups. And this is concerning because in the very last meeting he had with undercover Sherry Gwynn, yeah, he kept trying to get her to come back to the house. And she was like, rain check, rain check. And so now they’re like, if she’d gone back to the house, would he have tortured her down it? She’d have died. Like it was that was that the end of it. Oh my God. Very scary. But this looked like a torture room. How many people went missing in this town of 500? I think maybe he’s just escalating. Like maybe he hasn’t even done it yet, but this is something he’s thinking about. Oh my gosh, I’m telling you, this man’s a sociopath. So in 1991, Trapal was convicted of first-degree murder, uh, six counts of attempted first-degree murder, seven poisoning counts, and consumer product tampering. His lawyers wanted him to throw his wife under the bus. He refused. Then in like closing arguments, they tried to be like, maybe it was the wife. But by then it was like they had the whole case, they’d not even mentioned the wife before.
Yeah, I was thinking, like, was the wife involved at all? We don’t know to this day.
No one knows if the wife was involved. There’s no way she didn’t know this shit. There’s no way she had a secret room in her house without knowing. She was an orthopedic surgeon. Maybe she was gone a lot, you know. He was sentenced to death. His conviction survived subsequent appellate challenges, including a federal appeals decision in 2012. He remains on Florida death row. His wife divorced him in 1996. If she is involved, she got away with it.
Yep.
Wow. So that is the story. Well, my takeaway is drink diet coke because you’re less likely to get poisoned. Yeah, drink diet coke. Only from a can because you can’t reclose a can. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Can you?
Can’t host a murder mystery party inspired by the crime you committed. Right. Yeah. What? Don’t be so obvious. Yeah. Be cool. New theme for next year’s murder mystery party. Whoever drinks the regular Coke first is the victim.
Oh, oh, that’s a good idea. Okay. And no one will die. Oh, you know what?
Drew will die.
Drew might drink the Coke. Oh, I was gonna say Dan. Dan likes a regular Coke too.
Also, if you’re gonna write a taunting letter, don’t pretty much quote it to the police when they come to question you. Right. That was crazy. But yeah, I think you know what? He was arrogant.
What’s the like aren’t a lot of serial killers arrogant? And like, yeah, that’s how they end up getting caught, right? It’s because they’re too arrogant.
They think they can’t get caught everyone. How did he and his wife meet with his this background? In Mensah. But did she know he was like a meth chemist?
You know, everybody did drugs in the 70s, Colleen. But meth I mean, a lot of people did opium.
I think this is the difference between doing it and being the person who makes the drugs.
Maybe.
But I also think it’s interesting that if not for like a nerdy infectious disease and like a nerdy neurologist, how much longer would it have taken for this? They wouldn’t have just routinely tested for thallium. You know what I mean? No, yeah, that’s interesting. This whole thing would have gone unsolved if not for some some.
Well, that’s why you kind of well, yeah, and I think that’s kind of why isn’t that like why you consult ID a lot of times?
It’s like I don’t think you’re supposed to just be like mystery diagnosis I ID. You’re not epidemiologists, yeah.
They’re not epidemiologists, but I feel like I feel like ID is always kind of consulted when you’re like something’s going on, and I can’t really put my finger on it.
But I think the point is more so for them to rule out an infectious ED. Right.
Well, how do you know if it wasn’t an infectious etiology?
Is thallium a part of like the standard heavy metals blood testing, or no? A basic heavy metal panel gives you lead, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium. Uh and then you can do expanded an expanded panel, which includes additional elements like thallium and cobalt. Okay, there you go. Based on what you just said just then, and then her symptoms, like I don’t think it would have taken that long for them to test her for heavy metals. I think in a small hospital, yeah, in a small town. Oh, I’m forgetting where we are. I think this is an impressive catch.
Yeah, I agree.
Didn’t go to a big city at all.
Probably a little community hospital.
Yeah, or like uh what do they have in New England? They have all the high or the um critical access.
Anyway, uh I did a I did a when I was a senior in college, I did a um my pre internship was hot at a hospital that was literally like 20 beds. It was so small.
I also forget that this is the 80s. Well, no one was no one was smart before 1997. What you were reading? Yeah, no one no one did anything before 1997. Well, I’m just thinking like we have so many hospitals that are connected to Mayo Clinic, connected to Cleveland Clinic, but that probably wasn’t like that in the 80s.
I think back in the day people were like more thinking about like heavy metal poisoning.
Oh, you’re right.
Maybe because of like lead paint and like all these things that we didn’t know were environmental like toxins, yeah, that they were learning about. Yeah.
All right, so maybe you’re right, but I’m still gonna give kudos to these. I still think it’s a fabulous. You’re right, it is a great catch, but I’m just thinking, I don’t think it would have okay, guys. If you enjoyed this episode, send it to three people. Who should they send it to, Kate? Send it to three people who want you want to poison, or who like breaking bad. Or who like murder mystery party, or who like diet coke, yes, and then after you’ve sent this uh sent this episode to three people, please scroll on down. Leave us a five-star review. We really need you guys to help get the word out. So please leave us some some comments, please leave us some five-star reviews, please follow us on Instagram and check us out on Patreon. Yeah. And we’ll see you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday.