5. Poisoners - Murder Mystery Weekend
01:01:22 Share

Of all the methods of murder, poisonings can be particularly hard to solve.

There's usually a delay between the criminal act itself and the result of it, by which time the poisoner has had an opportunity to remove himself or herself from the scene and from potential suspicion. And sometimes, if the poison is even detected, that's the only evidence there is. Whatever the source was may have already been consumed, thrown away, or otherwise removed from sight.

In our last case of Graham Young, it was his proximity to his victims. He poisoned his co-workers and, like many who poison, members of his family. And it was his compulsion to blab and draw attention to himself that led him to being caught. On this episode of Binged, drawing the poisoner into the police net was a bit more difficult and required the same level of patience that poisoners often are known for.

So, located about an hour's drive south of Orlando, the tiny community of Alturas in central Florida is so small, it's barely acknowledged by the U.S. Postal Service, with all its residential addresses technically assigned to the nearby city of Bartow. Now, with a population of only a few thousand, Alturas is orange groves and more orange groves as far as the eye can see. And here and there, you might also spot a house, but

but in Alturas, the ratio of citrus to people is probably a million to one.

Now in the spring of 1988, 41-year-old Peggy Carr had moved to Alturas to live with her new husband, Pi Carr. Now Peggy, who married Pi in May of '88, was twice divorced and hoped that this third time would be the charm. Pi had also been married before and both of them had children from previous marriages. Peggy had two sons, one still a teenager and a grown daughter, and Pi also had a son and a daughter.

And Peggy was also a grandmother. Her two-year-old granddaughter, Casey, lived with her. Their combined families created one really large, sometimes mismatched family of more than half a dozen, all inhabiting one modest three-bedroom, two-bath house offering less than 1,700 square feet. So as you can imagine, this was not a quiet house, but one that was always teeming with activity and bursting with life.

In fact, Father Pi had begun converting the garage into an apartment for Peggy's daughter Sissy and Sissy's daughter Casey before the zoning board stepped in and halted construction. But more on that later. So Pi worked at a phosphate mine for a living while Peggy had a job waiting tables for the Nicholas family restaurant, which was a Greek owned barbershop.

breakfast, lunch, and dinner spot about half an hour away in the neighboring county. Now, Peggy's marriage to Pi was a marriage that, although very new, was already coming up against its fair share of problems. For one, her children weren't getting along with his children.

And then in October of 88, after only five months of marriage, Peggy discovered that Pi was having an affair. Her suspicions over the long hours that Pi was spending at work came to a head one night when he called from the mine to tell Peggy that he had to work late. They'd already made dinner plans with Pi's sister and Peggy just wasn't buying it. And this was at least the dozenth time he'd called to say he was working late.

It didn't make sense to her. Working late at a phosphate mine? Doing what? Sissy, Peggy's daughter, suggested that she investigate. Why don't you drive out to the mine and see if he's there? So Peggy did just that. She got into Sissy's car and the two of them drove down to the mine only to find the parking lot completely empty save for two cars.

One was Pais and the other belonged to an old girlfriend of his. So that pretty much validated Peggy's suspicions and she was wrecked.

And if that wasn't enough, Pi's daughter, Tammy, then accused Peggy's son, Dwayne, of stealing stereo equipment from a friend of hers. And all of this was just too much for Peggy. So she packed a few bags and moved out of the house with her children and grandchildren, checking into a room at the Tropical Motel. But before leaving, she spilled her heart into a note addressed to Pi and left it in the house for her husband to read.

"I'm going to give you some time to think about us," she wrote. "I can't live like we have been. No respect from the kids, not talking, not caring. I love you and I want to be your wife. Key word is wife. I can't imagine living without you," she wrote, "but I can if you don't want me." Peggy's stay in the motel ended up being brief. The very next day, she returned home and the new couple reconciled.

Early one Saturday morning, not long after, on October 23rd, Peggy slipped into her work clothes and drove to the restaurant an hour early. This was not unusual for Peggy. She liked to get to work with ample time to spare before her shift. That way, she could enjoy some coffee and breakfast with her favorite customer, an older fellow named Floyd.

Now, Floyd was a regular at the Nicholas Diner, and over time, he and Peggy developed a close bond. Floyd was a retired mechanist, but for Peggy, he was kind of like her psychiatrist, or at least that's how she jokingly referred to him. This was because Peggy felt so safe and comfortable with this gentle soul, she would often confide in him for her troubles.

So on this morning, in the hours after dawn, as Peggy and Floyd sipped their coffee and smoked their cigarettes, Peggy told him about Pi's infidelity and about the problems with the kids. It was so much, so soon into the marriage. Now Floyd listened to Peggy, being his usual supportive self. But then sometime during the conversation, Peggy suddenly froze and her face darkened with worry.

She clutched her chest, looked at Floyd, and told him, Floyd...

I think I'm having a heart attack. The pain in her chest was getting worse by the minute. Fillings of pins and needles accompanied by an intense burning sensation radiated outward from her chest toward her stomach and limbs. Now, Floyd had been a medic back in his army days and had retained his knowledge and training, so he knew what to look for. Give me your hands, he said. He pressed his fingers against her wrist.

Peggy's heart rate was normal. Her breathing seemed normal. Her complexion, the color of her fingernail beds, everything looked fine. There was no indication that Peggy was having a heart attack like she suspected.

But over the next half hour, Peggy just kept feeling sicker and sicker. And yet nothing outwardly changed. Now, Floyd continued to reassure her that her vitals and coloration were fine. It must all be in her mind, he said, psychosomatic. So once the clock struck seven and Peggy's morning shift officially began, she slid into her smock and began work. But it was right out of the gate, an uphill struggle.

Shuttling food back and forth from kitchen to table all day had never been more of a labor for Peggy, who was already exhausted before she even left Floyd's booth. Early that afternoon, her daughter Sissy arrived at the restaurant. She also worked there as a server, just like her mom. And as Sissy began her shift, she asked her mom if she wouldn't mind picking up her little girl Casey after work, who they all live together, remember.

Now, Peggy agreed, but it was obvious that she wasn't feeling up to it. My legs are hurting me real bad, she told Sissy, and my hands are numb.

Sissy felt her mother's hands. They were ice cold to the touch. "'Why don't you just go home and take it easy?' Sissy said, sounding concerned. "'Casey can lay down and nap with you.'" So Peggy left, picked up Casey, and returned home to the house she shared with Pi. He wasn't home, however. He had gone out of town for a weekend hunting trip, so the house would be empty till he returned early that evening.

And then, when Pi finally came home, he found his wife lying on the couch, drained of vitality, barely able to greet him. But rather than calling a doctor, he called up his sister, Carolyn.

And I should clarify, though, that Carolyn happened to be a nurse, and she lived only a mile away. So by the time that Carolyn showed up with her blood pressure monitor only a short time later, Peggy's condition had worsened to a point where she was seriously thinking about going to the emergency room. But once again...

Her vitals were normal, so whatever was ailing Peggy, it didn't seem measurable. When Sissy returned home from work that night, she was confronted by the sight of her mother lying in bed, stiff and barely moving, with the covers pulled completely over her. She was pale, her skin was chalky, and her lips were cracked. "You don't know how bad it hurts," she told her daughter. Peggy was so weak by this point that she needed her daughter's help even making it to the toilet.

even though it was mere feet away from the bed. Now, when Peggy was done in the bathroom, Sissy helped her mother back to the bed, where the ailing woman immediately collapsed from exhaustion, begging her daughter to make the pain go away. Meanwhile, Pi was in the kitchen drinking a cocktail.

"'Are you going to take her to the hospital?' Peggy's daughter asked him. "'No,' he said. His eyes and attention were focused elsewhere. "'She's just got a virus or something,' he said dismissively. Now, Sissy returned to her mother's bedside to kiss her goodnight, but Peggy couldn't even open her eyes or respond. So that's when Sissy insisted on taking her mother to the hospital. But then Pi's tone became gruff and annoyed. "'No,' he barked, putting down his glass of vodka and OJ. "'She said she doesn't want to go.'

Sissy stalked off to the garage to her half-completed apartment where she lived with Casey, her two-year-old daughter. Half an hour before midnight, Peggy's condition had deteriorated to the point where Pi was compelled to ask if she wanted to go to the Bartow Memorial Hospital. And with what little energy she could muster, Peggy answered in the affirmative. So Pi loaded his wife up into his pickup and drove her to the nearest hospital.

Now, Sissy, her daughter, followed close behind with her daughter, Casey, in the car seat. And when they got there, Peggy was taken into the examining room. To the medical staff, she clearly appeared to have weakness on both sides of her face and her hands were freezing cold. As the doctor shone his light into her eyes, Peggy weakly rasped. I feel like I'm on fire.

But the doctor found no obvious cause. Despite Peggy's appearance and her complaints, none of the tests performed revealed anything abnormal. Three days later, three days after she was first admitted, Peggy was showing no signs of improvement. The doctors remained mystified and, much like Floyd back at the restaurant, suggested that her symptoms just must be psychosomatic. But

But she bristled upon hearing this. There was just no way. Merely being lightly touched on the arms sent soul-shaking pain shooting through her, down to her bones. This was like nothing that Peggy had ever experienced before, and she knew it wasn't all in her head. This was real. ♪

But then the clouds began to part. Peggy suddenly felt better and that trademark sassy personality began to return just as the color came back to her face. It seemed like Peggy Carr was on the road to recovery. And whatever her mystery ailment was, it was apparently packing its bags and moving on just as unceremoniously as it had arrived. She was discharged less than a week from the date she was admitted. And then she was back at home with Piie.

The afternoon following Peggy's return, Pi's sister Carolyn came by the house with a fried chicken meal. And while setting the table and serving, she pulled some 16-ounce glass bottles of Coca-Cola from the carton on the kitchen floor and poured them over ice. And although this was generally a Pepsi household, the fizzy sound that softly filled the room as Coke filled each icy glass was music to everyone's ears.

"'Drink,' Carolyn told Peggy. "'You need to keep your fluids up.' And Peggy agreed, especially after those epic bouts of vomiting and diarrhea during her hospital stay."

It was after this, the next morning, that Peggy woke up, but just barely. She felt miserable, again. Her illness had returned. It was like she was right back to where she was just before she'd been admitted to the hospital. Covered up in bed and so seized with pain and weakness that she was almost completely unable to move or even speak.

But this time, she wasn't the only one in the house feeling sick. Her son, Dwayne, and even Pi's son, Travis, both came down with similar symptoms. Dwayne dismissed it as a hangover, but Travis, as much as he wanted to think it was something so innocuous as a hangover, he recognized that this felt different from any hangover he'd ever experienced.

and he'd certainly experienced a few of them in his 16 years on the planet. Whatever he was feeling, it just felt wrong. It felt grim and grave, and it scared him. The symptoms, in fact, were very similar to what Peggy had experienced when they first appeared. Pins and needles in the fingers and toes, stomach cramps, and burning sensations radiating outward from inside his body. And if you're fresh off of our last episode about the teacup poisoner,

This very specific set of symptoms may be sounding familiar to you. It was at this point that Dwayne's toes and feet also began tingling, so he took a jog to town and back, thinking that he just needed to get his blood circulating. But the pain only grew. By the time he had jogged back to the house, Dwayne felt like he was walking on a bed of red hot needles. Meanwhile, as Travis and Dwayne began getting sick, Sissy was working her shift at the Nicholas Family Restaurant.

While there, she talked to her and her mother's coworker, Rita, about what was going down at the house. She shared with Rita that first her mother had gotten sick and now the boys were sick. And she was beginning to suspect that Pi and his sister, Carolyn, were poisoning her mother.

"'They're killing her. I know they are,' Sissy said. "'But Rita, her co-worker, was skeptical. "'But then, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed actually quite plausible. "'That night, as Sissy's shift was almost over, the phone rang at the restaurant. "'Sissy answered, and it was Pi. "'Your mother's in an ambulance,' he told her, heading back to the hospital, "'this time to Winter Haven Hospital, which was some 45 minutes north of the restaurant.'

Once she was admitted, again, Peggy was examined by the resident neurologist, Dr. Richard Holster. "'Doctor, what's wrong with me?' Peggy asked. "'I'm in terrible pain.'

Now, Dr. Holster asked Peggy to shut her eyes, explaining that he was going to place his fingers over her eyelids and try to pry them open. I want you to resist as I try to open your eyes, he instructed. Peggy was unable to. The doctor was able to pry her eyes open with no difficulty at all. He then asked her to try wrinkling her forehead. She couldn't manage that either. She was showing Marquette weakness on both sides of her face. She

She was slurring her speech, was extremely sensitive to touch, and she had distinctive looking ulcers in her mouth. One thing was certain to Dr. Holster. This wasn't psychosomatic. Something physical was going on with Peggy Carr. And when Pi Carr revealed to Dr. Holster that his son and stepson were also coming down with symptoms much like Peggy's, the doctor began to suspect some kind of poison might be behind it all.

He asked Pi about possible chemical sources inside the house, if any pesticides had been recently used around the property, but Pi could recall nothing of the kind. Dr. Holster then summoned one of his colleagues to take a look at Peggy. One thing that both Dr. Holster and his colleague immediately noticed was that when Peggy lifted her head from the hospital gurney, a huge clump of her hair stayed behind, having fallen out of her head. Dr. Holster took his colleague aside and shared his suspicions.

"'I think it's thallium,' he said. His colleague expressed skepticism. "'That seems highly unlikely, no?' Dr. Holster agreed, but he argued he also couldn't think of anything else that would fit so neatly into Peggy's systems. So they took a sample of Peggy's urine and they sent it away for analysis. Now, meanwhile, Peggy's sister, Shirley, who was a long-haul truck driver, drove down from Alabama for a visit. By the time her sister showed up, Peggy was unable to even open her eyes."

Shirley's first glimpse of her sister upon arrival was the sight of Peggy hooked up to tubes that went into her nose and throat with her hands tied down to prevent her from removing them.

Peggy could hear her sister talking to her, but she couldn't open her mouth to respond. She could only move her fingers. And fortunately, she knew sign language because both their mother and father had been deaf. So Shirley asked, do you know who this is? Peggy signed the letters spelling out, yes. Shirley touched her sister who was cold as a corpse. How are you feeling? She asked. Peggy signed the letters spelling out, I hurt.

Sometimes after a particularly long day, I love to play games on my phone to get my mind off things, and one game I have been loving is June's Journey. June's Journey is a hidden object mystery mobile game that puts your detective skills to the test. You play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s while uncovering the mystery of her sister's

murder. With hundreds of mind-teasing puzzles, the next clue is always within reach. Every new scene and chapter leads to more juicy secrets and clues being revealed about this mysterious murder that brings out the detective in everyone. Plus, you get to chat and play with or against other players by joining a detective club. You'll even get the chance to play in a detective league to put your skills to the test.

I have always loved good scavenger hunts and puzzles, and of course, we all know I love a good murder mystery, and this is just the perfect marriage of the two. Right now, I'm on chapter two. I've been trying so hard not to use the light bulb feature to help me search for clues. I seriously look forward to playing it every night. Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

Okay, most beauty brands don't understand fine color treated hair, but Proz does. They have a formula that can address my specific type of hair needs, which makes sense because it's based on me. If you're wondering whether custom hair care is worth the hype, let me tell you it is, and that's why I'm obsessed with Proz.

Since 2017, Proz has transformed traditional hair and skincare with a made-to-order model that reduces waste, celebrates unique beauty over one-size-fit-all beauty standards, and works better than off-the-shelf alternatives. Developed in Paris and bottled fresh in Brooklyn, Proz combines the know-how of its world-class team of in-house cosmetic chemists with an advanced AI algorithm that personalizes your formulas

based on 80 plus unique factors. You literally go on, take the quiz, it asks you all types of questions and then they personalize your hair care. Since I switched to Proz, I've noticed that my hair is so much shinier, stronger, and my color actually lasts longer. And because you're always changing, so is your Proz. Your formulas evolve alongside you and Proz will address any new concerns, adjust your formulas with the seasons, and learn from your feedback with an always custom fit.

You guys, PROSE is so confident that they'll bring out your best hair that they're offering an exclusive trial offer of 50% off your first hair care subscription. Order at PROSE.com slash dark. PROSE.com slash dark. Go on, take the quiz. See what they come up with. Take your free consultation, get your one-of-a-kind formula, and see the difference custom hair care can make with 50% off at PROSE, P-R-O-S-E, .com slash dark.

Let's get back into the episode. Soon after, the results from the urinalysis came back. Peggy had so much thallium in her system, 50%.

50 times the maximum safe amount for human exposure that it seemed almost certain she would die. And it seemed unlikely this was some kind of accidental or incidental exposure. Her system contained 20,000 times the amount to be expected as a result of natural exposure to it in the environment. So at this point, Dr. Holster confided in his colleague that he believed his patient, Peggy, had been intentionally poisoned.

Thallium is a chemical element with the atomic number of 81 on the periodic table. It was first discovered in 1861, and thereafter it was used to treat certain ailments such as ringworms, syphilis, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and other delightful maladies. But then it was eventually realized how toxic thallium was, causing deterioration of the muscular and nervous systems, even at low doses, so it stopped being used.

After that, its main utility was as a pesticide until its use in the United States was banned in 1972. Perhaps, not coincidentally, a year after Graham Young's conviction in the UK for using thallium to poison his co-workers.

So the incidental presence of thallium in one's home would be very rare at this point and just honestly plain improbable. Dr. Holster then brought his diagnosis to Pye, along with his suspicions that Peggy was being intentionally poisoned.

which may not have been the wisest decision considering that Peggy's daughter and colleague were already suspecting Pi of being the one who's poisoning Peggy. But since Pi's own son had also come down with the symptoms, as well as Peggy's son, Dr. Holster may not have had reason to suspect Pi. It would appear, the doctor told him, that someone tried to poison your entire family. Somehow you were spared, he added.

anyone dislikes us enough to do that, Pi told the doctor. But with the help of Shirley's sister, Pi then communicated this news to Peggy, who is now almost completely paralyzed and capable of moving anything other than her fingers, unable to even open her eyes or breathe on her own. She was also now on a ventilator. Do you know why you're here? Pi asked his wife. With her fingers, she signed no. You've been poisoned, he told her.

Why, she signed. I don't know, Pye said. She then just kept signing why, why, why. A few days later, Dr. Holster contacted the Polk County Sheriff's Department. The report landed on the desk of Detective Ernie Mincy, who met Dr. Holster at the hospital. Now, Detective Mincy then went to visit with Peggy, who was a figure at the center of a web of medical equipment that was basically just keeping her alive.

Her sister surely offered to communicate on Peggy's behalf, but Peggy had now lost the ability to even move her fingers and communicate in sign language. All she could do was squeeze her sister's hand.

Do you know what's happened to you? Detective Mincy asked. Do you know how you got poisoned? Peggy was unable to communicate an answer. The detective then interviewed the teenagers, Dwayne and Travis, in their shared hospital rooms. Both gave the same complaint. Their bodies felt like they were on fire. Even the slightest touch, even their hospital gowns against their skin, was agonizing.

Detective Mincy was puzzled. He'd never seen a case like this, and he was no rookie either. In fact, just as poisoning by thallium had been unheard of in the UK when Graham Young was convicted of it, it was also super rare in the United States, and there hadn't been a known case of thallium poisoning in Florida, maybe ever.

So back at the Carr property, county health inspectors and investigators began combing through everything inside of the Carr house and around it, looking for a potential food source of contamination or even contaminated groundwater outside. They were keeping an open mind that maybe still it could have been accidental cross-contamination.

So the Orange Groves beside the home were tested for pesticides containing thallium, as were the water wells in the area. The Carr home, in fact, was surrounded by Orange Groves on all sides. And their only neighbors were George Trepal and his wife, who lived next door in a house just east of theirs. Their properties were abutting. And his wife's name, by the way, was Dr. Diana Carr, spelled the same way, but no relation to Pi and Peggy Carr. This was just purely a coincidence of the two neighbors.

Trappell had, in fact, talked to the Tampa Tribune, who by this time was covering the Carr family's illnesses. Word had begun to spread. Trappell explained to the Tribune that he and his wife had been using the Carr's well water for bathing because his water pump had been broken. But he and his wife were now only drinking bottled water due to the health department advising them to steer clear of the Carr's water. Nobody knows how they got sick, Trappell's wife Diana told the paper, so it's kind of hard to take precautions when you don't even know what it is.

Air and dust samples were taken from inside Pi and Peggy's home, along with hundreds of household items. All the while, Detective Mincy was keeping a close eye on Pi. It was something about Pi's demeanor that just didn't sit right with the seasoned detective. Mincy had worked enough cases to recognize that Pi's cool, oftentimes abrupt demeanor with him didn't quite fit with the behavior of a genuinely concerned husband.

And then there was the threatening letter mailed to the Carr residence four months earlier. The detective had first learned about this from Shirley, this is Peggy's sister, and not even from Pi himself. And when the detective asked him about this letter, Pi didn't seem fazed by it, didn't seem to think much of it. When he'd first received this mysterious letter, which had been postmarked in nearby Bartow, he had showed it to his family at the dinner table.

They were all unsure what to make of it and they ultimately decided it was just a joke. After all, it had misspelled Pi's name in the address, P-I-E. No one who knew the family spelled it that way, it was P-Y-E. The letter, which was typewritten in all caps, read, quote, "You and all of your so-called family have two weeks to move out of Florida or else you all die. This is no joke."

Pi told the detective he saved the letter. And now that you know what it says, it's odd that Pi never brought this up.

Well, Detective Mincy replied, "I'm going to want that letter." So, Pi dug it out of the house and handed it over. Interestingly, there was nuance in the formatting of the address that suggested that it was someone local, someone close by who likely had sent it, which only increased suspicion towards Pi, as did the fact that Pi had been away on a hunting trip the weekend Peggy's symptoms first appeared.

as did his extramarital affair and Peggy's discovery of it and the turmoil in the house. Motive! As did the revelation from Peggy's ex-husband, Larry, that Pi had allegedly taken out multiple life insurance policies on Peggy, Dwayne, and even his own son, Travis, the three who happened to be the sickest.

Now, according to what Peggy told her ex-husband, Pi had taken out an $80,000 life insurance policy on her and two $60,000 policies on the boys. And now Pi's son Travis was approaching the same level of agony as his stepmother. He was now unable to get out of bed. It felt like his whole body was on fire. And Dwayne wasn't faring so well either. All of his hair had fallen out.

and Travis's youthful locks were now more than half gone. Both boys tested positive for thallium exposure. Larry, Peggy's ex, told Detective Mincy in the middle of this investigation that he suspected that not only was Pi poisoning his wife and the two kids, but Pi's sister Carolyn, the nurse, was also in on it.

He recalled how, just a few nights earlier, he'd heard loud talking coming from a hospital room, and when he entered, he found Carolyn and Pi standing over his son, Dwayne, as the boy yelled out to him, "Help me! They're trying to kill me!" "Son," Carolyn told him, "we're not trying to do a thing in the world to you, but help you!" Larry also described how Pi was so nervous after the detective had last interviewed him that he was literally trembling.

None of this looked good for Pi, and Peggy's older son, Alan, who had moved away to join the Navy, was only now just hearing about his brother's and his mother's conditions, as Pi had prohibited Peggy's daughter, Sissy, from calling him for no good reason.

is just controlling. So by the time Alan finally visited the hospital to see his mother, Peggy didn't even seem to know where she was or why. And then very soon after this, she slipped into a coma. Now Detective Mincy decided to confront Pi about the life insurance policies at this point in the investigation. And in response,

Pye denied they existed, like adamantly. Additional lab tests then came back revealing that Sissy and her two-year-old daughter also had thallium in their systems despite not having any symptoms. But then it was discovered that Pye too also had a little thallium in his system, though it was a smaller amount and it didn't seem to produce any symptoms other than what Pye described as minor aches.

And again, if you remember from our last story, Graham Young himself became ill while poisoning his family members with thallium, either by deliberately dosing himself just enough to avoid suspicion or by accidentally consuming some of his own poison. And from the looks of it, the only person in the Carr household who had not become ill was Pye's daughter Tammy, who had no thallium in her system.

So the family reflected back on that chicken dinner that they'd eaten the day after Peggy was first released from the hospital, shortly before everyone started getting sick. Tammy, who tested negative for thallium, recalled having eaten the same food as everyone else. The only difference was Tammy only drank diet cola, and she had cracked open a canned diet Pepsi while everyone else enjoyed the Coca-Cola from glass bottles out of the eight-pack.

the remainder of which was being stored beneath the kitchen sink. Who bought the glass bottles, Detective Mincy asked, but no one in the family could remember. They usually bought Pepsi, and it was unlikely anyone in the house would have bought Coca-Cola now that they really pressed to think about it. It seemed as though the six-pack of Coke had just shown up. The empty bottles of Coca-Cola had already been sent off to the crime lab for testing, along with over 400 other items from the household, so it was just a matter of time before the results came back.

And although Cissy and others in the family still suspected Pi, Detective Mincy's suspicion towards the husband began to cool. Though Pi's sister Carolyn was still of interest to him and to Peggy's children too. They also had suspicions toward Carolyn. And Pi's daughter Tammy was also a suspect because after all, everyone in the household had been poisoned but her.

And then there were the only other people in close proximity to the Carr household. The Carrs next door. The only neighbors, George Tripal and his wife, Dr. Diana Carr. Which again, same spelling but no relation to the Carr family. So Detective Mincy learned that there had been conflict between the next door couple and the Carr household dating people.

quite some time. And most recently, only a day or two before Peggy's symptoms first appeared, there had been an ugly altercation between Peggy and Dr. Diana. An altercation over loud music. Travis and Dwayne were playing in the front yard of the car household. It had been a hot day, October in Florida is still like summer, and the two boys were in front of the house shirtless, washing mud off Travis's truck when they turned the truck stereo on and cranked up the volume.

Now, Peggy was washing dishes inside the house and heard the music from inside. She popped her head out the window and asked them to turn it down, but teenage boys being teenage boys did the opposite. They blasted the music. Then the neighbor, Diana, appeared in the grassy area between their homes, marching angrily their way.

Turn that music down, she shouted. The boys complied, but Diana wasn't satisfied. I want to talk to your mother now. She waited for Peggy to come outside. And when she did, the discussion between the two women went south very quickly. Kids will be kids, Peggy told her. Diana wasn't having it. She threatened to call the police. And then Peggy threatened to call the police on Diana if she didn't get out of her yard. And then Diana threatened to beat the crap out of Peggy.

So Diana was screaming, ranting, and cursing, and then the confrontation ended with Diana walking away with her chest puffed out, promising Peggy, you're not going to get away with this. This ain't over yet. So to Detective Mincy, when he heard about this, it sounded like your typical neighbor squabbles. Insufficient motive to commit murder, but nevertheless, he felt it important to interview the couple anyway. Due diligence. But

but he was finding it rather challenging getting an interview with them. It required a surprising level of persistence, as it seemed that the couple was never at home, or they just weren't coming to their door. Now, finally, one afternoon, the detective located Dr. Diana at her office, out of which her practice as an orthopedic surgeon was based.

She told the detective that she didn't socialize with her neighbors. They're not my type of people, she explained. She downplayed the altercation with Peggy, suggesting it was just your average spat between neighbors, which is pretty much what Detective Mincy had assumed in the first place.

"'Do you use thallium at your practice?' the detective asked. Diana said she did not, nor did she have any access to it. "'But I did read about it,' she said, in this Agatha Christie novel, The Pale Horse, which faithful listeners to this batch of binged will recognize as the book that possibly first introduced serial poisoner Graham Young to thallium, which became his poison of choice.'

But the detective wasn't much impacted by this or anything else that Diana had to share. If anything was curious to him, it was Diana's strangely upbeat demeanor when talking about her neighbors being poisoned. But nothing else really raised any red flags to him. At this point, there were so many possibilities.

On December 2nd, the phone rang at Detective Mincy's office while he was away. It was the head chemist at the Florida State Crime Lab. When Mincy got the message, he called back and got the news. They'd discovered the source of the thallium among the nearly 450 items from the car household they'd tested. It was the empty Coca-Cola bottles. In a thin, sludgy film left behind at the bottom of each bottle, they detected substantial quantities of thallium.

The priority task now was to locate the remaining four unopened bottles of Coca-Cola and test them too. Meanwhile, the Coca-Cola company was contacted to determine if it were possible that the thallium contamination happened somewhere along the production line, not at the car household.

Coca-Cola advised that this was absolutely impossible. No other cases of thallium poisoning or contamination had been reported. And given how the bottling process works, even if the poison was introduced by someone working at the plant, it would be impossible for all four bottles or all eight, assuming the other four bottles were also laced, to end up in the same eight-pack.

And if you've listened to Murder With My Husband, my other true crime podcast, you may also now recognize some parallels between this and the Chicago Tylenol poisonings. A crime rhyme, if you will. So when the unopened bottles of Coca-Cola from the Carr household were received at the state crime lab, the first order of business was to inspect for any signs of tampering. And at first glance, there were none. The metal bottle caps were secured fastly with no visible indentations or tool marks.

But when examined with an electron microscope magnified a hundred times, near microscopic tool marks on the metal caps then became visible, proving that the bottles had been pried open by a third party after they'd left the plant, thus establishing that this was indeed an intentional poisoning. Someone had poured thallium into these bottles and each of the full bottles of Coca-Cola contained a whole gram of

of thallium, which was more than enough to kill an adult human being. Okay, you guys, let me guess. Your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that doesn't work. You still aren't sleeping. You still hurt and you're still stressed out.

That's how it was for me. So I cleared out my cabinet and reset my health with CBD from CB Distillery. And it has been a real change. Now, CB Distillery's targeted formulations are made from the highest quality clean ingredients. No fluff, no fillers, just pure effective CBD solutions designed to help support your health.

in two non-clinical surveys 81 of customers experienced more calm 80 said cbd helped with pain after physical activity and an impressive 90 said they slept better with cbd and you guys i have taken cbd to help me sleep and i all

I always zonk out so fast and have such a restful night's sleep. Those nights that I'm tossing and turning, I always reach for my CBD. So if you struggle with a health concern and haven't found relief, make the change like I did to CB Distillery. And with over 2 million customers and a solid 100% money back guarantee, CB Distillery is the source to trust. I have a 20% discount to get you started.

Visit cbdistillery.com and use code dark for 20% off you guys. If you wanted to give CBD a try, go to cbdistillery.com code dark cbdistillery.com use code dark. All right, let's get back to the episode. And the outlook for Peggy certainly wasn't good as she'd been in comatose for several weeks by this point.

This was becoming such a perplexing case for the Polk County Sheriff's Office that they enlisted the aid of the FBI, who created a psychological profile of the poisoner. This is not your typical murderer. The FBI profile suggested that the offender would be someone with prior exposure to substances like thallium, suggesting a sophisticated knowledge of chemistry. They were likely dealing with a craft

organized offender. He'd managed to pry the metal caps off eight glass bottles. That's eight times the risk of detection. Introduce the poison and then replace the bottle caps, leaving no visible evidence of tampering. The FBI behavioral analysis unit felt that this would probably be a white male or female in his or her mid-30s, highly intelligent, and someone who preferred to resolve conflicts without direct confrontation. And also someone who enjoyed reading about murder

and possibly watching violent movies and television shows. So whoever was responsible obviously planted the Coca-Cola bottles inside the home. And this was a house that the Carr family rarely locked up as they lived in the middle of nowhere. So the culprit would likely be someone well aware of the family's schedule and their comings and goings. The FBI suggested to Polk County detectives that they begin interviewing neighbors. And of course, Detective Mincy had already done that. He

He'd already interviewed the Carr family's only neighbors, or at least one of them, Dr. Diana, but he'd yet to talk to the woman's husband, George Trapal. Mincy and his new partner on the case, Detective Brad Breck, stopped by the property, and when they arrived, they saw Trapal standing in his driveway. They showed the man their badges, and the man invited them inside the house. They talked back and forth for a bit, and George Trapal seemed shaky and nervous, unusually so.

When asked what he did for a living, Tripal told them he programmed computers and wrote freelance articles for computer magazines. "I work out of my wife's office," he explained. "I'm usually gone all day from dawn to dusk." When talking about his neighbors, Tripal initially didn't have much to say. But he did say something that echoed his wife's words in her previous interview with Brekke's partner. "They're not really our kind of people."

Have you had any problems with them? Detective Mincy asked. That's when something seemingly took over George, like he was possessed, and he began rattling off a long laundry list of complaints about the Carr family dating back years. Shortly after George and Diana moved into their house, he recalled Pi was already endlessly trying to sell things to his new neighbors. A makeshift barbecue pit, for example, and other homemade junk.

And the family seemingly ever expanding since Pi's new wife moved in with him was always making noise, playing loud music, running their ATV vehicles onto Trapal's property, disrupting his peace with constantly barking dogs. Detective Breck looked under the table where Trapal was sitting and saw his feet manically sliding back and forth across the floor.

And then, Detective Mincy asked, "Can you think of any reason that someone might want to hurt the Carr family?" It took Trapal not even a moment to come up with an answer. To get them to move. This raised an enormous red flag. It brought the detectives' minds back to that anonymous threat that the Carr family had received four months before the poisonings began.

The note that read, So on their drive back to the station, Breck turned to Mincy and said, very simply, I think he did it. Now let's prove it. George Trappell, at first glance, was an unlikely suspect.

He'd met his wife, Diana, in 1981 through a personals ad in a newsletter put out by Mensa, which is the world's most famous high IQ society, an organization to which membership requires an IQ at or above the 98th percentile, pretty much above 130. And George's IQ was 150. So both George and Diana were Mensa members. Diana had a master's degree in chemistry and went on to become one of the country's first pharma

female orthopedic surgeons, and she was also a licensed pilot. Despite all this, and despite George looking like a nerdy dude with his thick framed glasses, thinning hair, graying beard, slight stature, and middle-aged spread, he had a checkered history. He was a self-taught chemist with a spiteful disregard for others and a criminal record.

Back in his college days, he developed a belief that fellow students had been sneaking into his dorm room. So to teach them a lesson, he coated his doorknob with hallucinogens. And then he and a friend would often pick up hitchhikers and give them cookies laced with drugs, unbeknownst to the hitchhikers, just to see what would happen to them, just for the hell of it.

In the 1970s, when he was living in South Carolina, George Trappell became the head chemist for a methamphetamine lab. And while running this meth lab, he got busted, as one does. And this meth lab had in fact been one of the largest meth operations in the entire Southeast.

In 1975, he was convicted of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine and sent to prison for a three-year term. So not only did George's history reveal that he was an expert chemist, but thallium is actually one of the byproducts of methamphetamine production.

So George had exposure to thallium in the past, and he'd lied about this to the detectives when they originally asked him what he knew about thallium. He told them, "Only what I learned from Channel 10 News." Another lie that detectives discovered that George had told them was the line about accompanying his wife to work every day and spending all day at her office. It was quickly discovered that George, in fact, spent his days at home by himself,

which would have given him ample time to keep a watchful eye on the car house and access it when no one was home.

So going into the new year, Peggy Carr remained in a coma and Pi's son Travis was also not improving. He too had to be placed on a ventilator. Dwayne's condition remained stable but he wasn't out of the woods entirely and around this time the investigation began to stall. They thought they knew who it was, they couldn't find the evidence. Then on March 3rd, after months of Peggy showing no signs of improvement,

Pi Carr made the difficult decision to remove his wife from life support. Peggy Carr was dead at 41 years of age. The case had now become a homicide. The prime suspect at this point was neighbor George Trappell. The Polk County detectives knew he was responsible. They had no idea at this point how to prove it. So they came up with a plan. They enlisted the help of their colleague, Susan, and they asked her to go undercover.

They had learned about a special annual event for Mensa members called the Mensa Murder Mystery Weekend. And this year's event was being organized and run by none other than George and his wife, Diana. So Susan's assignment was to pose as a fellow Mensa member using the name Sherry Gwen and befriend George. The detectives believed that if Trappell let his guard down, he might begin spilling information about the Carr family poisonings, maybe even boasting about it, thus incriminating himself.

Susan was briefed on what kind of personality to adopt to best connect with Trapal, and she then went to work. She began by writing a letter to George. Dear George, this letter is to request further information on the upcoming Mensa murder weekend. As I am considering moving my home to this country, I am compelled to find some type of stimulating entertainment.

Although I am acquainted with the renowned Mensa organization, never before have I been involved in a lifestyle that would permit such endeavors. My background consists of years of dedicated service to my mate who took his thriving career and moved upwards and onwards alone. A weekend filled with intrigue and intellect could be just what the doctor ordered. Sincerely, Sherry Gwen. And also,

with its $10 word drops and cerebral tone, it was written in just the kind of affected style Susan felt might appeal to someone like George, the kind of guy who fancies himself everyone's intellectual superior.

And as so happens, Suze's gambit paid off. Trappell replied with a registration card to the murder mystery weekend. The event was held in April of 1989 at the Holiday Inn in Winter Haven, the same city where Peggy had spent months in a coma and died only three months earlier.

The event was more or less like a murder mystery dinner theater or a live action role playing variation on the game Clue. George was the MC of the event, though he was dressed down in a Sherlock Holmes t-shirt, shorts, and pair of flip flops.

sitting behind the registration table greeting guests, and that was when Susan first arrived. Susan was nervous when she approached George, but he seemed like the type of man who might not suspect anything if an attractive woman approached him nervously. He might instead interpret this anxiety as accessibility. And indeed, George was friendly with Susan upon first contact and handed her a welcome packet containing the rules of the event and other materials.

And among the materials was a booklet for the event George had written with the title Voodoo for Fun and Profit, a Mensa Murder Weekend Report. Peggy opened the booklet and scanned it for anything of case value. Inside were several murder scenarios written by George, one of which was a murder by poison. When a death threat appears on the doorstep, the section read, prudent people throw out all their food and watch what they eat.

Most items on a doorstep are just a neighbor's way of saying, I don't like you, move or else. While at the event, Susan overheard that George's wife Diana was also there, but sequestered away in the kitchen where she was doing all the cooking for the event. Considering what these people were suspected of, Susan lost her appetite for the rest of the day. I don't blame her.

At one point on the first day of the event, Susan watched as George stepped away to talk to his wife and his posture, the way he knocked on the door of the kitchen was also submissive. Like George was afraid of his wife.

And once Diana emerged with the food, it was clear which one of them wore the pants in their household. It was Diana, whose presence dominated the room. With a loud voice and assured, almost masculine way of moving about, she positively dwarfed her relatively mousy husband. Susan almost felt pity for the man. As the night wound down, Susan approached George as he was talking with a small group of friends and attendees.

She hung around as the crowd thinned out and engaged with him, using flattery and sustained interest to hook his attention. They began talking and got to know each other, or at least on the basis of the lies that they were telling each other. Susan, of course, was pretending to be Sherry, a recent divorcee who was new to the area, while George lied about having degrees in chemistry and psychology, which Susan knew to be false because she was a detective and she'd already pulled his background and academic records.

But she pressed on, continuously.

Continuing the game of being undercover, as well as the murder mystery weekend game, which resumed the following morning. And that's when the murder role play began. Each of the participants wore a name tag with the name of the character they were playing in the role play. Susan's was Roberta Putnam. So Susan was now playing a game inside of a game, a role inside of a role. She was playing Sherry, playing Roberta, playing pretend for play on top of playing pretend for work.

Some of the murders in the game indeed had echoes of the real-life murder Susan was investigating. Victims cut down by poison, threatening anonymous notes, and in one scenario, an undercover spy was assassinated after being found out. This happened to hit a little too close to home for Susan, who was on edge all throughout the weekend, afraid of being outsmarted by these so-called geniuses around her.

Every plate of food, every beverage placed before her was served with an invisible existential condiment. Danger. Could there be thallium in these tacos? In this glass of iced tea? But Susan powered through it all. And every time she had an opportunity to do so, Susan struck up conversations with George.

She began to reveal more and more pieces of the fictional life she constructed for Sherry. Her divorce hadn't yet been finalized, she told George, and it was a messy one. And while she and her attorney were expecting to get the house in the divorce settlement, she was, in the meantime, without a place to stay.

Hearing this, George told her that because his wife was feeling overworked, she was considering relocating her practice, and they expected to be leaving town soon, but would keep ownership of the house and simply rent it out. Privately, Susan thought, they're leaving town because they're beginning to feel the heat of the investigation. They want to get out of Dodge. But in this, Susan also saw a remarkable opportunity. An opportunity to take up residence at the home of a murder suspect.

By the end of the weekend, Susan had successfully befriended the prime suspect in Peggy Carr's murder. Sherry complimented George on how successful the event had been, playing at his ego. She also told him she'd be in touch about the house. Now, over the next several months, Susan got closer to George and his wife. She'd have dinner with the couple, visit George at his office, meet him for lunch. She was a full undercover cop. All the

All the while, he was getting more comfortable with her, opening up about such things as the dynamic between him and his wife, Diana, whom he described as being like a 500-pound gorilla, explaining that she pushes people around and gets what she wants. She's not intimidated by anyone.

But while Susan initially considered Diana an equally viable suspect, that idea faded the better she got to know George, especially when George began suggesting that Susan blackmail her estranged husband, and if that didn't get her what she wanted, she could send him, quote, poison flowers. Poison flowers! So many tantalizing hints surfaced during Susan's undercover pretend friendship with George, but nothing concrete ever materialized.

not even when Susan brought up the Carr family poisonings. George acknowledged what he knew about it through the news, but he didn't have much more to say, though he had already talked with her many times about his distaste for the Carr family, and he even admitted having called the zoning board to report Pi for converting his garage into an apartment for Peggy's daughter and granddaughter, which resulted in a fine and in the construction being halted. And for the record, Pi...

Pye and his family had suspected George all along of being the ones who called the zoning board, so he felt comfortable enough to admit this to Susan. But that's all George revealed, and after eight long months, the undercover operation began to lose steam. But then...

Diana finally found a new home for her practice, a city in Florida an hour away. They were at least moving out of their house and they offered to rent it to Susan. This was the inside access that she'd been waiting for. And given the urgent need for housing that Susan had fabricated in her alternate bio as Sherry, George and his wife allowed her to move into the house immediately after they moved out before even moving most of their stuff out.

Susan pounced on this opportunity and a team of detectives, including Ernie Mincy and his partner Brad, moved in alongside her and began processing the entire house. I guess that's one way to get in a suspect's house. By this point, it

It had been nearly a year since Peggy Carr's death, and as the detectives from Polk County searched the house, bagging and tagging everything of potential interest, they found a secret passageway, which led to a creepy hidden room with all sorts of bondage equipment and a mannequin. It appeared to be some kind of torture chamber.

Multiple books on poisons were also found inside the house, including, of course, Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse, which, given its presence in both this episode and our last ones, seemed like one of those unfortunate books, like The Catcher in the Rye or The Collector that's become known as a favorite read of those inclined to murder.

And in the workshop of the home, detectives discovered several small bottles, and one of them, containing a white substance, was sent away to the lab, where it tested positive for the same kind of thallium as that which was used in the Coca-Cola that poisoned the Carr's family.

So Susan, still posing as Sherry, called a meeting with George at a McDonald's and recorded it. She lied that she'd been visited by two police detectives investigating a poisoning case, asking her what she knew about the previous occupants. George's curious response was to ask if the police were inquiring only about him or also about his wife.

A few months later, detectives obtained a search warrant for the new home of George and his wife, Diana. And when they showed up to execute it, Diana tried to block their entrance and became violent, requiring that she be physically restrained while the search warrant was executed. Now, while searching their new home, and this is just so creepy, police found another secret room, much like the one in their last home, with no inside door handle and windows that had been welded shut.

The wall was adorned with shackles and a pulley system that had been installed to lift a human being onto and off of the bed. Upon learning this, Susan felt relieved that she declined George's invitation only days prior to come by and check out the new house.

While searching the house, police also found a notebook labeled General Poisoning Guides with excerpts from books used by homicide detectives, including a section on the usage and effects of thallium poisoning and how to detect it in human organs. George's fingerprints also happened to be all over this notebook. And George also liked to make his own homemade wine. And it was found that he owned a device for sealing metal caps onto bottles. So...

Now armed with sufficient evidence to constitute probable cause, George Trappau was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Peggy Carr.

Diana would later be charged with battery on a law enforcement officer for her outburst when police arrived to search the house. The trial against George was admittedly mostly circumstantial. The defense suggested that Pycar was still a viable suspect and laid out all the reasons the police suspected him. And against George's wishes, they contended that the evidence equally suggested his wife Diana may have been responsible for the poisonings.

But George, in his arrogance, an arrogance that we're maybe learning is typical of the poisoning kind, expected to be acquitted and even went as far to arrange a ride home from the last day of trial.

So he must have been quite surprised to learn that this ride wouldn't be needed when the jury found him guilty of first degree murder and 14 other counts related to the poisonings of the others in the Carr household. And on February 5th, 1991, he was sentenced to death.

As of January 2023, George Trapal still sits on death row, awaiting execution, having exhausted all of his appeals. Now, believers in Trapal's innocence have pointed out that Peggy, Travis and Dwayne also were found to have arsenic in their systems and their arsenic levels actually increased during their stays at the hospital where George didn't have access to them. And George defenders have revealed that this evidence was suppressed at trial.

And they claim that all the evidence was circumstantial and that there wouldn't have been a case were it not for the bottle of thallium found in the garage, which his supports argue itself circumstantial. And they've suggested maybe it was even planted by Polk County detectives because they were the ones now living in the home.

Diana, George's wife, was never charged in connection with the Carr family poisonings. She divorced George in 1994 and later remarried and eventually died in October 2018 from a stroke. Pi Carr also remarried and died in 2020 at the age of 76. Now, Travis and Dwayne eventually made a full recovery, but not without prolonged issues related to thallium poisoning and many long months of rehab to regain full control of their muscles.

And although our story today was about George being put away for poisoning, considering the room that the Carr family had crafted in their new home and their invite of Susan, you can't help but wonder, did they just put a poisoner away?

Or was there more under the surface? That wraps up all three episodes of our poisoning-themed miniseries. Tune in for our next batch because I think the theme of those are going to make you question everything you thought you knew about true crime.