Julie Williams

On the morning of March 24, 1986, Julie Williams drank from the office water cooler shortly after arriving at work and immediately collapsed. Other employees noticed the water had a bitter taste and unusual odor, but avoided swallowing it. One coworker recognized the smell from an earlier incident involving contaminated Scotch whisky. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the death of Julie Williams. In his second attempt to kill his wife, Lewis Allen Harry Jr. poisoned the office water cooler at his wife’s workplace, but ended up killing one of her coworkers, who drank the poisoned water and collapsed moments later. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:49Speaker 00

  Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 510 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

• 1:58Speaker 01

  I'm good. How about you, man?

• 1:59Speaker 00

  I am doing great.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Good.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  I'm still coming off that vacation. Uh, hi.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  Still feeling good.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  All right.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Just trying to figure out how long it will last.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Hope it lasts a long time for you.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Before I feel like I need another one.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Jamie Basil.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Also known as Pesto.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. Alyssa Conia.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Conia.

• 2:22Speaker 00

  That's what I'm going with.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  Farnaz Ashuri.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Hey, Ashuri.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  Nikki Basie.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Uh, Basie.

• 2:29Speaker 00

  Could be.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  Cynthia.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Hey Cynthia.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  And last but not least, Jesse Hake.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Hey, what's going on Jesse?

• 2:35Speaker 00

  And then if we go back into the vault. This week, we selected Karen Kirk.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  The Kirk is in the house.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  Who you said on Patreon was Captain Kirk's daughter.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Absolutely. She knows it.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  Which made no sense whatsoever. Fictional character.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Is it?

• 2:52Speaker 00

  It is.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Maybe not.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  We have a brand new episode out right now on True Crime All Time Unsolved. Where we're talking about Marlene Hayes. She left work early in 1981. She wasn't feeling well and she interrupted someone burglarizing her home. It was a really brutal crime that shocked her neighborhood. And now over 40 years later, her remain, her, her murder remains unsolved.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, tragic.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  So that's out there right now. Check it out. We did put a Patreon episode out Saturday night. That's on Anna Trujillo. This case goes back to 2013. She called 911 to report that her boyfriend was bleeding out inside his apartment. When the police showed up, she answered the door covered in blood. Investigators were met with a shocking scene, but it became even more shocking when they discovered that the murder weapon was her high heeled shoe.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, stiletto.

• 3:52Speaker 00

  So it's a fascinating case. If you're a Patreon member, make sure you check it out if you haven't already. If you're not, now's a great time to sign up. This was our 90th Patreon only episode.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  A lot of episodes out there.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. And then be on the lookout for a new episode on Thursday. It's on Anna Catherine Cardwell, 20 year old who was murdered in her home while her mother was away running errands.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  And it's a it's a real mystery has to who her perpetrator is.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Kind of shocking.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  It is. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All The Time?

• 4:27Speaker 01

  I am ready.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  We're talking about Julie Williams. Julie Anna Williams was born in Sanger, California on July 22, 1939. She was a divorced mother of three adult daughters. She previously worked as an escrow secretary for insurance companies. In 1984, Julie moved from Central California to Mesa, Arizona. She came for a fresh start, according to her family. But you know what she didn't want to give up is that good weather.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  That good weather, that's for sure.

• 4:58Speaker 00

  Moving from California to Arizona. It's not like she moved to Ohio to be near us and experience the harsh winters.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Julie lived with her daughter Nancy and her son-in-law, Mike Brady.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Brady Bunch?

• 5:13Speaker 00

  Wow, I mean, you know, when you have the name Mike Brady, how many times a week is somebody gonna bring that up?

• 5:21Speaker 01

  It'll come up quite a bit, I think, back in the 80s.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  You don't think it would come up today?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably too, yeah.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  That's so funny that you would say the 1980s. It's not like people have forgotten the Brady Bunch. Literally, if your name was Mike Brady today.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  You would have somebody at least once a week talking about it.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  Julie's life centered around her three daughters and church. She made a lot of strong friendships in her two years in Arizona. Steve Lotsby, the husband of Julie's daughter Patty, told the Arizona Republic, she was a wonderful mother-in-law and her girls feel she spread a lot of light on everyone she met. So Julie worked for Transamerica Title Insurance Company in Tempe, Arizona. The Arizona Republic reported that she was a floater and didn't have a permanent office.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Hey, you know, she gets to go to a different office every, you know, every now and then it's kind of exciting to be a floater.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, my daughter, who is getting ready to be a senior in college, this summer, she's, you know, she's working a job at the hospital as part of her nursing program, and she's a floater. So she may go downtown to the big hospital. They could send her to one of the smaller hospitals out in the suburbs. She just doesn't know. And she kind of enjoys it.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  I think it keeps it exciting.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what she says, anyway. On Monday, March 24, 1986, Julie went to work as usual. At 8:00 a.m., she drank water from the office water cooler. And then almost immediately, she collapsed. Her concerned coworkers quickly suspected she became sick from the water. Deborah Gresham and Glenn Myers had also gotten cups of water from the cooler. They brought the water to their lips, tasted it and smelled it, and realized there was something in it. They didn't swallow the water, and so they didn't become sick. But they did report a bitter taste.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  So I have to confess something. Back in the day, I worked at an office, and you know, you used to put those big, you know, gallons of jugs on top, right?

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, of a water cooler. I think that's what we're talking about here.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I remember it looked dirty, right? So I thought, you know, I'm going to clean that thing up. So I got the bleach out, and I'm like, cleaning the nozzle out. And then I thought, this is stupid. Why don't I just pour some bleach down into the reserve and run it through?

• 8:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, because the first part was stupid.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so that's what I did. I poured some bleach in, you know, didn't measure it out or anything. I didn't make sure I got the same amount I put in. But I ran it through and, you know, I smelt the bleach and then I left it. Because you want to leave it, so it kills everything for a little bit, and then you want to run it back out. Well, I got busy, you know, and I obviously I put the cooler tank back on top and went along my day. And until there was a guy in the office, went up to the office and filled a cup up, and he took a drink, and he about passed out because of he drank.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Basically, majority of it was still bleach.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're lucky he didn't accidentally kill somebody and end up in prison. So I don't mean to Monday morning quarterback you here, but you know, could you have maybe put a post-it note on it? Left the actual jug of water off and just said, hey, in the process of being cleaned, there's bleach in this, don't drink.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there was a, a few conversations like that afterwards.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Oh, my goodness, man. Oh, but you know, we've talked about it before. Those things are scary to me.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:18Speaker 00

  Because everybody can picture that type of water cooler. All you have to do is take that, the top part off, the jug part, turn it upside down, you could pour anything you want in there.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  You could.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  That's a, that's a scary thing.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:35Speaker 00

  And I think that most places have kind of gone away from those.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  They have.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  You know, individual bottles, sealed. Most places make you pay for your own water now.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  They might have a water fountain, but.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  You know, most of them have the water fountain with the little bottle filler.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  You can press up and fill.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  Those are big now.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Watching this unfold was Sandra Diane Harry, another trans America worker. Diane didn't drink from the water cooler, but she did smell a notable odor coming from the water. She told investigators that the water smelled just like a bad bottle of scotch she drank from on Friday, March 21st, which caused her to become sick over the weekend. She fainted, but managed to get herself into bed to rest and recover.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Man, you got water smelling like a bad bottle of scotch.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  Well, there's something going on.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  So investigators soon began looking into Diane's husband, a guy named Louis Allen Harry Jr. Diane and Louis lived in Maryvale, Arizona. Diane met him at a volleyball match in 1981. She noticed that he was quiet and athletic. He played basketball and worked as a referee in local church leagues. The two dated for about six months before they moved in together. And then six months after that, they got married. Since 1984, Louis had worked as an athletic equipment manager at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix. Ed Catrell, a women's basketball coach, said Louis was a good employee. He was

• 11:18Speaker 00

  a good worker, kind of an athletic nut like myself.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  All right. You were kind of athletic nut?

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, back in my younger days.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, you're just a nut.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Exactly. And very unathletic.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Catrell recalled meeting Diane once when she picked Louis up after work. But other than that, Louis didn't share much about his personal life. You know, it's funny, we talk about coworkers quite a bit. Really, you know, people kind of run the gamut. You have people who, you know, don't talk about their personal lives all that much. And then you have people who won't stop talking about their personal lives, sharing way more information than anyone should share.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  And probably their family would be mortified if they knew all the things that this person was telling you.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely, they would.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  But I guess that's what makes life interesting, right? If everybody was exactly the same, how less interesting would life be?

• 12:18Speaker 01

  It'd be pretty uninteresting. I mean, think like the, what is it? The Stepford Wives or Stepford Wives or?

• 12:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, the second one, definitely.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  Did you have something to go along with that or?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'd be really boring.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. I didn't know if you were just gonna stop right there. A woman identified as Mrs. Tompkins, the couple's next door neighbor, had known them since they moved in two or three years earlier. She told the Arizona Republic that Louis had been a very good neighbor and a friend. And she didn't know of any domestic problems in the household. Neighbor Darlene Simmons agreed that the couple was nice and quiet. But how many times have we heard that? Right? Whether it's a serial killer or, you know, some other type of murder situation.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  When neighbors are asked, a lot of times, they have nothing but glowing things to say about some of these individuals. Now, not always. Sometimes they're creepy or whatever, but a lot of times they're not. And I think there's a reason for that, especially in the case of serial killers. They're trying to blend in.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  Probably going out of their way to be the good neighbor.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't want to stand out in a bad way.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  Investigators learned that Lewis had a criminal record. In 1975, he was convicted of robbery in Pima County. He also had a record of forgery and assault with a deadly weapon against a federal agent.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Oh, that's not gonna bode well.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  No, that's a pretty serious crime. In June 1977, he was sentenced to seven years in federal prison on each of two counts of assaulting federal DEA agents. So what happened was these DEA agents were posing undercover as drug buyers. Lewis and an accomplice were going to sell one pound of heroin. Instead, they attempted to rob the agents and were arrested. So first of all, don't sell heroin.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Secondly, don't try to sell heroin to undercover federal agents. And then thirdly, don't try to rob the undercover federal agents that you're supposed to be selling heroin to.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  I'm guessing they thought they were invincible.

• 14:41Speaker 00

  Well, I'm guessing they obviously didn't know these were federal agents and thought they were going to get away with some money or drugs or both. Lewis completed his probation on March 4th, 1985. Based on the March 21st incident, authorities determined that Diane Harry was the intended victim of the office water poisoning. Investigators tested the water and determined it was laced with cyanide. Police also found a powdery substance in the office's empty coffee pot and on coffee cups left there over the weekend. This too was identified as cyanide.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  I mean, it sounds like the individual wanted to make sure everything was covered.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  But here's the thing, right? If you are trying to kill your wife as it appears, right? That's what this guy was doing. I get it. You're trying to make it look like it wasn't you. Maybe it happened at work. But not only are you taking the chance that your wife is gonna die, which is, I guess what maybe what you wanted to happen.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 00

  But how do you know that your wife is going to be drinking the water or drinking the coffee? And how many other people could you potentially kill?

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, if someone gets water, other people get coffee. And from the coffee pot, somebody else gets makes a cup of tea in one of the cups that were laced. I mean, you could have multiple people dying.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Well, it does kind of remind me very much of the Tylenol poisoning.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Right? You're trying to cover up something, which is what they believe was happening. But you're also putting a bunch of other people at risk.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. You're willing to kill other people to kill the one person you want to be dead.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Yes. So on March 25th, 1986, Louis was brought in for questioning and was booked into jail that evening for attempted murder. He did not admit any involvement in the poisoning. Sadly, Julie Williams died at the hospital on March 26th, 1986. And her autopsy confirmed that she died of cyanide poisoning. And man, I just can't help but think, you know, what a scary situation this is. I've talked about it before, right? Being served food.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:15Speaker 00

  That can be a scary situation. You have no idea what's in that food.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 17:19Speaker 00

  If you didn't make it.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  We trust people a lot.

• 17:22Speaker 00

  We do.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Like over the top. I mean, especially today, right? You trust the restaurant that's making it. You gotta trust the delivery guy bringing it, right?

• 17:32Speaker 00

  If you're ordering it, yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that they don't pull over and sprinkle something in there. And then like for me, I have to trust you that once it gets here, you're not doing something with it to take me out.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  So there's multiple.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  It's always weird when I put the food on the plate and hand it to you.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  It freaks me out a little bit, for sure. Yeah, yeah.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  I do that on purpose.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Especially when mine looks a different shade than everybody else's. I'm like, uh, but then I just don't question it.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  But then, you know, I think of this woman, Julie Williams. I mean, she just went into work to do her job.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  She didn't hurt anybody.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  No.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  As far as I know, she didn't, you know, have any enemies or anything like that. And nobody was even out to hurt her.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  She was just thirsty.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  And died of cyanide poisoning.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  In a brief interview from jail on March 26th, Lewis said he didn't know Julie had died. He declined to comment further. So he's not really talking at all.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  Which is probably a good thing. It's not in his best interest. On March 28th, 1986, prosecutors upgraded the attempted murder charge to first degree murder and added four more counts of attempted murder.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, if someone else would have picked up a cup, they could have potentially died too. That's a attempt to murder.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, one count was for the March 21st poisoning of his wife, Diane. The other three attempted murder accounts involved the two coworkers who drank the poison water but spit it out and then the second attempt on Diane's life. So, you know, go back to the bottle of scotch, right, that smelled bad. Obviously, they connected the two.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  He tried to kill her by tainting this bottle of scotch with cyanide. Detective Michael Palmer told the Arizona Republic, "It's obvious he was attempting to kill his wife, not the other people in the office." Investigators declined to discuss where Lewis got the cyanide from at that time. A South Mountain Community College spokeswoman said sodium cyanide was not kept on campus.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would think it'd be difficult to get your hands on cyanide. And I don't know back then how, how difficult it would have been then, but today I would think it would be difficult.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  I would think it'd be a lot harder in 2026 than it was in, you know, 1985, 1986, for sure. I'm also assuming that the Tylenol poisonings would have had something to do with regulation, right? We always put something in place after something bad happened.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  True.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  But I think on an episode, you know, within the last couple of months, we were talking about some drug and we must have said that it's probably pretty hard to get. And I had a bunch of people write in Gibbs and say, I can't remember what the drug was. And they said, no, it's used for this, this, and this is pretty easy to get. You know, but it's just something you and I would have never thought experienced or we have no knowledge of, but other people do. And they're quick to write in, which I love.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  I, it's not like I feel like I'm being corrected. I just love to get the information.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  You could buy a bunch of apples and collect the seeds and harvest like, what do you need? Like 10,000 apple seeds and then you can make cyanide out of that?

• 20:59Speaker 00

  Oh, I did not, I was not aware of that.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  I think that's how it works.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  Are you telling people how to make cyanide? Cause I don't think you should be doing that.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  A lot of apples.

• 21:06Speaker 00

  How do you like those apples?

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I could be wrong, but I think you can do it that way.

• 21:12Speaker 00

  On April 8th, 1986, Lewis was indicted on all charges. A pre-trial hearing in June was delayed by confusion over the type of cyanide used in the poisoning. Lewis's defense attorney, Richard Steiner, announced that he might attempt to have the case returned to the grand jury because the Tempe police failed to inform the grand jury that the type of cyanide that apparently caused Julie Williams's death was different from the type of cyanide found on items taken from Lewis's home. So again, how many different types of cyanide does this guy have?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  It sounds like he's got a few.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  Deputy County Attorney Cleve Lynch said during the hearing that Steiner makes some assumptions based on police reports about evidence that had not yet been examined by the Arizona Department of Public Safety lab technician.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  So maybe there was a little bit of, you know, confusion over whether there was different types of cyanide.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  Before the hearing, a detective prepared a supplemental memo explaining that he was told by a criminalist that the cyanide found in Louis's home was potassium cyanide and not sodium cyanide, as he told the detective on March 25th. The defense received this memo minutes before the hearing. So it sounds like maybe that's where the confusion stemmed from. The judge granted the defense's request for a one-week delay so that they could discuss the differences in the two types of cyanide with a chemist from ASU.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Well, probably need to understand that.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  It might be a big part of the case.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 00

  Right? Later, reporting by the Arizona Republic clears up the confusion. In a sworn affidavit, Detective Michael Palmer wrote that based on a preliminary test done by an analyst for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Tempe Police initially reported that Julie was poisoned with sodium cyanide. However, the analyst conducted further tests before informing the grand jury that Julie actually died from potassium cyanide. Investigators seized two vials that contained residue of potassium cyanide from Louis's home. So this was a big deal because if you had two different types, well, it seems like the

• 23:39Speaker 00

  jury could make a much bigger deal out of that.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  You know, what you found in my client's home was potassium cyanide, but what killed Julie Williams was sodium cyanide. So, you know, how are you making the connection?

• 23:57Speaker 01

  But thankfully, the lab corrected it with the final results to say it was potassium.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  In July, the judge denied the defense's motion to send the case back to the grand jury. In September 1986, the Arizona Republic interviewed Diane. She had refused to talk to reporters, but changed her mind because she said, "It may not come out right in court. I wanted to say what I know." Diane insisted, "I do not believe Louis tried to kill me. I have never believed it."

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Well, and let's face it, Gibbs, we've talked about it before. How hard would it be to believe that your significant other was trying to kill you?

• 24:44Speaker 01

  You wouldn't want to believe it.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  No, I think for most people, they'd have a very hard time.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:49Speaker 00

  Coming to that conclusion. Now, just because I get sick every time I eat my wife's cooking, that doesn't mean that she's trying to poison me.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  That's just bad cooking.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And she'd be the first one to tell you.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 00

  She hates to cook, barely tries, doesn't follow directions.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  She can't even do the home chef, which gives you step-by-step instructions.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  With all the necessary ingredients.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, she just does her own thing.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  And we're not talking bad about my wife. If she was on this podcast right now, she would literally say the same thing.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  She would.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  She hates to cook. She does not want to cook. But I would still have a hard time ever believing my wife was purposefully trying to poison me.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  Diane recalled that on the morning of March 24th, she recognized the almond-like smell coming from her office water cooler and immediately called her husband. I told him, "It's strange. It's the same smell as the bottle of scotch at our house." Diane said that both she and Louis told a Tempe detective about their experience the previous Friday with the scotch. Diane asked the Republic, "If Louis was trying to hide something, why would he be talking about the scotch? It don't make sense." Diane recalled that the Friday before the office incident, she arrived home before her husband and fixed herself a drink. She thought something was off. The scotch didn't smell right and it was bitter.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  When Louis came home from work a few minutes later, she asked him to try it and he did. He spit it out and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Diane went outside to get some air. When she came back inside, she passed out. At the time, she thought it was just from working too hard. She threw the scotch out the following day. Louis retrieved it and Louis was the one who later brought the scotch to a detective.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Okay, now it makes you think maybe Louis didn't have anything to do with this.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  Well, it is very strange, right? If he's trying to poison his wife by lacing the scotch with cyanide, why in the world would he take it to a detective? And say, hey, I think something strange is going on here.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Then, then you have to think, okay, then if it's not Louis, then who wants to kill Diane? Cause Diane seems to be the constant in both of those.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Or yeah, the common denominator. But you can kind of understand why she wouldn't think that Louis was trying to kill her.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  Diane also told the Republic that she and Louis had been receiving threatening mail and thought someone was possibly trying to kill them. They turned over some of those letters to the police. The week before Louis was arrested, he took Diane out and taught her how to shoot a gun. Because of the threatening letters, Diane said that after her husband was arrested, detectives found cigar tubes in the storage room of their home that contained cyanide. However, she noted that storage area is not locked. Anyone could have put it there. So Diane said she believed her husband was a scapegoat because police wanted to solve the murder. Now, the question I would have is, I get it, it's not locked.

• 28:15Speaker 00

  Technically, anyone could gain access to it. But why in the world would anybody put, you know, some vials of cyanide in your storage room?

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  Maybe to hide them, to come back later and get them, I guess that's possible.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Unless they were hoping that. She would have died from what happened at the office. And at the same time, they could set up the husband to take the fall.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a great, you know, observation as well. But she said they had a good marriage, saying, we had no problems in our marriage whatsoever. If we were angry with each other, we wouldn't say anything. We don't holler or shout. You wait till the anger inside you is over. Then we sit and talk about it. Okay, seems like a pretty healthy way to do it. It's not my style, but it's, you know, a pretty healthy way to do it.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  It's not Christina's style either.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  Christina and I are very alike, actually.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Diane recalled that the police asked if either she or Louis were unfaithful. She said no. They asked about life insurance and whether Louis was angry, that she made more money than him. Diane insisted there was no reason her husband would have wanted to kill her. You know, to be honest with you, unless there's a big life insurance policy, why would you want to kill your spouse when they're the ones making more money than you?

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Good point.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Because right now, we don't have the motive, right? She noted that the week before the poisoning, she and Louis spent $3,000 remodeling their bathrooms. Diane questioned, why would someone who's going to kill his wife remodel the bathrooms?

• 30:01Speaker 01

  I don't know about that. I mean.

• 30:04Speaker 00

  Maybe he just wanted to have nice bathrooms.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  That's right. Hey, when you're gone here soon, I want to have a nice bathroom there.

• 30:10Speaker 00

  That one, to me, is not as puzzling as actually taking the bottle of scotch to a detective. If in fact, you're the one who put cyanide in the bottle of scotch.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you're not really helping your case.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  No, you're just bringing it to light when technically you don't have to. You could just throw it out, right? And never speak of it to anyone.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Like it never existed.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  Opening arguments in Louis's murder trial began on November 20th, 1986. The jury heard that Louis tried to kill his wife twice by poisoning her, but ended up causing the death of one of her coworkers. Prosecutor Cleve Lynch also attacked the claims that Louis and Diane were being threatened. Lynch noted that contents of two of the letters were written on legal pads from Louis's office and in his handwriting. Okay, they determined the legal pads were from his office. It's, it would be a little strange to me that Diane wouldn't recognize the handwriting as Louis's?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  I mean, I, I would think most spouses would recognize, um, you know, their significant other's handwriting, especially if they've been together for a while.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  You can tell your wife's handwriting pretty good?

• 31:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:32Speaker 00

  The prosecution described how on March 21st, Diane became sick after drinking a small amount of scotch that was laced with cyanide. She couldn't catch her breath, which is a symptom of cyanide poisoning. According to the prosecution, Louis was having an affair with a woman he met in January and received four vaguely threatening letters from the woman's ex-boyfriend. After Julie Williams was poisoned, Louis produced two more letters, but these were the ones that were written on yellow legal pads from his office and were written in his handwriting.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  So fake letters.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe it sounds like there, there was some real threatening letters that might have come from, you know, this woman's ex-boyfriend, but then he manufactured two more. And maybe that's why Diane didn't recognize the handwriting because the first four were not in his handwriting. But just the fact that we have an affair or the prosecution is alleging an affair, you know, if it's true, well, at least now we do have motive, right? An affair is a motive for murder.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  It is.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  You want out of the marriage. You want to be with someone else.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  What are you willing to do to make that happen?

• 32:55Speaker 00

  Investigators discovered there was a $75,000 life insurance policy on Diane, a $32,000 trans America policy on Diane, and Diane had $5,000 worth of stock in the company. Louis was the beneficiary of all three.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  There's more motive.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  More motive. I mean, Yeah, you could say it's a hundred and some thousand dollars, but it's also like the mid 1980s.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a good chunk of change.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  So it was more money back then, obviously. Louis's defense attorney, Richard Steiner, contended that his client was the target of serious threats by a man who was angry because Louis helped that man's ex-girlfriend get a court order against him. The defense also argued that numerous people, including tenants of the 22 offices in the building that housed Transamerica, the cleaning crew, and construction workers had access to the building. I get it. It's a good argument to make, right? If you're the defense, hey, this is a big building. There's a lot of people in and out. A lot of people could have had access to that water cooler.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  Prosecutors noted that computer printouts indicated Diane's key card was used to get into the building at 10:18 a.m. on Saturday, March 22nd, two days before the murder. Investigators believe Louis poisoned the water cooler at that time. So I'm assuming they checked into everything. Diane said, no, I wasn't at the office on Saturday, right? They would have had to have done all of that work. And so therefore, they believe he took her key card, went to the office, got in, poisoned the water cooler. But according to the defense, Louis was mowing a neighbor's lawn on that Saturday morning.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  He also made a phone call in West Phoenix, a short time before the building was accessed in Tempe. So they're casting some doubt, and they're doing a fairly good job of it.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Yes, they are.

• 35:03Speaker 00

  With what they have to work with. Diane Harry testified that she still believed in her husband's innocence. She confirmed that they started receiving threatening letters in January or February of 1986. The first letter was addressed to her in her maiden name and said that if she didn't tell her husband to leave the man's girlfriend alone, he was going to do something to him. When the letters continued, Louis purchased a gun for her to carry. She didn't believe. Louis put the cyanide in her water. She asked him after his arrest if he had been to her office the Saturday before, but she couldn't remember his answer.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  That's strange.

• 35:45Speaker 00

  It's a little strange.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  I mean, it's a yes or no answer, right?

• 35:49Speaker 00

  And it seems like it would be something you'd remember. It'd be a big deal.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Diane completed her testimony by telling the court that a life insurance policy had lapsed before the poisoning and she had a good relationship with her husband. She did admit that he didn't tell her he was having an affair or that he had gotten the woman pregnant.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  And why would he?

• 36:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, no reason for most men who are having an affair to confess that to their wife. It's, it's not going to go over well. But I just want to talk about, you know, what does it do in the grand scheme of a, a trial? When the defendant's wife, who the prosecution says was the target, is getting on the stand and saying that she believes he's innocent.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's definitely going to hurt their case.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  And by this time, right, she knew about the affair. She knew that he had gotten this woman pregnant. She obviously wasn't upset about it to the point where she would get on the stand and try to blast him. Now, I'm sure she was upset about it, don't get me wrong, but not to that point where it made her believe that he would have tried to kill her.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  But at the end of the day, I mean, the prosecutor, they're just trying to show that he killed.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Julie Williams.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's on trial for that murder. Now, they're also trying to show that he tried to kill Diane and a number of other people. Robert Allen Telenic, a laboratory technician at South Mountain Community College, testified that Louis asked him about Sina three weeks before the March 21st murder attempt.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Not good.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  Not good. For Lewis.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Right? Because, all right, some of this stuff you can kind of take as circumstantial. Maybe you can look at it that it would, it could go this way or the other way. But when someone testifies that you're asking them about cyanide, three weeks before there's a cyanide poisoning that you're linked to. Okay, I would think that's going to hit the jury or the judge pretty hard.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  It should, and it should register with his wife somewhat too. Like, wait a minute. You asked somebody about this three weeks?

• 38:27Speaker 00

  Oh, and I'm sure she's finding that out as the trial is happening.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  As the, as it's being testified to. Louis told this guy that a friend was researching a report on the recent Tylenol murders. In that conversation and another conversation later that week, he pointed out to Louis that cyanide was readily available and told him where it could be purchased locally. Louis also wanted to know how much cyanide was needed to kill someone.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  It's a very detailed question.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  And, and a damning one.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  Right? I get it. Are there other uses for cyanide? Yeah, sure. Right? That's why it was available to purchase. But he didn't say, how much do I need to get rid of some pest problem? Or, you know, something like that. If he actually said, or came out and said, how much cyanide is needed to kill someone? All right, you're really not masking your intentions a whole lot there.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you can say, I was just curious, just wanted to know. But I think most people would say that you want to know because you wanted to do what you did.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, because why do you need to know that? If you're not planning on killing someone with cyanide, is that just a curiosity? And it just happens to come like three weeks before someone is killed by cyanide? Now, there are coincidences and there are non-coincidences, I guess. I was trying to think of the other word.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  You just wanted to say coincidences.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  I did. I wanted you to say it because I know it's a word that, that you do struggle with sometimes. So even though I said, right, his defense is, is doing a, an admirable job of trying to, you know, cast some reasonable doubt, there's still a lot that is really making this guy look guilty. A woman who worked at a chemical company testified that she sold about a pound of potassium cyanide to someone on March 7th, but she didn't identify Lewis as the customer. She wasn't permitted to do so because in an earlier court hearing, she identified someone else as the customer.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Okay. Kind of mysterious.

• 40:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, but also maybe an error in his favor.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  Right? Did she make an honest mistake? Yeah, probably. But because of that, it was ruled that she couldn't then later say, no, it was him who bought the potassium cyanide. She could only say that she sold a pound of it.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  To someone. And I think as, as a juror, I don't know what you make of that.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  It's hard to do anything with it, really.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now you could infer that that's where you got it from, but it would be a little bit of a stretch, I think. A handwriting expert testified that the signature on a receipt for the purchase of a pound of cyanide on March 7th was in Lewis's handwriting. Catalogues were also found in Lewis's office from the company where the cyanide was purchased. So now when you add that, okay, makes it a little easier, right? It's his handwriting, his signature on the receipt for the cyanide, it must've been him.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  But could someone forge his signature, his handwriting?

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, possibly, but you have a handwriting expert.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  So you have to take their testimony and weigh it like you would any testimony, right? How credible do you believe it is? Then the jury heard from a woman named Verbrae Ann Wooten, who testified that her former boyfriend Rory Fitzpatrick, wrote threatening letters to Louis and also threatened to poison him. She dated Fitzpatrick for about three weeks and tried to break things off with him, but he began harassing and threatening her. The harassment continued for five years and Louis helped her get an injunction against Fitzpatrick, but the harassment continued.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  According to Wooten, he would tell me what he did to women while he was in Vietnam and said, that's what he would do to me if I ever dated someone else. She testified, he threatened to kill me, to kill Harry, and to tell Harry's wife about the affair. He also threatened to poison the SOB or set Harry on fire. Okay, a little drastic.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  But I want to go back to dated for three weeks.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 00

  And then he harassed her for five years.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  It's extreme, man. Wow.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  I mean, you shouldn't be harassing anyone, right? But how does it come from a three-week relationship?

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Definitely couldn't let go, could he?

• 43:26Speaker 00

  No.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  And there's probably women listeners right now saying, you know what? You'd be surprised how often that happens.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  How attached a man can get and not be able to let go. And I get it and I'm sure it can happen the other way around as well.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can flip it either way.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  It's hard for me to understand just because I've never been through something like that.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Never been stalked?

• 43:52Speaker 00

  No, no, no one's ever thought enough about me, I guess, to stalk me after. Actually, I was always the dumpy. I was never the dumper.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Oh, you were the dumpy?

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I got dumped a lot, to be honest with you.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Did you really?

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, back in the day, especially in high school.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  I can see why.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  No, I can't. Actually, you were.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  You you you look like a one of those high school models.

• 44:21Speaker 00

  Oh, when I was in high school?

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I'm surprised you got dumped.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  I think I was too nice.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Is that what it was?

• 44:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, because I I specifically remember getting dumped a lot, like right after a big holiday where a gift was involved.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Oh, they didn't like your gift?

• 44:36Speaker 00

  Oh, the gift was always nice.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  They just wanted the gift.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  Maybe it was too much. Maybe they thought it was coming on too strong. I don't know.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Hey, we just been out. We've been going out for like a week and you're like, I'll catch you this.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  Diamond ring. No, it wasn't anything like that. But yeah, I I don't remember actually breaking up with a lot of people. I do remember getting broken up with them.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, probably remember each one of theirs, each each individual's name. It's probably on the list somewhere.

• 45:04Speaker 00

  Well, it wasn't like we're talking 100. It wasn't that many.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  You weren't you weren't a player?

• 45:09Speaker 00

  No, I did also get married at the age of 22.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  That's true. Yeah.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  Wooten said she met Louis on January 20th and they began a relationship. He told her that he and his wife were going through a divorce. She became pregnant, but later miscarried.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  The old, we're going through a divorce. It's okay that we're sleeping together and.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Pregnant.

• 45:34Speaker 00

  I don't think his wife knew anything about that part.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  I don't think so either.

• 45:38Speaker 00

  Or the affair. Fitzpatrick followed Louis from Wooten's apartment one night, found out where he lived. He also told Wooten that he knew Louis's wife worked for Transamerica. In his testimony, Roy Fitzpatrick denied threatening Louis or verbra Wooten and said only that he and Wooten had arguments. He did read the threatening letters. He admitted to sending Louis and Diane. He admitted to writing four of the letters, but denied writing two others, including one that threatened to take something away from Louis. So this is a very interesting dynamic, right? This guy Roy Fitzpatrick.

• 46:19Speaker 00

  Because I think if you're the defense attorney, you could make a strong argument that, you know, it wasn't Louis who did this. It was Roy Fitzpatrick.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  He knew where Louis's wife worked. He was trying to get back at Louis. And he's the one who poisoned the water. And maybe he's the one who poisoned the

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Scotch.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  Scotch. But also, he seemed to be pretty honest on the stand, right? He admitted to writing the four threatening letters.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  But denied writing the other two, which handwriting expert said Louis wrote on legal pads that came from his office. And I think the other argument that could be made as far as Roy Fitzpatrick is concerned, is did Louis use him, right? Did he take the bottle of scotch to the detective? Because he had these threatening letters. And he could have said, hey, someone is trying to kill us. Someone is trying to poison us. And then he turns around and poisons the water supply, hoping that it would be blamed on Roy Fitzpatrick.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that could have been the plan.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  Louis got on the stand and said, he didn't remember ever being at the warehouse, where police said the cyanide was purchased.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Again, I think it's a yes or no answer.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  I just don't remember it.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  I mean, either you were, you weren't.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  I don't remember signing that receipt that a handwriting expert said was my signature.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:55Speaker 00

  I just don't remember it, Gibby. Now, I'm a very forgetful person. I will be the first one to admit that. I think, though, if I were to make a purchase like cyanide.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  That would probably stick with me.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  I don't think you're not going to recall that.

• 48:12Speaker 00

  No. Now, it's not in his best interest to remember it.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  No, of course not.

• 48:18Speaker 00

  He also provided an alibi and explanations for the prosecution's circumstantial evidence, such as his fingerprints on coffee cups in the office, the letters in his handwriting, and his conversation with a coworker about poison. He denied planning the office poisoning or trying to implicate Roy Fitzpatrick. He claimed his prints got on the coffee cups when he visited his wife at the office. So it's a big deal, right? He has to try to provide explanations for all this evidence, even the circumstantial evidence, against him.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I get it. You know, you go to your wife's office, you open up the cupboard and you Touch every coffee cup in there just because, you know, I feel like doing that right now. Maybe I don't like how they're in here. I moved them around. I placed them in there better. My fingerprints got on it. That's how it happened.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  The jury began deliberating on December 16th, 1986. On the 17th, Louis Allen Harry Jr. Was found guilty of first degree murder and four counts of attempted murder. Two members of the jury told the Arizona Republic that the security card and the signature on the receipt for cyanide were among the most convincing evidence. And I get that. I mean, those are some of the stronger pieces, right? There's a lot of circumstantial evidence in this case. So I could see why maybe the jury would gravitate towards these two things.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  You know, if she Diane is saying, well, I didn't go to the office on Saturday, but her card was used. Well, who else in the household would have access to that card?

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  Is it possible that somebody came in and stole it? Yeah, I guess technically, right? In as far as anything is possible, but it's more likely that her husband, who could have easily taken it out of her purse or wherever it was, used it. And then, you know, to me, the signature on this receipt for cyanide is such a big one. Because he didn't say, yeah, I bought the cyanide, but I planned to use it for X. Or I did use it for X. He said, I don't remember being at the warehouse buying this cyanide.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Which is so strange because you would know if you were or not, especially a pound of cyanide. Come on, just now at this point, just have the balls and say, I didn't want to be married to her anymore. I didn't, I didn't want to go through a divorce either. I just wanted her out of the picture so I could be with this other woman that I thought was having my baby.

• 51:00Speaker 00

  But nobody does that.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 51:02Speaker 00

  I mean, some, some people do. Most people don't, right? They fight to the bitter end because they cling to that chance that they're going to get off, right? That a jury is going to acquit them. You don't want to give up.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  Juror Dale Griffin said defense attorney Richard Steiner made a mistake when he told Louis to look at the jurors and tell them he was innocent. Griffin said, not one of us felt he really looked us straight in the eye. And he had this funny look in his eye when he said it.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Well, why would, I think it's a terrible thing to ask a client to do because you can only look one person in the eye at a time. Where are you going to go? I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. It's just.

• 51:50Speaker 00

  To each one of them?

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just awkward. And, um, you know, even if you really didn't do it, you might not have the way of saying it that people would believe you. So why even put it, put the chance out there?

• 52:05Speaker 00

  You mean like you're not a convincing person or something like that? Yeah, I get it. Julie's daughter Nancy Brady said that at first she thought Louis was innocent, but as the evidence mounted, she changed her mind. And I think it would be hard for that not to happen.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:24Speaker 00

  Right? I do think in a lot of situations, family members at first, I mean, they start out kind of taking the side of their loved one because who wants to believe that, you know, a family member would commit this type of, you know, heinous act? But then as all the evidence starts to roll out in the trial, at some point, do you just say, oh my gosh, uh, I even think he did it.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:51Speaker 00

  You know, and so I think that can happen with people. On February 12th, 1987, Louis was sentenced to life in prison. The judge said that putting poison into the water cooler showed complete stupidity and senselessness. He described Louis as sociopathic. It's kind of hard to argue with any of that.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:14Speaker 00

  It's stupid. It's senseless.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  It's kind of like that guy that put the bleach in the water to try to clean it out.

• 53:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I really am shocked that you revealed that on the podcast, but we have talked about it, right? I think we've all done things in the past that, you know, at the time, you didn't think was that big a deal. You look back on it with a, an older perspective and you're like, what in the hell was I thinking?

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:42Speaker 00

  Why did I do that? I could have killed somebody.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  I'm also saying, hey, the guy that got, got his cup full of that. Maybe smell what you drink before you actually put it in your mouth.

• 53:50Speaker 00

  Well, and I did want to talk about that. I think maybe you've seen me do it. I do smell my food.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  You do.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  And a lot of people have pointed it out, people that eat with me, it, it can look a little strange, but it's, and it's not like a, a true crime thing. It's not like, I don't know why. It's almost like, uh, I don't think it's a nervous tic, but it's something I've done since I was a kid. I always smell my food before I put it in my mouth.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  You also do that thing that, uh, Robert from, uh, Everybody Loves Raymond does.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, put it on my chin.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, you touch your chin, then you.

• 54:26Speaker 00

  Then I smell it and then I put it in my mouth. So Louis received consecutive terms of 21, 28, 28 and 28 years for attempted murder and a life sentence for murder.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Not going anywhere.

• 54:42Speaker 00

  He would be required to serve two thirds of each sentence for attempted murder and 25 years for murder. Meaning he would have to serve 95 total years in prison.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:55Speaker 00

  So you're right. He's not going anywhere.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  He's gonna, he'll die in prison.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  And I don't think he should go anywhere. If you're willing to, to do something like this, first of all, kill your wife, but then also take the chance of a number of other people dying. Um, and one person did die. You don't deserve to walk with the rest of us.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  He does not.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  At a pre-sentencing hearing, Louis asked the judge to spare the death penalty and let him work on his case so that he might be vindicated someday. The judge imposed the maximum sentences and made them concurrent because of aggravating factors. He said twice, the defendant tried to poison his loyal wife. When he poisoned the water, he had to know that anyone who drank it could or would die. The cold calculated scheme to poison his wife shows a heinous state of mind.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  So that's why, right? He has to do 95 years in prison. Because they were made concurrent.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  And to think, man, his wife was so dedicated to him. Like, she didn't want to believe that he did this.

• 56:11Speaker 00

  And I don't know what she feels today, if she's still alive. There wasn't a lot of information about either him or her, right? As time went on, because obviously this happened almost forty years ago. But as we wrap this one up, you know, in his attempts to kill his wife, Louis poisoned an innocent woman. And like we said, right, his wife Diane defended him until the very end, and even helped pay for his defense attorney.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  But ultimately, the jury believed the prosecution's evidence, which showed clear planning and intention, and a disregard of the lives of not only his wife, but everyone who worked in the office that day.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Again, willing to kill her and others so he could be with somebody else that probably didn't want to be with him the way that he thought.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  Well, and it also had to be about money as well, right? We mentioned the life insurance policies, but here's a guy whose wife was making quite a bit more than he was.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:17Speaker 00

  So I think this is a situation where he could have left the marriage. He could have filed for divorce, and maybe not have had to pay her a bunch of money in alimony or something like that, because she made a lot more money than he did.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it might have worked out just fine for him.

• 57:31Speaker 00

  But he didn't want that. He wanted the life insurance money.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:37Speaker 00

  And he wanted to be able to be with someone else. And that is often the case.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  It is.

• 57:43Speaker 00

  Right? It's lust, it's greed, kind of all mixed together.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Don't take the shortcut, man.

• 57:50Speaker 00

  No, it may be painful. It might not be the easiest thing in the world, but if you don't want to be with someone, just tell them you don't want to be with them.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:59Speaker 00

  And, you know, start life new and...

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Go that route. Don't hurt someone because you think it's going to be easier and you're going to be better off. You're going to get money and this and that. No, what you're going to do is spend the rest of your life in jail.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:19Speaker 00

  And in the case of Louis, uh, kill an innocent woman.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:26Speaker 00

  And his wife was innocent too. If she had died, she would have been innocent as well. But this, this woman he killed was completely innocent. She had nothing to do with any of them. No, she wasn't even involved. She just happened to work at the same place his wife did.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  And clearly he didn't care.

• 58:47Speaker 00

  No, no, he didn't care. But that's it for our episode on Julie Williams. We got a voicemail, Gibbs. You want to check that out?

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Yes, hear it.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  Hey guys, it's Claire from, uh, Tasmania, Australia. Um, I've been listening to you guys since probably when the Menendez brothers were a bit, you know, in the news and stuff. So I found your podcast and then I have literally been here ever since. Um, I'm up to date on the newer stuff, but the older stuff I'm now going back through. So it's currently 6:30 a.m. and I listen to you guys while I have a coffee and get ready for work. Um, I had just a Matthew Breck episode and you were talking about the fanny packs that we call bum bags here in Australia. Um, talking about them being looted and Gibby, uh, said that

• 59:36Speaker 02

  he could wear them so he could put his singles in it when they're up on the stage. And I choked on my coffee. It was hilarious. Um, I quite often get the giggles about you two. Um, you know, you have your banter and that's what I absolutely love about the podcast. It's something so different. It makes it so easy to listen to. And, um, my partner often says, why are you laughing? It's, you know, start serial killers and stuff. And I'm like, yeah, but these two dudes, they are just the funniest buggers ever. Um, I am team Gibby. Sorry, Buggy. Um, but I just relate to Gibby so much, not on the The level, but on the absolute words getting loaded up and you just make make everyone giggle.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  And that's why I write to give you so much. So I appreciate what you guys do. Love you guys so much. Hopefully I hear my voicemail soon. Um, and I probably will sound very obvious to you. So, um, keep your head on the stool dudes and keep your own time ticking. I absolutely love you both. Bye.

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  All right. Great voicemail all the way from Tasmania.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know what's down there?

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  Were you trained to do an accent right?

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  No, Mike. You know what's down there, Mike?

• 1:00:48Speaker 00

  Cause you, y'all. I don't know what that was. What's down there?

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  They got those devils.

• 1:00:54Speaker 00

  Tasmanian devils?

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:56Speaker 00

  Okay, that, that, that accent's morphing in and out.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Raise the lights. Raise the blades. What that guy say? Don't get me say razor blades or raise the lights, rise of lights, rise of blades.

• 1:01:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  Oh, rise of light.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14Speaker 00

  Right. It's rise up light.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  Rise of lights. Yeah.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  It sounds like razor blades. Oh my goodness, man. You cracked me up too. So I'm team Gibby for sure.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  I'm team her, man.

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We, uh, we appreciate the voicemail pretty much and the kudos.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  All right, buddy. That is it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So for Mike.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  And Gibby.

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.