← MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
Touch Me and Die (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
00:42:51
On the afternoon of September 30th, 1991, an investigator in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania walked carefully through a college chemistry lab – that was also a potential crime scene. The room was a complete mess, with construction debris all over the place and lab equipment strewn across the countertops. It was so cluttered that the investigator hardly knew where to begin. But then he noticed something laying on a nearby counter – it was a soiled rag with a handwritten note sitting next to it. And when he read the note, he gasped. Because he realized that he could be the next to die.
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On the afternoon of September 30, 1991, an investigator in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, walked carefully through a college chemistry lab that was also a potential crime scene. The room was a complete mess, with construction debris all over the place and lab equipment strewn across all the countertops. In fact, it was so cluttered that the investigator hardly knew where to begin. But then he noticed something laying on a nearby counter. It was the soiled rag with a handwritten note sitting right next to it. And when he read that note, he was astonished because he realized he could be the next to die. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast, because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please empty the follow button's mailbox and then restuff it with expired pizza coupons and mysterious credit card offers. Okay, let's get into today's story.
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My name is Special Agent Rebecca Henderson.
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Thursday on NBC.
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There was an explosion at a top secret prison. Some of the most infamous killers broke free.
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The hunting party is back.
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We're going in loud. FBI.
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The stakes have never been higher.
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The longer they're out there, the more dangerous they're gonna become.
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And the killers never seen anything like this before.
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Not even close.
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Have never been more twisted. This is Next Level the Hunting Party. The thrilling season premiere Thursday on NBC.
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Did you know Tide has been upgraded to provide an even better clean in cold water. Tide is specifically designed to fight any stain you throw at it. Even in cold butter. Yep. Chocolate ice cream. Sure thing. Barbecue sauce. Tide's got you covered. You don't need to use warm water. Additionally, Tide pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new coldzyme technology. Just remember, if it's gotta be clean, it's gotta be tide.
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Early on the morning of August 19, 1991, a 32 year old man named Bobby Curley stood in his recently renovated kitchen in the city of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. He walked over to his fridge, opened it up, reached inside and grabbed his bag lunch along with his thermos. And he was just about to head out the door and go to work, but he stopped and gave his wife Joanne a kiss on the cheek and said he loved her. And then he left for the day. So Bobby and Joanne had been married for a year and they lived with Joanne's four year old daughter Angela in a duplex in a working class neighborhood. Bobby was an electrician and so he made pretty good money but the Curleys were by no means rich. However, Bobby knew that that actually might change soon, because Joanne was on the verge of winning this big court settlement. Joanne had actually been married once before, but her husband had died in a car accident about three years ago. His car had collided with a tractor trailer, and the driver of that tractor trailer was eventually found to be the one at fault. And so now Joanne's lawyers and the trucking company's lawyers were finally closing in on a financial settlement to compensate Joanne for her first husband's wrongful death. It had been a really stressful process, and Bobby had definitely noticed that Joanne had been more sullen and stressed than usual as they were going through it. But now that the case was finally wrapping up, Joanne did appear to be sort of back in good spirits. And, you know, while nothing was official yet, it looked like they were going to receive approximately a million dollars in compensation, which was obviously really exciting. In fact, the two of them were already mapping out how they might spend some of this money. Some of the ideas they had come up with included taking Angela on a few big trips and also maybe using some of that money to finally fund Bobby having his own business, something he had always wanted to do but lacked the resources for. But for now, you know, the settlement was not complete, and so Bobby had to go to his normal 9 to 5 and, you know, punch the clock and keep earning money for the family. So for today, once he was outside, he simply got into his car and made the short drive to his current job site. Ten minutes later, Bobby parked outside of a science building on the campus of Wilkes University, which was a small college in Wilkesbury. He saw some of the guys on his crew standing out front, waiting to be let into this building. So Bobby, who was the foreman of their crew, he got out of his car and said good morning to everyone, and then walked up and unlocked the doors. Then they all went inside and got to work. And working at this location had really become a pretty big routine for this crew, because by now, Bobby and his crew had been coming here, working here for a few months now. And this job was a really big job. Bobby and his team were helping renovate the entire building, which included all the classrooms, all the laboratories, hallways, everything. And so they still had quite a bit of work to do. But there was another reason this job was taking as long as it was, and that was because when Bobby's crew had first shown up at the building, they had expected it to be totally prepared for them, meaning all furniture and equipment would be Cleared out. But instead, they found a ton of stuff just kind of everywhere inside the building, because the building clearly had not been prepped at all. The chemistry lab, for example, still had random flasks and chemical bottles and, you know, wet rags with weird substances on them just laying around the room. So as a result, Bobby and his crew had been forced to do a ton of cleanup, you know, before they even got into their jobs that they had not planned on. And it really set them back. And so now, just to stay on schedule, they were regularly putting in 12 hour days, basically every day they were there. And so all these extra hours had Bobby feeling completely exhausted. And lately he had sort of felt kind of sick almost. And he just sort of chalked that up to basically overworking. But Bobby never complained. The overtime pay was great, and he really enjoyed working with these particular guys on this crew. You know, these guys were basically his friends. So normally, the long work days were actually kind of fun, as exhausting and awful as they were. Later that afternoon, Bobby was standing on a ladder inside of that chemistry lab, running electrical wires above the ceiling panels. And as he was doing that, he suddenly heard this loud commotion coming from across the room. Bobby realized what he was hearing were guys on his crew basically shouting and laughing. So he climbed down to see what was going on. And when he walked over there, he saw that everybody was gathered around one of the members of the crew, whose name was Sammy De Pasquale. And Sammy was sort of doubled over, coughing and spitting and holding a Coke can in his hand. Another member of the crew, whose name was Robert Marconi, explained to Bobby when he walked over that somebody had swapped out Sammy's Coke with a different Coke can, one that was filled with chewing tobacco spit instead of soda. Bobby cringed. I mean, this was absolutely disgusting. Even as a prank, this was awful. But it was also sort of par for the course for the guys on Bobby's crew. This is sort of what they did. They were always playing pranks on each other to kind of lighten the mood on long work days like today. And everybody was laughing, even Sammy, who'd been the butt of the joke. And so eventually, you know, Bobby joined in, too. He thought that this was ultimately good for morale, as gross as it was. And after a minute or so, Sammy recovered from his coughing fit from drinking this disgusting liquid, and vowed sort of comically to get payback on whoever switched his Coke can. Then after that, all the guys got back to work. And so Bobby, he left the group and went back over to his ladder and as he was climbing back up, he paused about halfway because he felt this sudden wave of sickness come over him. It almost felt like he had a flu coming on, which didn't really surprise him because he had been doing all these overtime hours, and he really had felt run down as a result of it. And so again, he's just sort of chalking up the way he feels to overworking. And so as Bobby is standing on this ladder, he kind of told himself, you know, just suck it up. This will pass. And he just stood there on the ladder. And after a minute or two, that sensation of being sick did sort of pass. And then because he was not a complainer, he was a hard working guy, he just pushed the sickness feeling he was having out of his mind. He climbed back up and got back to doing his wiring. But four days later, on the morning of Friday, August 23rd, Bobby felt worse than ever as he made his way across the college parking lot towards the science building where his crew was still working. He felt like his feet were heavy and he was constantly short of breath. And then as the workday went on, you know, continuing to run wires in that chem lab, Bobby got really sweaty and really hot. His coworkers noticed and kept coming up to him to ask if he needed to go home early. But even though Bobby totally did need to go home early and felt awful, he would just tell them, nope, he was just fine. And so Bobby would manage to get through that particular workday. But then at the end of the day, when it was time to go home, Bobby felt so relieved, he could not wait to just get home, crawl into bed, and sleep. But by the next morning, Saturday morning, that heavy feeling in Bobby's feet had turned into this really intense burning pain that actually went all the way up his legs and then his hands went numb. At this point, Bobby had to admit to himself that this was not a symptom of overworking. He was sick. Like something was wrong with him. So he went to his doctor, but the doctor told him that despite what he was feeling, the symptoms were not that serious. Like, it didn't appear that something was seriously wrong with him. And so ultimately, he just told Bobby to, you know, go home and get more rest. That's what you need right now. So that's exactly what Bobby did for the rest of that Saturday and all day the next day Sunday. Bobby didn't do anything except lay in bed. But by that Sunday evening, Bobby still felt horrible. So he picked up the phone and did something that Bobby basically never did. He called one of his coworkers and told them that unfortunately, he would not be able to come to work tomorrow. When Bobby woke up the next morning, on Monday morning, the day he had taken off from work, he was in so much pain that he couldn't even stand up on his own. His wife Joanne tried to help him get out of bed and go to the bathroom, but he was physically too heavy for her to lift. And so Joanne actually ended up calling Bobby's brother David to come over the house and help. But even with David there, who could now basically help move Bobby around the house, it was very clear to Bobby that whatever was happening to him was, was not some minor issue like this was serious, and it clearly was not going away with rest like the doctor had said it would. And so at some point that day, the family called an ambulance, which came and took Bobby to a nearby hospital. But by the time they got there, the pain in Bobby's legs had gotten so bad that Bobby was literally periodically screaming in pain, and he also had begun to vomit. But after several hours of non stop pain and non stop testing at the hospital, the hospital doctors came into Bobby's room and they told him and his family that they actually had good news. They knew what was wrong with Bobby and it was treatable. They diagnosed him with something called Guillain Barre syndrome, which is a condition where the body's immune system attacks the nerves and causes tingling in the feet and hands. But the staff assured Bobby that all he needed was a very specific medication and then he would feel a whole lot better. Bobby was incredibly relieved, as was his family. And that day, he began taking the medication. And quickly his pain became tolerable. He stopped vomiting, and before long, he actually felt good enough that he was able to go home. It seemed like Bobby had really turned a corner here and that everything really was going to be okay. But within just a few days of being back home again, Bobby's pain came back even worse than before, despite still taking this medication. And he also began experiencing a new symptom. His hair started falling out. This is an ad by BetterHelp. If I'm being honest, one thing I'm definitely letting go of in 2026 is just trying to carry everything myself. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that I had to keep every plate spinning perfectly. Well, not anymore. I'm setting that down and I'm stepping into the new year a whole lot lighter. The new year is your opportunity to feel lighter too, and you don't have to become a new person to do it. Signing up for therapy with BetterHelp can shine a light on what's been weighing you down and illuminate possibilities for the year ahead. BetterHelp handles the initial therapist matching work for you. 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On September 7th. So now, a week and a half after Bobby came back from the hospital, well, he was back there again. And to Bobby's horror, this time, his doctors actually seemed kind of baffled by his symptoms. They told him that sudden extreme hair loss was definitely not a symptom of Guillain Barre syndrome. So they told Bobby that it seemed like their initial diagnosis must have been wrong, despite the fact that the medication they gave him to treat GBS had helped him for a little while. And so the problem now was the doctors were basically at a total loss as to how to help Bobby. They really didn't know what was going on. And so for the next nine days, doctors ran test after test on Bobby. And all the while, Bobby's pain intensified so much and became so constant that he basically fell into this almost delirious state, like the pain was completely too much. And then eventually, all these doctors who ran all these tests came back to Bobby and his family, and they just told them that we don't know what's wrong. Like, all these tests did not provide any clarity. And so basically, we can't help you. And they told Bobby that. Now the only choice was he needed to be transferred to a bigger, more specialized medical facility in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which was about 100 miles away from Wilkes Barre. A few days later, A neurologist named Dr. Robert Brennan walked down the hallway of the bigger hospital in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was heading to the room where his patient, Bobby Curley was staying. And even from several Yards down the hallway, Dr. Brennan could already hear Bobby screaming and cursing at the nurses. Ever since Bobby had arrived at this hospital, his behavior had gotten more and more unhinged. At one point, Bobby had even thrown medical equipment across the room. And so now Dr. Brennan had to keep Bobby physically restrained to his bed. And so Dr. Brennan, when he reached Bobby's room, took a deep breath out in the hallway, and then into the room he walked. And inside he saw Bobby strapped down to the bed and he was screaming and thrashing around violently. And Dr. Brennan found himself just feeling awful about it. I mean, he felt really bad for Bobby, but really he didn't know what to do for Bobby. He and his staff had tried basically everything they could think of to try to treat Bobby's pain, but nothing had worked. And so on this day, Dr. Brennan couldn't do anything except what he normally did, which was just stand in Bobby's room sort of helplessly as Bobby screamed and flailed in pain. But on September 22, so six days after Bobby arrived in Hershey, he finally fell silent because on that day, he slipped into a coma. Three days later, Dr. Brennan felt very defeated as he stepped into Bobby's hospital room. There he saw five members of Bobby's family. His wife, Joanne, his four year old stepdaughter, Angela, Bobby's adult siblings, Susan and David, and Bobby's elderly mother, Mary. They'd all come to be with Bobby after he had fallen into this coma. Now they looked up at Dr. Brennan expectantly. And Dr. Brennan, he took a deep breath and he said he had some bad news. New test results had come back. And now based on those results, they knew what was wrong with Bobby. Dr. Brennan told the family that what Bobby was suffering from was, was something called thallium toxicity. And when he said this, Dr. Brennan watched the family for some kind of a reaction, but the family just stared blankly at him like they had no idea what that meant. So Dr. Brennan went on and explained that thallium is an extremely toxic chemical. In fact, it can kill anyone who touches it, ingests it, or even just inhales its fumes. And he told them that, you know, this is really unusual because thallium is highly controlled in the United States. It's actually banned in household products. So this is not a chemical that, you know, Bobby just could have accidentally stumbled upon. This is pretty rare. And so at this point, Dr. Brennan just paused and let the family sit with this new information. And the family, I mean, they looked at each other like, wow, this is awful. But Nobody knew how to react. They just kind of looked back at the doctor, waiting for him to explain more. But when the doctor didn't say anything, Bobby's sister Susan, just asked in a quavering voice, you know, what can we do? At that point, Dr. Brennan just shook his head and said, unfortunately, there's no cure for thallium poisoning. Two days later, on September 27, Joanne stood next to her unconscious husband in the hospital, and she nodded at the medical staff that was gathered all around him. It was ultimately Joanne's decision whether or not to keep Bobby on life support. But with no hope of a cure, Joanne had ultimately decided that the best thing to do was to take him off life support. And so after giving the signal to medical staff, Joanne, her daughter, and the rest of Bobby's family that kind of stepped back from the bed, and they watched as the staff walked over and removed Bobby's ventilator. And then Joanne had to watch as her husband took his final breath. On the evening of October 21, 1991. So, about a month after Bobby died from thallium poisoning, a police detective named Harold Cawley sat at a big table with seven other men inside of a steakhouse in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. The other men were a mixture of coroners and investigators from all across Pennsylvania. Some were from the Hershey area where Bobby had died. The rest, like Callie, worked for the police in Wilkes Barre, where Bobby had lived. The men were there discussing the investigation into Bobby's death, and they had been doing this for the past three hours already because there really was so much to talk about. They had already covered Bobby's initial autopsy results, which showed that he had a staggering 900 times the lethal limit of thallium in his system when he died. And so they were working under the assumption that. That Bobby must have been poisoned by a single massive dose of thallium, whether accidentally or on purpose. They didn't know. And so they discussed theories for how this could have even happened to him, because, remember, thallium is not just a chemical you can get from the store. I mean, this is something that is highly regulated. So how did he come in contact with it? Their first thought had been basically what everybody else suspected, which was, you know, Bobby must have been accidentally poisoned at the Wilkes University chemistry lab, where he'd been working for so many months. And they actually had a bunch of records from a preliminary examination of the lab. And according to these records, one of the first things investigators had found inside of that lab was five vials of thallium in One of the storerooms, they'd also found a rag that was laying out on a countertop that presumably was there when Bobby first arrived. And he and his crew began cleaning everything up. And next to this rag was a handwritten note that had a warning on it that literally said, thallium wiping rag. Touch me and die. The rag had actually caused a huge amount of panic amongst the investigators when they had gone in to begin sweeping the lab for signs of thallium, because people were fearful that maybe they'd brushed up against it and touched this rag and were they going to get thallium poisoning. However, they actually tested the rag and it came back negative for thallium, as did all the surfaces in the lab and also the air in the lab. And so the investigators had finally decided that that note must have been a joke or something. Also, the university insisted that all of its thallium was accounted for, meaning none of it could have been, you know, stolen or misused in some way to poison Bobby, because they would know about it. And so at this point, the university had actually been sort of ruled out as where Bobby got poisoned, which really didn't make sense to Detective Cawley or the other investigators at this dinner because, again, thallium is hard to come by. The idea that Bobby was working in a lab that contained thallium, but that wasn't where he was poisoned by thallium, seemed almost impossible. It had to have happened there. But they had gone out and tested all of Bobby's coworkers who had also worked in that lab with Bobby for so many days and so many hours, and they all came back negative for thallium exposure. However, Bobby's own family, his wife Joanne, and her four year old daughter Angela, they had tested positive for thallium exposure. Granted, it was on a near microscopic level, because any amount of exposure could actually be lethal. And those two were okay. So obviously they had not received a lethal dose, but there were very small traces of thallium in both of them, which was odd. And so everybody at the table agreed that the right thing to do here was to speak to Joanne and see if maybe she had some ideas of how she and her daughter, and obviously Bobby, could have maybe come in contact with this very rare and lethal chemical. And then also they need to get inside of the family's duplex to search it literally for thallium. But first, there was the problem of jurisdiction. Bobby had died in Hershey, but he'd gotten sick in Wilkes Barrel. So after some discussion, the men decided that the Wilkes Barre police should be the ones to head up the case, because that is where Bobby actually got poisoned. The next day, Detective Cawley invited Bobby's siblings, David and Suzanne, to the Wilkes Barre police station. And right away it was quite clear that both of them were very suspicious of Bobby's wife, Joanne. They told Callie that Joanne had been acting really strange for months, both before and also after Bobby's death. David said when his brother had first gotten sick, Joanne had barely lifted a finger to help him. She'd called David to come over and look after Bobby, acting like she needed somebody strong enough to move Bobby around, which was true. But while David was upstairs literally carrying Bobby to and from the bathroom, Joanne stayed downstairs with her daughter and totally ignored them. She didn't even pretend to want to help. She basically let David do all of it. And Susan said even though she didn't know for sure, her impression of Joanne right after she had taken Bobby off life support and he's died, her impression of Joanne was she was hugely relieved. Callie listened and nodded and sort of gave the impression that he was following along and basically believed them. But inside, he wasn't really convinced that what they were describing was highly suspicious behavior. When David came over to help Bobby, I mean, that was because she had asked him to do that after trying at first unsuccessfully, to move her husband around. And then when David was there, I mean, you know, she does have a four year old daughter. She can't just leave her unsupervised. Or maybe she doesn't want her daughter to see Bobby and so she has to keep her downstairs. So there's like an explanation for that. And as for Joanne being relieved after her husband's death, you know, everybody dealt with grief differently, and Bobby's death had been a really traumatic, drawn out process for everybody involved. So maybe she was relieved, but not because she was happy about it. It could have just been the end of a nightmare chapter in all of their lives. And so after he had listened to their concerns, Kali began to redirect the conversation. And he began asking David and Susan about their relationship with Bobby. They both said they were very close with their brother, even as adults. They said they lived nearby and they saw each other quite a bit. David in particular said he spent a lot of time with Bobby. He said they often went fishing. And recently together, they had renovated Bobby's kitchen. And this caught Collie's attention because it sounded like David and Bobby had finished this renovation project around the same time that Bobby first got sick. Callie didn't know if this was relevant or not, but it was interesting. So at the end of their discussion, he just thanked David and Susan for all the information and told them they were free to go. Every night I swear I'm ready for anything until one of my kids or my wife asks me what's for dinner. That one question just completely breaks me every single night. After a full day of decisions, it's like this last one feels like too much. It's like climbing a mountain in flip flops. But now there's a great solution. Blue Apron they deliver chef designed meals with no subscription required, no signups, no pressure. Just order when it works for you. Their updated menu offers 100 weekly meals and most are customizable. Try options like assemble and bake, where ingredients come prepped and ready for the oven in minutes. It's real food, real flexibility, and just as delicious as ever. And trust me, I've actually lived this dinner is typically where we just give up and order out. But the Blue Apron box showed up and suddenly there was a plan. One night we made pork lo mein for my wife and I and the creamy Mac and cheese for the kids. And instead of stress, dinner just happened. And it was great. And the best part? It actually tasted great. Like something we would order from one of our favorite restaurants, not a rushed weeknight takeout meal. Try the new Blue Apron today and get 40% off and free shipping on your first two orders at blueapron.com with code MrBallen40. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com terms for more. We've all had our fair share of financial headaches. Overdraft fees, late payments, and that constant feeling like we're two steps behind. It's the kind of stress that sneaks up on you and just sticks around. That's why I like what Chime's doing. It actually helps you stay ahead instead of playing catch up. Chime understands that every dollar counts. That's why when you set up a direct deposit through Chime, you get access to fee free features like free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct depos, deposit and more. Work on your financial goals through Chime today. Open an account in 2 minutes@chime.com ballin that's chime.com ballin Chime feels like progress. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank NA or Stride Bank NA members, FDIC Spot me Eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Timing depends on submission of Payment file fees apply at out of network ATMs. Bank ranking and number of ATMs. According to US News and World Report, 2023 Chime checking account required. A few days later, on the morning of October 25, 1991, Detective Cawley and three other investigators sat at an interrogation table in the Wilkes Barre police station, right across from Joanne Curley and the lawyer that she had brought along with her. Callie didn't know what to make of Joanne yet. Obviously, she and her daughter had also been exposed to thallium. So that could mean that they too accidentally were exposed to this chemical, same as Bobby, but obviously on a much smaller scale because they lived. Or they could have also been the target of somebody trying to poison this family. And ultimately just Bobby was killed from this poisoning. Or Joanne could be the poisoner. She could have poisoned her own husband. I mean, you know, Bobby's siblings are talking about how awful Joanne was acting towards her husband in the wake of his illness. You know, maybe she poisoned him, and in doing so, she accidentally exposed herself and her daughter. Basically, Callie couldn't tell yet if Joanne was a victim or a perpetrator. So he made sure to watch her very carefully while another investigator began asking her to explain how and when her husband first got sick. Joanne said that Bobby had been complaining about feeling pretty run down for what felt like weeks or maybe even months, but he hadn't had any major symptoms until a week before his hospitalization in August. And she said that much like Bobby, she had just kind of chalked it up to he had been overworking or maybe he had some standard illness that would just go away with rest, like that first doctor had said. She said that she had never even heard of thallium. And really at no point had it ever crossed her mind that maybe Bobby had been poisoned by thallium. As Cawley listened to Joanne tell this story, he was struck by a couple of things. First of all, Joanne said Bobby had been feeling pretty run down for a while before his death. This seemed to conflict with investigators assumption that a single massive dose of thallium had sent Bobby to the hospital and ultimately killed him. It seemed more likely, based on what Joanne said, that this poisoning happened over a period of time. And the second thing Kali was struck by was actually just Joanne's general demeanor. She had just recounted in detail, you know, the story of her husband dying this awful, awful death. Thallium poisoning is a horrible way to die. And as she's describing it, she's not shedding a single tear or really acting at all. Like she's even upset about it. And so at this point, Kali was beginning to wonder if maybe Susan and David had been right about Joanne. She really did not seem to care much about her husband's death. And so what Cauley did is he stopped the other investigator, and he leaned forward and he just asked Joanne point blank, how do you explain how you and your daughter were exposed to thallium? And immediately Joanne had a story, a bizarre one. She said Bobby really liked to drink iced tea when he was at work. So every morning, she would fill his thermos up from this big pitcher of pre made iced tea that she kept in their fridge. And so Bobby would take that thermos with him to work, and he would drink the tea all day and then come home with the thermos. And some days when he would come back, Bobby had not drank all the iced tea. There'd be some left inside the thermos. And so Joanne said what she would do in that case was she would take the remaining iced tea still in the thermos and she would pour it back into the pitcher in the fridge, basically to salvage what was left of the tea. And she said she and her daughter also drank from that pitcher. So in essence, she sometimes was drinking from the same tea that Bobby was drinking from directly. And so perhaps in that way, if he was being exposed to thallium, maybe it was getting into that tea that he was bringing home. And, you know, she believed that maybe that was how she was being exposed by drinking the leftover iced tea. Cawley glanced over at the other investigators in the room, and they all looked as baffled as he was. This ICE T explanation was pretty out there, but it was so weirdly specific that they really couldn't write it off. And Cawley knew that, you know, if the ICE T theory was legitimate, it might be able to explain why all three people in this family, all living in the same place, had such drastically different levels of exposure. Basically, Bobby could be having this huge exposure to thallium outside the house. And then basically, remnants of the thallium exposure are finding their way back into that leftover tea. So it's a really small amount of thallium that's coming back home. It's being mixed in inside that pitcher. And so when Joanne and her daughter are drinking from that pitcher, you know, they're only getting a very small amount of thallium. And so, again, it's out there, but it would explain it. So Callie asked Joanne if he had her permission to not just Search her whole duplex to check for thallium, but specifically check her fridge, check her pitcher, her iced tea pitcher, and all the thermoses that Bobby brought to work to see if there was still trace levels of thallium inside of them. And he was worried when he asked her this question that she might refuse or give some reason that she couldn't. But Joanne immediately agreed without any hesitation. That same afternoon, Cawley, his investigators, and a crime scene unit arrived at the Curley's duplex to begin their search. Cauley looked on as the crime scene unit entered the duplex and immediately began scouring every surface. And they found absolutely no trace of thallium anywhere in the house, except for in one very specific location, the thermos Joanne had already told them about, the one that Bobby would bring with the iced tea in it to work, and then back again. Traces of thallium were found on the little ridges at the top of the thermos where the lid screwed back on. And this was huge. Not only because now they had the first clear sign of exactly where the stallion was coming in and out of Bobby's life, but more specifically because it was at the top of this cup that obviously Bobby is drinking from. This showed that the way the thallium wound up in Bobby's system was because he ingested it. That was something they didn't know at this point. Now it seems very clear that's how it happened. But despite this revelation, it didn't explain how Joanne and Angela were also exposed, because when they tested the big pitcher of iced tea in the fridge, it didn't contain any thallium. And also, just finding the thallium at the top of the thermos didn't explain how it actually got there. But for Cauley, what really stood out about finding thallium on this thermos was that this item, this thermos, is something Bobby took to work and home every single day. So it seemed like maybe, you know, Cawley and his staff had been too quick to rule out where Bobby was working. I mean, he was working in a chemical lab that contained thallium. And they had ruled that out as the place where he could have been poisoned. Now it seemed like they needed to take another look.
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Seven months later, in late May of 1992, Detective Cawley sat at his desk, thumbing through the notes from all the interviews and polygraph tests that he and his team had carried out since the previous October. One by one, they had brought in all of Bobby's co workers and grilled them about Bobby's death. And all of the co workers had more or less said the same thing. Bobby was well liked, and nobody they knew would want to harm him. Some of the co workers did admit that they did like to prank each other a lot, but they said the pranks had always been, you know, pretty harmless, and spiking somebody's drinks with chemicals was way, way beyond anything they ever did. At least that's what all of them said. But two of Bobby's co workers, Sammy DePasquale and Robert Marconi, had failed their polygraph exams. In fact, the polygraph examiner said those two had literally gotten the worst scores he had ever seen. So very quickly, those two shot to the top of Cawley's suspect list. And so Cauley had pressed both of them about whether or not they had pranked Bobby by putting thallium into his thermos. Maybe they didn't know how dangerous thallium was, but did they put something in his thermos? And they said, absolutely not. They didn't do that. But Cawley didn't believe them because he'd already heard about previous pranks that involved swapping out co workers drinks for things like tobacco, spit so what's to say they didn't put thallium in Bobby's thermos? It just sort of tracked. The problem was Cawley didn't have any actual evidence that he could use to arrest either of them, especially since the university continued to insist that none of their thallium was missing from the lab. Now, Cawley knew it was possible the university was wrong, that maybe there was unaccounted for thallium, but he had no way to prove that. Callie also felt pretty suspicious of Joanne, and also Bobby's own brother, David. You know, Joanne, for obvious reasons, was still suspicious. She had thallium in her system. She seemed oddly detached from Bobby when he was dying, you know, kind of letting other people take care of him, and apparently was relieved when he was taken off life support. But even if Joanne had wanted to poison Bobby, it was really unclear how she would have gotten her hands on thallium. And then as for David, the reason he was sort of suspicious to Callie is because he spent a lot of time with Bobby, and he also did that kitchen renovation with him. And so there's all these moments where he's alone, potentially handling chemicals with Bobby before he got sick. So basically, David had the opportunity to poison Bobby, but there really was no motive. And just like with Joanne, Kali felt like, you know, where would David get the thallium? That was the big question. Where is the thallium coming from? And so at this point, Detective Cawley was basically at a dead end and just did not know how to take this case. Which was heartbreaking, because earlier that day, he'd been informed that the district attorney had decided to actually shut down the investigation into Bobby's death. The case was officially cold. And so, since Cawley could not revive it, all he could do was close the case file and stick it in a drawer. One morning in August of 1994. So, more than two years after the investigation into Bobby's death was shut down, Detective Cawley walked up the porch steps of the duplex where Bobby had lived, and he knocked on the door. Cawley had been thinking a lot about this case recently, and today he was hoping that Bobby's widow, Joanne, would help him take one last shot at cracking it. A moment later, Joanne answered the door. And once the look of surprise left her face, she invited the detective inside. Cawley quickly explained to her that the reason he was here is because there had been this technological breakthrough in toxicology testing. The Wilkes Barre police were now able to perform a new type of test that had not been available to them three years ago when her husband had died. And Cawley believed that, you know, this information they could get would help them figure out what actually happened to Bobby once and for all. Joanne's eyes lit up at this news, and she was about to open her mouth to reply, but Cawley quickly added, there was actually a catch. He said in order to do these tests, they would have to exhume Bobby's body. And the only person who could give investigators permission to do that was Joanne. Cawley waited while Joanne processed everything she'd just been told. He tried not to let it show on his face, but Joanne's response to this would basically decide the entire fate of this case. If she said no, there really was nothing they could do. The evidence contained inside of Bobby's casket would be lost to them forever. Which meant if somebody had intentionally poisoned Bobby, they would never figure out who it was, and so the killer would never be brought to justice. But unsurprisingly, Joanne said yes, of course. Later that month, on August 23rd, Cawley went to the cemetery where Bobby was buried, and he watched as Abaco dug up his grave and pulled his casket out of the ground. The police and coroner then took custody of Bobby's body. And they would go on to perform these new toxicology tests. And when the results came in, they gave Cawley the exact information he had hoped for. Based on the police investigation and critically, those new toxicology tests. Here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Bobby Curley. The first time the killer slipped thallium into Bobby's thermos, Bobby was busy working in another room and didn't notice, which was exactly what the killer wanted. The killer did not hate Bobby. In fact, they really hadn't wanted to kill him until he had started talking about opening up his own business with that settlement money his family was going to get. And the killer just could not let that happen. Because if Bobby went into business for himself, he would ruin everything. The killer believed that by poisoning Bobby one time, that that would kill him and then all their problems would be solved. But the next day, Bobby actually seemed fine, sort of unfazed by the poison. So the next time the killer got the chance, they added a little more poison to Bobby's thermos. And when Bobby again stayed healthy the next day, well, the killer just added a little bit more the next time. And they just kept on doing that. They were afraid that if they added too much at once, Bobby might notice and then they would get caught. So for months, Bobby was being Poisoned, but didn't really show any significant symptoms. But finally, In August of 1991, Bobby started showing really severe symptoms. Remember, his legs were in extreme pain. His hands were going numb. And when he called in sick to work on that Monday, that was when the killer knew they were certain they had finished him off. Except they hadn't finished him off, because when he went to the hospital, Bobby just continued to cling to life. So the killer actually went to visit Bobby in the hospital. And while Bobby was sleeping, the killer slipped a final massive amount of the poison into a soda cup that Bobby kept by his bedside. And when Bobby woke up, the killer kind of casually encouraged him to drink the soda, and Bobby did so without any hesitation, because Bobby had no reason not to trust the killer, because the killer was his own wife, Joanne Curley. She had actually started poisoning him almost a year before she actually murdered him. But investigators didn't realize this until a new type of toxicology test allowed them to figure out exactly when Bobby was being poisoned. This test worked by analyzing some of the hairs that Bobby still had left on his body. Basically, every time Bobby was poisoned, a chemical marker was left behind in his hair. So as his hair grew out, the strands sort of became timelines that showed exactly when he had been poisoned and when. Cauley, through these tests, discovered that Bobby had been poisoned multiple times between October 1990 and September of 1991. These dates ruled out Bobby's co workers and his brother David. The poisoning had simply started too early for David to be responsible and went on far too long for his co workers to be guilty. But the timeline clearly ruled in Joanne. And when police began digging into why Joanne might have wanted to kill her husband, they realized she'd convinced Bobby to make her the beneficiary of his life insurance policy just days before poisoning him for the very first time. And so Joanne's motive was money. She did not want Bobby to have any of that financial windfall she was gonna get from the death of her earlier husband, the wrongful death lawsuit where she was gonna get a million dollars, even though she kind of acted like, you know, oh, yeah, Bobby's gonna use some of that to start his business. She didn't want that. She did not want him to have any of it. That was her money. So that was one motivation financially. And the other financial motivation was by killing Bobby, she would also receive the life insurance payout. As for where Joanne actually got the thallium, she would admit that she had used an old container of rat poison that did contain thallium that was manufactured in the US before thallium was banned in household products. On December 12, 1996, five years after Bobby's death, Joanne was finally arrested and charged with first degree murder. Joanne ultimately pled guilty and so was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. She would wind up serving all 20 years and was released from prison in 2016. A quick note about our stories they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive Produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach Levitt. Produced by Jeremy Bone. This episode was written by Luke Baratz Research and fact checking by Shelly Shue, Samantha Vanhus, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway and Camille Callahan Research and fact checking supervision by Steven Ear Audio editing and post produced by Whit Locascio and Cole Locasio Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain Production coordination by Samantha Collins Production support by Antonio Minata and Delaina Corley Artwork by Jessica Claude Kiner Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you want to hear more like it, go ahead and check out our YouTube channel just called Mr. Ballin, where we have hundreds more stories a lot like this one, but most of them are not available on this podcast. They are only available on that YouTube channel, which again is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya.
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