Bitter Almonds & Betrayal – The PNW Poisoner

0:00 If nobody else dies, then it looks like just your husband and just your bottle. And they look a lot closer at that. Yeah. And they're going to start with the assumption that, yeah, probably that was tainted, probably that was tampered with. And I think the call may be coming from inside the house. [Music] Hi, Cassie.

0:40 Hi, Caitlyn. Hi, creepy people. Hello! Hello! This is so weird. I know. [Laughter] We're not together. [Laughter] Oh, oh, oh, what a year. Oh wait, I said it wrong. Oh, holy shit, what a year. [Laughter] I was like, wait, something was missing. You're like, that's not quite right. I love it. Should we introduce the show? We didn't finish the intro, yeah. That's fine. It's a little unhinged today because our routine is thrown off. Okay. And beneath the layers and layers of ADHD, there may be something else a little neuro-spicy.

1:26 in our makeup and we just can't. We simply can't. We can't. We can't. We can't. It's fine. If you're new to our creepy corner of the world, this is PNW Haunts and Homicides, where we chat about true crime, paranormal, and all things creepy in the Pacific Northwest. And we do a terror reading at the end of every episode for a little deeper insight into our topic for the day. Make sure you stick around if you're into that kind of thing. All right, Cassie, are you ready? I am caffeinated. I have gotten all my sillies out, so I think I'm ready.

2:10 Excellent. On June 11th, just after 6.30 a.m., 15-year-old Hayley Snow would find her 40-year-old mother. Sue Snow had collapsed in the bathroom with a weak pulse. Oh, snow? I know. I love that. I know. I'm lusher in the Hunger Games, I guess. That's a bad snow, right? Oh, yeah. I'm thinking of snow. I know. Oh, that's a good snow. Also, regular snow is really pretty and cool. I know. I want some snow.

2:50 Just like a little bit. I'm really just trying to focus on the cuteness of this name. Yeah. Because I don't want to get rest. Well, though paramedics had rushed her to the hospital in Seattle by helicopter, she would pass away without being able to say goodbye to her daughter, nor her husband, Paul Webkin. He was a long haul trucker and had been on the road when he got the call. Oh, how awful. I know. Oh, there's nothing you can do. I mean, there's nothing you can do anyway, but just like being far away. Yeah, exactly.

3:31 And when he showed up at the hospital, I don't think that he really understood the seriousness of the situation. Oh, yeah, which is kind of a, that's a tough blow. Yeah. But just 15, Haley Snow had lost her mother who she was incredibly close to. She didn't refer to her mother as mom or by her first name as some teenagers might in a show of teenage rebellion. She still called Sue Mommy. Oh, I call my mommy Mommy all the time. I know.

4:12 I love my mommy. Sue had grown up in the American Southwest before relocating to the state of Washington eventually. She worked as a bank teller, but was eventually promoted multiple times while she worked to attain her GED. Sue had married her second husband, Paul, on Thanksgiving 1985. Oh, can you imagine the wedding meal? Oh, yeah. Well, it's just so bizarre because I was researching this case right around Thanksgiving. Oh. And when I learned that, I had been listening to Live Laugh Larsonies Thanksgiving episode and I was like, stop.

5:02 What? Oh, because I've read and listened to like so much different like source material and different podcasts and documentaries about this case over the years. And I've never heard that detail. And then right around Thanksgiving, I found that out. They got married on Thanksgiving. Oh, it's just proof that you're on the right track. I, yeah. As charming as that all-mate sound, Sue's life before her untimely death wasn't completely devoid of conflict. Obviously, she had been previously married prior to Paul to a man named Connie. In fact, this man was Haley's father.

5:46 Their marriage had ended, though not for lack of trying, it seems. But ultimately, Sue's infidelity was a likely contributing factor. And I say that not to demonize her far from it, but because it's important to understand that many of the real people that we talk about in all of these cases, they contain multitudes. Yeah. Just like living people, I mean, right? We all got shit. Yeah, you're a real person and life happens. Before Sue was airlifted from Auburn and taken to Seattle's Harborview Hospital, the tables would be turned.

6:32 Her husband, Paul, had an affair with his high school girlfriend, Mary, though it was reportedly several months prior to Sue's death. Oh. Sue's autopsy would later reveal the presence of cyanide. What? Thankfully, though the patient showed no obvious signs of toxicity, the Emmy did run a tox screen to test for it. Better almonds and betrayal. Ooh, bitter almonds. What does that mean? That's what cyanide smells like to the percentage of the population that can smell it.

7:12 I don't even really know what cyanide is. I mean, I know it's like a poison. But are you going to go like, what are the use of for what's up with cyanide? Cyanide used to be in a lot of really mundane products and things that people came into contact with. We will talk about a couple of things that it is or has been found in, but I'm going to say that. Okay. For now, just picture like the cyanide capsules that the Nazis reportedly had. Oh, that's right.

7:55 That's right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You don't need a lot of it, depending on the purity for it to be effective. God, how do people even get that shit? Well, I'm sure you'll go into it. Yeah. The day of Sue's funeral detectives searched the home with Paul's permission to do so. He felt he had nothing to hide and was quite willing to cooperate with investigators. In fact, he was rarely anything if not forthcoming. That's a good sign, right?

8:36 Even early on in the investigation, he expressed concern that his wife's sudden death bore a startling resemblance to that of the victims of the 1982 Tylenol tampering murders in Chicago. What? He remembered that? That's kind of an odd. This was only a handful of years later. Oh, okay. That's true. Okay. Yeah, it was pretty fresh in the nation's consciousness, I would say. That sounds terrifying though. I don't want to. Yes, it was. Though it had occurred on the other side of the country, the deaths of seven individuals still loomed ominously for many nationwide, having occurred just a handful of years prior.

9:26 Still it was uncertain just exactly what had happened and who or what was to blame for Sue's tragic death. Oh, did they find the people that did the other thing? I don't think the Tylenol murders have ever been solved. What? That's part of why it kind of stuck with people, I think. This is a NPR article from July of 2023, which says that officially everyone says the case is still open and ongoing. Unfortunately, the person who was their prime suspect apparently has passed away.

10:10 So we're probably not going to have answers for that one. Okay. So I think that's actually pretty important context. It's not something that I really went deep on, but it's like one side of it, it looks suspicious, right? Because you're like, well, why are you bringing up this other, yeah. But it had just happened in recent years, and sure, it's across the country, essentially, right? But it's also unsolved. So I guess I would be worried about that too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fuck, I'm now I'm worried about it now.

10:54 I mean, you should be. That's why we have the tamper seals and stuff. Literally that case is why. Yeah, that's really scary because sometimes I'll be like, eh, fuck it. No, don't, don't fuck around and find out. Don't fuck it. Mostly with food because I'm just like, I'm hungry. I mean, the same thing can be done with over the counter or prescription medication. In some cases, it could be done with food. All kinds of tampering can occur. You just, yeah, don't, don't. Likely, desperately craving anything resembling normalcy in the shocking aftermath of her mother's death. Haley went to school the next day.

11:36 Oh, while one would hope that she would be met by sympathetic peers, she faced whispered rumors for returning to school so soon after her mother's passing. Even as a grown woman, she would never forget how that made her feel. That's fucked up. It can be dicks, but this kind of just seems like an all-time low. Like she came back to school the next day. So rather than having some sort of like sympathy or, you know, saying, like, gosh, I'm so sorry. Or, you know, trying to help her in any way, people just whispered about like, oh, I bet she killed her mom.

12:22 Oh my god, that's so sad. She's like, can you imagine? She's traumatized already and she's trying to do like the normal thing to feel normal. She's the one who found her mom. Oh, I wish she didn't go. I just want to get her a hug. She was still in the house with her mom and she finally realized something was off. And actually the timeline in that regard, I think we're going to talk about a little bit more because it does become significant. She's remained an active advocate to ensure justice for her mother's death all these years later.

13:06 As the investigation into Sue's death progressed, her autopsy could not confirm the exact cause of death, but the talk screen did confirm a fatal level of cyanide. Her paul's product tampering theory that was proffered some might argue just a little too early and eagerly. He told investigators that Sue took excedrin for frequent chronic headaches. I feel you, girl. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Here I am just to ruin everything.

13:47 For me? I'm just going to say that I'm not going to be a victim of any sort of harm. I'm just going to say that I'm not going to be a victim of any harm. I'm not going to be a victim of any harm. I'm not going to be a victim of any harm. I'm not going to be a victim of any harm. I'm not going to be a victim of any harm. Sue was known, at least by the family's account, to have stereotypically purchased tablets. Paul would also later state that both he and Sue took excedrin for headaches, as well as claiming they had both used it as a caffeine supplement.

14:33 Oh. And I'm personally feeling attacked. Is that what you do? I have definitely taken it where I'm like, I don't feel like very energetic and I don't know for anyone who has migraines. Sometimes when you just generally feel crummy, there's this little like wriggling doubt or worry in your mind that, oh no, I don't want this to start a migraine. Yeah. That makes sense. You know, just really tired and you feel like you're, you don't, for me a lot of times, I don't really fully always understand why it is that I don't feel good.

15:21 And sometimes I think it's because in that time, I'm neurologically compromised. And so normal things like I have a headache, I should take, you know, medicine or something, I get distracted. It's like ADHD and migraine come together to create this beautiful baby that keeps me from the medicine. So the struggle is real. Yeah. But I found that very interesting because I've definitely taken excedrin when I felt like I needed more than anything the caffeine.

16:02 And I thought this could stave off a headache that I don't even realize I'm about to have. Yeah. That makes sense. That's just your intuition, right? Yeah. I think so. May ever. By June 16, less than a week after Sue's death, the FDA had completed their analysis of the pill bottle found in the family home. Paul was not the least bit surprised to learn of the recall of lot number 5H 102 due to product tampering and the inherent threat that potential poisoning posed. No. So it was recalled.

16:43 It was recalled. Did you know that a gelatin capsule can dissolve in as little as 10 minutes once ingested? I mean, I feel like it was kind of quick because that's like the whole thing with gel, right? Yeah. I mean, depending on the purpose of the capsule and what's inside it, it can be fast acting. It can also be extended release. Oh, okay. So there's a number of way the capsules are used depending on, you know, the application and what medication goes in it. That was roughly the amount of time that had elapsed since Haley had seen her mother right around the time she reportedly took a dose of exedron and before Sue collapsed in the family home's master bath.

17:34 Oh, God. So it's really looking like that was the problem? Yeah. Definitely. It's definitely looking like that is 1,000% the problem. That's me, the exedron, I am the problem. But Auburn, sleepy as it might seem next to a city like Seattle, was about to be rocked because there was more than one seemingly suspicious spouse and bottle of exedron in town. What? There's another one? As indie podcasters, we love to show our support of other awesome shows.

18:17 So stay tuned for the promo we've got to share with you this week. Let's show them some love. You can find their info in our show notes. Fire breathing kittens is an actual play one shot podcast that plays various tabletop role playing games with a season long plot. This is the beginning and an end to each week story. You can start at any episode. Every week has a different combination of four from the same rotating cast group of people. Join fire breathing kittens as they solve detective mysteries, attempt comedic banter, and enjoy friendship.

19:01 You guys, we're back. And don't worry, we did get more wine. Well, of course, it was just after 5 p.m. the evening of June 5th in 1986 when an Auburn Washington man was rushed from his home on southeast Lake Money Smith Road by helicopter to the Harbor View hospital in Seattle where he later sadly died. Wow, and I am so glad that I can see your face so that I know that you have the same reaction to southeast Lake Money Smith Road.

19:45 Yeah. And I did. I was like, I was picturing like that, who is that like Donald Duck in a money thing doing this? Yeah. Like did we name this road? Right? It's very strange, but yeah. According to his initial autopsy, the cause of death was declared to be emphysema. That man was 52 year old Bruce Nichol. Did he have emphysema? He did. Okay. I like death. At least he had it, I guess. Yeah. But it's kind of weird. Kind of weird. Emphysema isn't usually something that's like a sudden death.

20:28 Yeah, no. So yeah, huh. Bruce's wife released his body for autopsy right after his death. Of course, if your loved one passed away unexpectedly, you would probably want answers as well. Yeah. As it turns out, his beautiful wife Stella was quite determined to get to the bottom of what had occurred and just what had caused Bruce's death. James legit. If it was my husband, I would be pretty pissed. Yeah. In the meantime, the first person that she called to notify of Bruce's death was his boss.

21:14 What? Uh-huh. I mean, you're grieving. I can't say what I would do, but that's probably not who I would call first. Yeah. This next part. If I finish that sentence, who was struck by Stella's frankness? She called and said, "Um, he's not coming into work." 'Cause he died. Wow. Essentially. Uh, yeah. No, that's weird. Yeah. I would agree. He wasn't the first man to make note of this throughout her life, that frankness.

21:54 That alone following the death of her late husband Bruce, and he certainly would not be the last. Walter and Ruth of nearby Winachee were shocked to learn of the passing of their only child. The couple was by this time in their 90s, but no doubt they could remember all too vividly a year's long struggle to become parents some decades prior. Oh. Walter had been an Apple farmer, Ruth, a teacher. Oh my fucking god, stop it.

22:34 He farmed apples. He was an Apple farmer. You give apples to teachers. Mm-hmm. It's about as wholesome as it gets. It seems like. I feel so bad for them. Yeah. They had brought Bruce home in June of 1934 when he was just a weak old. So they had struggled for a while to get pregnant and they adopted. They brought him home as a brand new baby. I mean, these days I feel like it's something that gets talked about a lot where people, of course everybody wants a baby because it's like the clean slate of adoption, if you will.

23:25 But yeah, they actually had that. They have had Bruce in their lives since he was a weak old. Wow. Oh, and they're 90. Oh my gosh, this couple. Bruce grew up on a large Apple orchard, quite idyllic from the outside. And Apple see it's upside in. No, that's arsenic, huh? Yeah, it is. It's arsenic. I was like, that would be weird. That would be really weird, right? But at just 15 years old, Bruce began drinking. It was a choice that though his parents never really broached the topic with him.

24:09 Not even when he was still well below the legal drinking age, they felt it had a prominent negative impact on the trajectory of his young life. Yeah, well, that sounds like it all happened to anyone, right? They start drinking that young. I think so. Yeah. I mean, if you start drinking, you can keep it up too. Yeah, absolutely. Not good for your liver. No. Still others in the nickel's lives would need to be notified of Bruce's passing, like the church family. That's their last name. Okay. It was like their family from church or just super wholesome people with the last name church.

24:55 Who's the who's the church family? Stan church and Bruce had met over their CB radios, quickly becoming fast friends. So fucking cute. I know. I know. It's such a boy thing too. It really is. Stan lived in the Auburn area with his wife, Laurie and his two daughters, Kimmy and Karen. It didn't take long for Laurie and Stella to form a bond of their own. Despite each woman being her counterparts' distinct opposite in nearly every way.

25:38 Which for both Stan and Laurie's sake may have been a good thing. Not long after Bruce's death, Cindy Stella's daughter showed up to Kimmy's wedding with her boyfriend, but noticeably missing were Stella and Bruce. Stan and Laurie were at a loss until Stella showed up at their home following the reception. Because they were very close friends and it was not like them to have missed their daughter's wedding. But it's really weird. Yeah. So Laurie said to Cindy, you know, I don't know what's going on or what excuse they could possibly have for missing Kimmy's wedding, but like tell them to show up at our house after the reception.

26:25 Like, we got to know what's up. Yeah. And the couple was shocked to find out that their friend had passed away two days prior. Two days? Yep. Stella showed up at their house after their daughter's wedding reception. As requested, but to let them know Stan, Laurie, Bruce died. Two days ago. I mean, if their daughter's wedding was coming up, you can kind of see it, right? Yeah. Like how do you think, oh, like one of the happiest days of your life isn't a couple of days.

27:11 Let me just go ahead and kill that for you. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. You can kind of see it. It makes sense if that was the only thing. I'm stressed. Yeah. Yeah. Stella simply stated that she'd intended to hold off on sharing the news until after the nuptials had passed. It wasn't long before it became apparent that there were a number of people who felt like much of Stella and her daughter Cindy's behavior was quite odd after Bruce's passing. Now the initial autopsy performed on Bruce indicated that he had died as a result of embassies.

27:57 In stark contrast, Sue Snow's autopsy by assistant medical examiner Janet Miller would indicate that a cause of a far more devious nature was almost certainly to blame in her death. The examination revealed a distinctive odor. Better almonds. Oh. Oh. Oh. Wait. So what are they smelling? This is pretty dark. When they open up the body for the autopsy, there is an odor that emanates from said body.

28:38 Wow. Because of the poisoning. That is crazy. It's lucky that the assistant Emmy had been present actually. This assistant is a telltale sign of cyanide poisoning, but not everyone can smell it. Oh, interesting. That is weird. It's so weird. Yeah. The Emmy, so the actual medical examiner, was someone falling into the category of roughly 20 to 40% of people that it's believed do not carry the necessary gene to sniff out cyanide.

29:23 What is that some sort of like biological baby? But why does it smell good though? You think it should smell really bad? Itter almonds. Oh. Bit, okay. I don't know how good that smells. I don't know why I was thinking of like roasted almonds when you said that. Yeah. Not that good. What a fitter almond smell like. Is it just like the almond skin? Because that's really bitter. I don't know. I'm going to go sniffing almonds after this. This does remind me of the Mel's whole episode though when we were trying to figure out what ozone smelled like. Oh. Yeah.

30:03 What does it smell like? I don't remember. It smells like burnt wires or... Oh. Yeah. No, like a burnt and metallicky smell. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It wouldn't be long before investigators would find evidence in the homes of the victims thus far confirming this. So they're like, yeah, we also found some cyanide. The bottle of Etc. Capsules, the both Sioux and her husband, Paul, were said to have taken a dose from the very same morning that she died was taken into evidence. The bottle would have contained 60 capsules at the time of purchase and when the remainder that were present following Sioux's death were tested, three capsules were found to contain a toxic dose of cyanide.

30:59 Oh my God. It's like Russian roulette. Mm-hmm. Fucking hate. I'm so nervous right now. Yeah. I don't like the odds. No matter what. No, I don't like any of it. Mm-hmm. I'm scrunching like you do when you're scared of my stories. I know. Oh my God. She got so scrunched. So small. Listen, you got all scrumpled up. I did. Further close examination of these bottles recovered by investigators as well as another suspicious bottle of over the counter pain relief medication revealed something odd in addition to the poison inside.

31:46 In addition to poison? Yeah. So it gets weirder. Okay. The capsules also contained an unknown green substance. There were small flecks found throughout. Okay. Now if I said I would give you an imaginary million dollars if you could guess what those green flecks were. Right. Poisoning things? Because they're green. I cleaned a house. That has a little green right. Oh, interesting. Okay. So that's what I immediately thought of.

32:27 Sadly, you've lost out on your opportunity for one million imaginary dollars. Damn it. But I do have an answer for you. I want to know I'm dying to know. It was later identified as an algae side commonly used in home aquariums known as algae destroyer. What? I never would have guessed that in a million years. Mm-hmm. Why is it green? I don't know. I guess that's just the color it is. It's algae's greenness. Right. You would think brown. I don't know.

33:08 Yeah. It's weird, but that's how the cookie crumbles. My dude. How the algae destroyer crumbles. You're welcome. You're not wrong. You are not wrong. I wish I was wrong. Yeah. Why? So the color was more than likely someone who owned a fish tank. Or that was sort of the working theory. That's a way to throw someone off though if you don't. I mean, yeah. I guess you could just go and buy some of this stuff, right? Right. Though honestly, it's alarming the number of hobbyist pursuits that deal in handling cyanide in some form or fashion.

33:56 Does that not kill the fish? Right. That was my first thought that apparently no. Apparently no. Okay. There's too many questions that don't have anything to do with the story. Sorry. Researching this case, I was a bit surprised that there aren't more of us dropping dead of cyanide poisoning on the regular. I don't want to. If you were a photographer that developed photos, I'm safe. Yeah. Apparently cyanide. So did they use that in the chemical development of the photos?

34:36 I think so. I didn't look too deep into it because it doesn't have the most direct application to the case, but it's something that the FBI explored. That's very interesting. It makes me not want to do that then. I was interested and now I'm like, now I'm good. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like maybe there are some people that have gotten sick in, you know, historical times that you're like, oh, maybe that doesn't not make sense. Yeah. We're gloves, right? These days we might all be a bit jaded about a good many things, but a murder by cyanide was an astounding development, particularly for residents in the state of Washington, and certainly for those residing in the Auburn area.

35:36 When it became apparent that more than one tainted bottle had surfaced in the state, the manufacturer of excedrin Bristol Myers, along with other companies that sold over the counter drugs, offered a $300,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible. Of course, this was following the recall I mentioned earlier being initiated. Wow. Well, at least they're doing something. Oh, yeah. It's like trying to sweep it under the rug. After the deaths associated with Tylenol, excedrin was like, no, we don't want that kind of bad press.

36:19 That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So they were pretty quick. It was very proactive in this situation, I would say. It's scary though, because like it's probably not like even coming from them, right? It's probably people at the start, well, you might get into it. Okay. Oh, I'm definitely going to get into it. Or girl. Or girl. Because it was major news at the time, it may not come as a surprise that the ripple effect of the poisoning was quite vast. In fact, after watching a news story about Sue Snow's death, it was none other than Stella, Bruce Nichol's wife who placed a panicked call to 911.

37:09 Much of the call was unintelligible. However, the dispatcher was able to determine that she was calling after hearing about the snow case on the news and believed that she had found a bottle of excedrin with the same lot number in her home. Oh, wow. She called 911. Yes. And Bruce was already dead at this point. Right. That's what I thought. I was like, huh, okay. Mm-hmm. Again, you don't know what to do. Maybe you're just, you know, yeah, maybe. Maybe. Now, you may recall that Bruce's autopsy stated that he had died of emphysema.

37:59 In later questioning, Stella would seemingly indicate that she had been unaware of the preliminary autopsy result, insinuating that she was still awaiting the report. Which is kind of weird because I feel like you would remember receiving the autopsy results after your husband dies. Yeah. You would think. This wasn't the case, but if you had gone to the trouble of lacing capsules of excedrin in multiple bottles, found in more than one city of Washington state so that you could kill your husband and collect his life insurance payout, I bet you'd be fairly well invested in the outcome.

38:50 And emphysema would not be the COD you're looking for. What are you implying, Caitlin? I think I'm more than implying it. That is so fucked. Particularly in the instance where you'd forged his signature for one of his multiple life insurance policies as the prosecution in the murder trial would posit. And even more so, if that policy had a double indemnity clause in the case of an accidental death. I don't know what that means, but I'm assuming it means she gets the money anyway.

39:35 So double indemnity is something that I think came up in the Nancy Brophy case actually. What that usually means is you get more money like double. Oh, okay, I get it. Yeah. And it's oftentimes in the case of accidental death. And it's led to a number of spouses being murdered in seemingly obscure or bizarre ways. And this is probably one of the more bizarre.

40:15 Ugh. I mean, I get why they would do that, but it doesn't seem like a good thing to be doing. No, and definitely not after the Tylenol poisonings. No, they're not going to let it go. This assertion was backed by the FBI investigators that had examined the documents. So they took a look at the policy documents for his life insurance and said, we're not so sure about that. No, it's so sure about that. Oh, God. There's just too many things.

40:55 It's way too many things. This case is incredibly dense and it easily could have been multiple parts, but you should know that Stella wasn't exactly forthcoming about the fact that Bruce had multiple life insurance policies. It would become a major point of argument in her case when it went to trial, actually. But either way, she stood to benefit in a very substantial way from Bruce's death, no matter how you splice it.

41:36 There's people that fucking lose their spouses, you know? Yep. And the FBI brought her in for the long awaited polygraph. Stella failed in stunning fashion. In Stella fashion. Oh, it was in Stella fashion. Yeah. Still, you're probably wondering about some of the details of the court case. While there wasn't an actual smoking gun, there was a statistical anomaly that didn't exactly look good for Stella of the thousands of bottles that were screened of a not totally unwarranted abundance of caution.

42:28 There were only a handful that contained tainted over the counter drugs and well, Stella had two of them in her possession. Oh, how lucky. Yeah. She won the lottery. I guess so twice. Yeah. You know? Oh. She claimed they'd been purchased in two separate establishments two weeks apart, which seems even more unlikely from a purely statistical standpoint. Seriously though? Yeah. Yeah.

43:09 Yeah. I mean, that would suck if like that was your luck. Yeah. But some people say you make your own luck. Uh-huh. Well, she made her own luck. Quite literally. Investigators would come to learn that Stella had developed multiple murder plots when she decided that she was done with Bruce, including covertly overdosing him with cocaine or heroin. God. Sorry. It just like what? Even hiring a hitman.

43:49 The latter plan fell flat because with their financial problems, looming large, Stella certainly didn't have the funds to hire a hitman or buy heroin or cocaine. That's just expensive too. Yeah. Probably. Probably neither was a solid bet for her. We could do that to her next husband though, since she'll have all of this life insurance money. Oh yeah. But soon, she came up with a more profitable solution that proved palatable to her. Once she had chosen her method, all she had to do was wait with baited breath for Bruce to complete his employer-mandated health screening, you know, for his employer-sponsored life insurance.

44:39 She thought she was so smart. Once he passed the physical, Stella thought she would be in the clear to poison Bruce so she could continue to live exactly as she pleased without giving a second thought to financial woes. She wouldn't have to worry about losing half of the property that her mother had bought, and no one would be the wiser because the only person that might have had an inkling about her devious plan was her daughter Cindy.

45:21 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But she may have miscalculated. Oh, why would she talk about that to her daughter though? She talked to Cindy about some of the ideas that she had for killing Bruce, not in that context always, but she knew that Cindy had experimented with harder drugs like cocaine and heroin. So, she asked her a lot of pointed questions about- Interesting. Uh-huh. Wow. Yep. Huh. Okay. Also, interesting to learn was the fact that Stella Nicoll had maintained multiple fish tanks in the trailer home where she had lived with her late husband Bruce.

46:13 Mm-hmm. Of course she did. The owner of the local pet shop was even brought in to testify to the fact that she had purchased the specific algae killer found in the contaminated cyanide tablets. Algae destroyer, which needed to be crushed as opposed to the specific products that they typically stopped for the same purpose. Investigators speculated she had used the same container to crush algae killer and store cyanide. So, she did one of these.

46:55 She crushed up the algae destroyer with the cyanide and she inserted it into the exedron capsules. All this planning and like you didn't think that that would ever link you. Oh. Thank God she's dumb. Speaking of planning, Stella's prints were found on Auburn Public Library. Books. According to an FBI subpoena, titles including Deadly Harvest and Human Poisoning from Native Plants.

47:39 Oh my God! Wow. Over 80 of her prints were found on the lurid pages. Particularly those pertaining to cyanide. That is so cool that they can do that. Like fucked up that they have to. But like, can you imagine going through those books and like getting the prints and you're like, oh my God! Like look at what pages on! Yeah. And that's exactly what they did. Wow. It's wild. It's nerding out over the prints. I know.

48:19 I know. Pretty cool because we don't typically think of the 80s as being like this super advanced like era for forensic technology. Yeah. But they didn't need DNA. On May 9 of 1988, Stella Nickel was found guilty in federal court, not of murder, but of product tampering. She was sentenced to 90 years. The Chicago Tylenol case had resulted in the 1983 federal anti-tampering law under which she was charged.

49:03 Additionally, there were new FDA requirements, including that products be packaged with temper-resistant technology. That wasn't a thing yet? Oh, well, yeah, no shit. Not only would Stella be indicted and convicted, by then she hardly seemed surprised by the turn of events. But something that came later did, when the daughter that she had raised to keep it in the family, Cindy testified against her.

49:43 Good. Cindy would receive $250,000 of the award put forth by the drug companies when all was said and done. Oh, okay, forgot about that. Mm-hmm. Okay. This has led some to speculate that she may have initially conspired with her mother against her stepfather. And testified against her mother for the reward after her mother failed an FBI polygraph. Mm-hmm. I don't know. I don't think that's fair. I mean, it's a traumatized child of a murderer who came from a family rife with trauma as well.

50:32 Honestly, if you trust the author of the book that I read, he sure does not seem to think this is the case. Good. Cindy fell off the map pretty much immediately. Yeah. And the only contact that at least the author of the book, and we'll talk about the book in a second, that he's aware of that she had had with the outside world was when she contacted him by email years later.

51:12 And it seemed like she had gotten her life together and she put that money to good use. Good. Hopefully, that's still the case. This case, there was so much. We could have gone into so much detail. We literally could have been here for like three episodes. Ooh. And I really distilled it down, but I'm toying with the idea of a little Patreon bonus so you can have a little bit of background to Stella. So I don't know. I'll keep noodlein' on it. Okay, well, I'll be here no matter what you decide.

51:52 You sucker. Yeah, that's totally unfair to even insinuate that she had something to do with it. I mean, even if her mom did tell her what was she supposed to really do, I mean, who has the power in this situation, you know? Yeah, I do think that's important to remember is this is her mother. And like I said, this isn't something that I went in depth on because it's like once you get into one can of worms, there's a whole other one, but there was definitely a keep it in the family mentality.

52:37 And so it was pretty unusual even in the numerous, numerous instances of various types of abuse for anyone to involve police, which is really sad because if we believe the story that nearly everyone understands about Cindy's conception and her early years, it's very sad. Stella was reportedly essentially gang raped. Oh my God.

53:20 And Cindy was the resulting progeny from that. Wow. So Cindy, yeah, it's so hard to trace this back because there's so much trauma in this family and it's really hard to separate that there are, you know, these really, you know, these are human people, these aren't just characters, but having some of these awful things happen to you does not give you a hall pass.

54:05 No. In Stella's case. Yeah. Not Cindy. She didn't have anything to do with anything. I really, I really don't believe that Cindy did and whatever awareness she might have had. I think, of course, anybody is going to want to believe that this isn't a serious conversation. And, you know, my mother would never do this. I mean, in hindsight, definitely a lot of regret for her in not coming forward sooner. And I think it says it all when Stella showed up to notify Cindy of Bruce's death and keeping in mind, this is her stepfather, but a man that's been in her life for quite a few years, she said, Bruce is dead.

55:01 And I know what you're thinking, but no. Essentially, she was like, wow, I know you probably think I killed him, but I didn't. That's not the first thing you say. It's not. It's not. Oh, my God. Stella. Stella. Wow. Stella. It just makes me so angry. I know I kind of said it earlier, but like there's people out there who would give all of their money, anything they had to get their spouse back. And then there's people out there, fucking killing their spouses to get a little bit of money. It's gross. It's really gross.

55:43 And ultimately, she didn't want to have a divorce. She didn't want to get divorced because she knew that the property that their trailer home was on and that her mother's trailer home was on was property that her mother bought and she didn't want the financial complications. They had debt on top of the fact that they're entangled now in this living situation and she didn't want to deal with it. So if you don't want to deal with that financial and legal entanglement with another person, don't get married.

56:32 Yeah. It's, I mean, it's really gonna happen. Yeah. It's, you can live together. That's funny coming from you. Sorry. No, it, I mean, it really is because I'm like, you know, I think there's something special about being able to get married. And if that's what you want, you should do that. You should be able to do that. But if you're somebody who's going to weaponize something that should be, you know, a commitment to each other and quite literally you are bound to each other.

57:14 You are legally and financially obligated to one another. That obviously is not okay. It's, it's wild to me. Yeah. Just don't get married. That is a choice that you can make. She had been married before. Yeah. Oh God. You don't have to. That's not to say like if you're stuck, if you think you're stuck in a marriage, like definitely get a divorce, you know, you can deal with it. It's just money. It's just things. You can survive. You can do it.

57:55 It's not like you're, it's the end of the world. But someone who just like didn't even want to try. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I'll never get it. Stella had multiple boyfriends. After Bruce's death leading up to her trial and the early days of her sentencing, multiple, multiple. This is a woman who is unable to be alone, which is very unhealthy and not everyone enjoys being single and it's never fun to work your way through to the other side of a breakup.

58:42 But this is not the answer. No. Clearly, I mean, you get, you're just going to get caught even in the 80s. It's not good. Wasn't there a story about a, like a parent who poisoned like some candy and pixie sticks? Pixie sticks. Yeah, just to kill his child. I believe that was in Texas. Did they end up killing other children too, just to like get to theirs? That's the worst part, right? Because she killed other people. Yeah. You had nothing to do with it.

59:22 In that case, the pixie stick one. According to a pathologist who tested the pixie sticks, the candy consumed by Timothy contained enough cyanide to kill two adults. While the other four candies contained enough to kill three or four adults. Jesus. An old Clark O'Brien, nicknamed the candy man and the man who killed Halloween, was an American man convicted of killing his eight year old son, Timothy. On Halloween, 1974, with a potassium cyanide, laced pixie stick that was ostensibly collected during a trigger treat outing.

1:00:10 O'Brien poisoned his son in order to claim his life insurance money to ease his life and his own financial troubles as he was $100,000 in debt. In 1974, are you out? Fucking kidding me. And how much is a child's life insurance going to help that? Well, if you ensure all of the kids. Oh. O'Brien also distributed poisoned candy to his daughter and three other children in an attempt to cover up his crime. Oh. Oh.

1:00:51 However, neither his daughter nor the other children ate the poisoned candy. Or to me, Jesus Christ. What fucking disgusting people. I mean, that was like almost a decade prior. Wow, yeah. It's really awful. Way to kill Halloween, you fucker. I know. Freakin' awful. I mean, here's something that a lot of people who are really familiar with the case find kind of interesting and in a way kind of a bittersweet.

1:01:31 I think I said in our earlier discussion on the case that there was another suspicious bottle of a different over-the-counter pain reliever that was found. And it contained cyanide. That was found in one of the stores where Stella had told investigators that she bought one of the tainted bottles of Etc. The bottle that was suspicious was a bottle of, it was a different type of, I want to say a seed of Minifin, but I don't think that's right.

1:02:17 It's a different name. I'd have to go back through my notes, but she had taken a bottle and she left it somewhere else in the store. And it got flagged because the FBI is literally investigating tampered over-the-counter pain medications. And they looked at it and the store manager was like, "We don't even have a skew for this." It wasn't even from that store. Weird. I wonder if she just ditched it there because it didn't quite work out or something.

1:03:03 She wanted them to find tainted pain medication. She wanted them to find another bottle. Like a different kind. She, well, I mean, maybe. I don't know that the kind of medication that it was really mattered so much as that she saw that she had killed someone else. She wanted them to be aware that there was a danger of tainted medication. So she left that one in a way that it would be flagged. It would be found.

1:03:44 Like she didn't want to kill anyone else? Oh, okay. I was thinking she was like trying. No. No, the way that this one was left at the store, it was definitely an attempt. It was like, "I want the fact that there's tainted medication. I want that to be flagged. I want that. I want authorities to be aware of that." But, you know, if you don't want anyone else to die, maybe just don't poison other bottles. But if you don't poison other bottles, if nobody else dies, then it looks like just your husband and just your bottle.

1:04:26 And they look a lot closer at that. Yeah. And they're going to start with the assumption that, yeah, probably that was tainted, probably that was tampered with. And I think the call may be coming from inside the house. So it was really just like, "Oh, well, shit. Now I've got the one other dead person who covers my tracks, but I don't want anybody else to die." Oh, right. Like, "Oh, great. So all you had to do was take someone's mother away. All you had to do was kill one more person.

1:05:09 And it was all for nothing." Yeah, you didn't even get what you wanted. Nope. I mean, she didn't get away with it. Wow. She never asked to worry about money or where to live again. Yeah. She won't. Or is she dead now? Let's see. I checked it when I started writing and I believe she was still alive. But there are reports as recent as the summer of 2022. Basically saying that they're not going to let her out.

1:05:52 So unless she has died in recent months, Stella is still with us. Good. I mean, good that they're not going to let her out, you know? Yeah. I mean, listen, is she a danger to society? I'm not a doctor. But she was dangerous to at least two people already. And it doesn't take a whole awful lot to complete that motion. Yeah. So I hope she has arthritis. I hope so too. What's the apple for? I was thinking about, well, like what's something that's like representative of poison?

1:06:37 Because I've got like our candles back here from like a witch's apothecary, stinging nettle and white snake root. Darn and I have your poison jug. Oh yeah. The first poison on it. Yeah. That would have been too obvious. Yeah. But you may remember from some of our favorite fairy tales and fables that apples are frequently poisoned. I did not even make the connection with the... There's arsenic in the apple seeds. And you didn't make the connection that they were apple people?

1:07:17 I didn't know. I didn't know. I said so funny. It's so wild to me. I mean, arsenic, cyanide, you know, a potato potato. But still though, I mean, it's just so random. And then the fact that I brought an apple out. Yeah. I feel like, oh, but apples, you know, the poisoned apple. Yeah. So the apothecary candles. It reminded me that, you know, she had looked up all of these native plants and ways that you can poison people and the different plants that are poisonous. And she did a lot of that at the public library.

1:07:57 And that's how they got the prints. What I found really interesting about that was she had told people and she testified. That she was doing that research because they had moved to Auburn and they were in like a forested area. And when she was babysitting her grandchild, she wanted to make sure that she wouldn't get into anything that could make her sick. I mean, that sounds legit. I mean, it would if it weren't for all of these other things stacked against her.

1:08:38 Yeah. Now I'm just running through like the, I have a poisonous mushroom buck. I have like edible things that are edible and not edible in nature. Yeah. She literally made the pet shop special order, the algae destroyer because they carried a different product that was, I believe, liquid soluble. And she made them order the kind that you can crush up because that can be put into capsules. Wow. Like wait, wait a bit. More obvious. Could you be any more obvious?

1:09:20 No. I know. Champers. Champers. I mean, if you think about it, he kind of poisoned as well. I don't know what happened. He didn't. I didn't have it heard yet. And Chandler was kind of poisoned as well. What? I, I haven't heard anything. Okay. Hold on. Let me. Oh, wow. Okay. So this is very highly Googleable, apparently, because all I did was type in how did in my computer Google was like immediately like Matthew Perry die. It hurt us. Tell me you're listening without telling me you're listening.

1:10:02 He died from the acute effects of the anesthetic ketamine. The Los Angeles County Department of the Medical Examiner said in the autopsy report that Perry also drowned in the heated end of his pool. That it was a secondary factor in his October 28th death deemed an accident. Be careful, everybody. So definitely, yeah, definitely don't just decide to get into like maybe, maybe the pool, maybe the pool, maybe swimming of any sort is not going to be the activity for the night when you're doing recreational drugs.

1:10:57 Should we do some tarot? Yeah. Okay. Let's do it. I'll send you my vibes. How are you feeling over there? You feel like this feeling good? This is good shuffle. Yeah. Okay. Was that three? Yeah. Sounds good. Okay. Oh. I hate that for us. Why? Is it the magician? Yes. I don't know how I knew that. Mother? I can't see the words on the card. Team it. I want to renew the magician.

1:11:38 I don't want that card to be associated. Let's read it and see. It is the number one and the switch was only thinking about number one. No. If no connection, that's the connection. This is my card. It is your card. And it's kind of your card because of the crow. It's definitely our card. But I'm a little possessive. I think it's more yours for sure. Yeah. Yours is definitely the floor. You know what?

1:12:22 I didn't even mention in this case because I wanted to get all the way through and let you know who did what. But Stella and her daughter had an interest in witchabores and girl cards. Oh, I hate that. I know. Wait a minute for the rest of us. Yeah. Fuckers. Stella. Cindy, no. Cindy's cool. We think. Yeah. I'm going with that. Keywords are hidden power, which hidden like a poison, magical ability, mastering unseen forces, inner guidance. So that last one, maybe less. I shouldn't have that.

1:13:03 Oh, boy. No. The magician recommends getting in touch with the unseen world instead of focusing only on the material one. Yeah. Maybe this is right on. They aren't separate. And what we usually think of as reality is an illusion. The presence of the four magic tools, which also represent the four elements on this card suggests that everything you need is right there at your fingertips. Are you smart? Do you have charisma? Are you capable?

1:13:44 Maybe do literally anything else besides murder. You're connecting with your power and aligning yourself with universal forces to achieve your goals and desires. You would have been if you didn't focus on the material goods. You bet. Yeah. Yikes. When a reading about money, the magician tells you to tap into the universal flow to attract abundance. You possess the resources, inner and outer to generate wealth. This card can also advise you to take control of a financial matter, which is really interesting because Stella wrote a letter to their mortgage company saying that all of a sudden she would be taking over their finances.

1:14:38 And that was prior to Bruce's death. Jesus Christ. You know what? Oh my God. Yeah. She was really too much. If the reading is about your job, this card encourages you to use your spiritual and physical resources correctly to take command of your life and master the circumstances around you. Trust yourself and your inner guidance unless it suggests murder. Yeah. Don't trust that. Honestly, your inner guidance will not lead you to murder.

1:15:19 So I feel like she wasn't following her inner guidance. It shouldn't. Yeah. I don't think it will. The magician can also symbolize a position in a spiritual field or studying spiritual wisdom, which you could have done more of, but I don't know what the rules are about having a terro deck in your cell. In a reading about love, this card may represent a relationship that contains a strong spiritual or magical element. You and a partner may be on a spiritual path together, encouraging and inspiring one another, which is arguably what you were doing when you encouraged Bruce to go to rehab for his drinking.

1:16:14 If you had continued on that path, that would have been great. Yeah. She definitely needed this card before. Yeah. Wow. Well, also it's like magic and the poison apple was like that magic witch, you know? Mm-hmm. I'm going to look at the card that was on the underside. So the two of swords in reverse was the card on the underside of the other half of the deck. Keywords are combined resources, courage, faith, friendship, conflict and balance.

1:17:02 In some cards or in some terro decks, this card depicts a blind folded woman holding two swords crossed over her chest. Ooh, she killed two people. Two's generally signify balance or conflict as well as pairing, which you did entirely too much of. I think of the two of swords as the blind faith card because it can represent courage and making decisions based on your own truth and in some cases spiritual guidance. It says, feels linked, but it's reversed though, right? It is. Yeah. Reverse the two of swords often indicates confusion or conflict with yourself or someone else.

1:17:51 Maybe both. Probably both. Probably both. And imbalances may cause stress or frustration. Sometimes this card urges you to take action rather than endlessly analyzing a situation. You can't see ahead, but you must take a leap of faith. Yeah, that's like that thing about just get divorced. Just like take the leap of faith. You'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll do that. Oh my God. In reading about money, this card suggests worrying about a financial matter. You don't know what to do and can't trust anyone to help you.

1:18:34 Or so you think. I got. Exactly. The reverse two can indicate choosing between two unsatisfactory options. Wow. That's true. Damn. I can't. I can't. The wrong one. Yeah. Yeah. She definitely chose the wrong one. If the reading is about your job, the reverse two represents confusion, indecision, lack of information, or conflicts regarding your work, which there were plenty. It can also warn that colleagues aren't reliable or trustworthy.

1:19:14 You need to look hard at something you don't want to see. Your own reflection, bitch. Yeah. Yeah. In a reading about love, confusion or differences of opinion may cause stagnation in a relationship. Are you clashing swords? Honesty and openness are important right now. The reverse two also represents imbalance. One person may wield more power than the other. Hmm. Wow. That one fit too. Wow. I mean, I hate it. We need to both of them. Yeah. Yeah.

1:19:54 I don't know why, but I, because normally I'm like, "Let's just see what the card says." And something about it being the magician, I was like, "I remain skeptic." I just felt like, "Okay, I'm going to turn this other piece over." Yeah. Perfect. Good job, witchybish. Witchybish. If you loved listening to that terror reading and want to see it, become a member of our Patreon, where a video of every terror reading is uploaded with the ad-free version of the episode each week.

1:20:35 Yeah, and I think this week we might be showing us opening some old gift-ies again. Ooh. Yeah. Patreon is a monthly subscription with a range of price points and benefits, and every member of our Patreon gets a personalized welcome card, a shout out in an upcoming episode, exclusive bonus episodes, and so much more, including their own mini-hero reading. Yeah, we're still doing that. Yeah. Even Patreon got holiday cards, they did. They're getting another bonus from me and what Caitlyn was talking about another bonus, so if you're interested, click a little winky in the show notes.

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1:22:55 Have a creepy ass day. Not ever this creepy. No. Never. Not so creepy that you like poison people. Jesus Christ. I feel like it went without saying, but we'll just say it. If you're ever thinking about it, just don't do it. Just get divorced. Yeah. Or just, you know, whatever that situation is, just don't be there. It works out. I'm telling you. Okay. I poured this wine so I know it's safe.

1:23:37 I'm going to take a sip. God. Okay. I'm scared to drink my coffee. Well, you poured that, so you should be okay. I don't know if I trust myself. I mean, I feel like you should, but you never know. Yana Vanau!