48 Hours - Post Mortem | Death by Eye Drops

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

CBS News Correspondent Jericka Duncan and 48 Hours Producers Susan Mallie and Lauren Clark share never-before-heard audio of Jessy Kurczewski impersonating her friend, whom she was recently found guilty of fatally poisoning with eye drops. The group also discusses the exonerating evidence that Kurczewski allegedly buried in a public park and the judge’s unusual statement during sentencing.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I'm your host, Anne-Marie Green, and today we are talking about the homicide of Lynn Hernan, who was poisoned with a really unusual substance, one that the medical examiner said she had never seen pop up in a toxicology report before. So joining me today are a CBS News correspondent, Jerika Duncan, and 48 Hours producers, Susan Malley and Lauren Clark, who reported and produced this episode. Welcome, everyone. So good to be here. Thanks for having us. Hi, Anne-Marie. So listen, if you haven't listened to The Hour yet or you need a refresher, why don't you head on over to the podcast feed to check out the showcast and then come back here because we're going to take a deep dive.

One of the most interesting parts of this case was how prosecutors say Lynn was killed. They believe that Jesse Krzyzewski poisoned Lynn Hernan with eye drops. Jerika, I had never heard of this before. Have you heard of this before? So interestingly enough, I do remember seeing a piece that Peter Van Zandt did on a gentleman named Steve Clayton. And essentially he was poisoned by tetrahydrozoline, which is a substance that's found in eye drops commonly.

And it's very bizarre. I think I have heard it in the context of people worried about it being used as like a date rape drug. You know, this idea when you go to a bar, you don't leave your glass or anything unattended and come back to it. But I hadn't heard it in this way. And because it's a slow progression in terms of some of the symptoms or how one would feel, you may not even know what's happening. And that's also what's so weird and scary about how all of this unfolded. Typically, this is something that you would never even think would be ingested. Obviously, in the directions, it would say for topical use only in your eyes. And there are poison warnings on most over-the-counter eye drops,

which is certainly what was used here. And to Jerika's point, it generally depresses the central nervous system. It can make one less aware and kind of out of it. But when used in large quantities, it can be lethal. Now, Kerchevsky claims that Lynn wanted to kill herself because of her deteriorating health. Susan and Lauren, when you first started reporting this case, how believable did you find Krzyzewski's story that Lynn intentionally poisoned herself by drinking Visine? Suicide is a difficult topic for any of us to discuss. But the fact of the matter is we

have to come in with an open mind and we have to look at both sides, the prosecution and the defense. I cannot come in and think, oh, well, if she was accused of something, she must have done it. Plenty of people do think that, but it is our job to not do that. When I first came onto the story, the trial was still in progress. The trial had kicked off in October of 23. The first thing I said, well, how sick was she? And then you kind of go into the medical history. And then you try to develop a character study of, was she depressed?

Could she have been at the point where she wanted to die by suicide? That is what the first responders thought, which is an important fact here. When they arrived at the death scene, that was their first impression. And so I have to give weight to that as well. Because that scene definitely played out as something that maybe someone was depressed or OD'd or, you know, took too many pills. The pill bottles were there. They were crushed up, powder. The pill bottles were there. They were crushed up, powder. So you look at it initially. You know that this woman didn't have a lot of people happened. But it's in the toxicology that really

is allowing us to take more of a microscopic look. And then when you look at those levels and you realize they're not normal, it definitely raises more questions. Then you look at financial records and there's more questions. Yeah. And so another question that I had was, Jessie Krzyzewski, did she start helping Lynn out because she cared for her? Or was this a hustle from the very beginning? Unfortunately, there is no way for us to know the answer for sure. We know that Krzyzewski's mother was very good friends with Lynn from back in the 80s. Jessie grew up from the time she was a little girl, knowing her as Aunt Linny, and they had a tight friendship. As you also know from watching the show, Krzyzewski had a record for identity theft and forgery. She got out of prison in 2016, which coincided with the time that Lynn's health,

already having problems, began to sharply decline. Jesse Krzyzewski was never charged with poisoning Lynn at any point before October 3rd, 2018. She was charged with homicide for that day for Lynn Hernan's death. So as we discuss about potentially her health issues and her steady decline, we do so because at the sentencing, the judge gave a very lengthy statement in which she, the judge, Jennifer Dorough, said, I cannot help but wonder if you had been poisoning her all along. And this was the judge saying that on the record after having listened to all the testimony of several weeks of trial. So do we know whether or not she had been ingesting this stuff all along?

We really don't know. I mean, Lynn had had other health issues, especially in the last few years of her life. She had a lot of back pain. She had a lot of gastrointestinal issues. And it was something she would go to the hospital for. They would run some tests. She didn't always want certain tests to be run. So they could never really fully figure out what the source of those gastrointestinal issues were. Tetrahydralazine is not something that's usually tested for in a hospital setting. When you get your regular blood panel, that's usually not on there because most people don't ingest it. So we really don't know how long she had possibly been ingesting it for.

There was absolutely no way to go back in time and in any way try to find out if that is the case. But it is something the judge said on the record. So that's why we're discussing it. What was particularly heartbreaking about this case and about Krzyzewski's behavior and that she targeted Lynn is that she seems so close to her. Lynn trusted her. She treated her like a daughter. And even though, you know, Jerika, you said she didn't have a lot of people around her, it seemed like the people that she did have around her really, really cared for her. And so why kill her? We don't really know to this day. I mean, I feel like only Jesse Krzyzewski really truly understands the depths of whatever she was thinking. believes that the prosecutors got it wrong, police got it wrong, but never really offered up explanation about why certain things that were found didn't add up. You know, the friends of Lynn were her family. And I think because she was so isolated from the world, if you will, this wasn't

someone that was a member of this group and that group and worked here. And, you know, she kind of kept a very close, tight circle, which does in some ways, as you pointed out, make you a target when you're vulnerable. And, you know, you live alone and you want people need people. Right. So this 48 hours was put together a little differently because it started with the with the trial and normally it doesn't. Why did you all choose to tell the story in this way? So for lack of a better word, this was a good trial. And anybody who follows true crime or follows hopefully 48 hours loyally, not all trials are as exciting as you would hope they would be.

Sometimes they really are like watching paint dry. So we wanted to give the viewer the opportunity to be the 13th juror, to sit there and listen to the testimony and view the evidence in the order that the jury did. We're going to start at the beginning and we're going to take you through this. Now, obviously, we have time constraints. This trial lasted for weeks, so we have to condense it and make some tough choices about what to include and what to leave out. But to the credit of my wonderful staff and my correspondent to my right, we picked the best of the best and we tried to give a fair shake to both sides. And it was because the trial was just so fascinating. First of all, you had a true quandary as to whether this was homicide or suicide going in. Secondly, you had people on both sides of the aisle with valid things to say about Lynn Hernan's health and mental status.

And thirdly, you had Krzyzewski herself, who did not testify at her own trial, but you had these hours and hours of interrogations where the jury got to hear her talk and basically represent herself and her side of the story to the jury without intending to do it. You know, one of the red flags always is, if you're a 48 Hours fan, red flag is when a suspect goes through multiple interrogations and they change their story. And that is definitely something that we saw with Krzyzewski. She talked to detectives several times. She seemed very open to talking, but then she started changing her story. What did the defense say about that? How did they explain that? They honestly never really addressed that directly in the trial. I love that you brought that up because there was a preponderance of recordings of those interrogations, which happened over several days of Krzyzewski. And there's two things to point out. One is that she never asked for an attorney. And two, she kept asking to go back and speak to the detectives again and again,

day after day. And I will tell you, having worked at the show for over two decades, you never see that. Usually when someone's brought in, they sit there with hunched shoulders. You can barely understand what they're saying. They respond in one word answers

and usually they ask for an attorney and that's the end of it. This was so striking to me because Krzyzewski came in and she was downright buoyant. She was peppy and joking with the guys and very seemingly forthcoming. And really just was her attitude was one, I guess we were supposed to assume of innocence. And then as the days went on, as you said, her story began to change. And she would augment what she was saying clearly by what she thought they wanted to hear. And she would give out a little more information and a little more information. But it was always disinformation. It was always a redirect. And you can just see her thinking on her feet,

like, what am I going to say next? And how, okay, I've said this thing, but now I have to alter it a little bit to get over here. And it's just an incredible study in how her mind worked. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military, and when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one

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Welcome back. So we see a lot of footage from these police interrogations during the hour, but what we didn't see was some of the other evidence of Krzyzewski's financial crimes presented at trial, like a recorded phone call that she made to a banking institution, basically impersonating Lynn. Let's listen to some of the audio of that call that was not included in the episode. My name is ***. How can I help you today? Yes, I'm calling. I use my mobile online app, and I'm trying to go under the regular online app, and I am not sure what I had originally set my three security questions up under. I know one of them for sure. I can't remember the other two, and I'm trying to log on, and I'm having an issue with it. Trying to log on. I'm having an issue with it. Oh, I'm sorry to hear about this.

Let me just check what I can best do here for you. And don't you worry, we'll definitely fix this problem before we end this call. So, could you please verify your complete name exactly as it appears on your preferred MasterCard? I'm sorry? Okay. Lynn A. Hernan. Thank you, Ms. Hernan. Do you have your card handy? I do.

Lauren, I want to hear the rest of that phone call. I want to find out if she was successful at all. I mean, do you know, did her voice sound particularly different than how she normally talks? It does sound like she's talking a little slower. What's interesting is, you know, this call was made while Lynn was still alive. There are a couple of calls from that day where allegedly Jesse is calling this financial institution saying, you know, I can't remember my password. I'm having trouble with the online account or I usually use this way and this way. It's just not working.

And it goes on. There were, like I said, several recordings on two separate occasions while she was trying to gain access to these accounts. And the other thing we knew from talking to her friends is that Lynn just was not someone that would go online, you know, to use the app. She didn't have a smartphone. She was old school. So this idea that she's asking questions about something that would force her to use a smartphone or be on a computer didn't quite make sense. According to her friends, this was someone that would physically go to the financial institution to handle business. Well, what I kept on wondering is Krzyzewski has access to these bank accounts. She's got a regular stream of money coming in. Why would you end this gravy train? It seemed like she was doing fine with Lynn alive. I think what prosecutors alleged was that the

gravy train was running out. Lynn's money was kind of used up. Her credit was damaged. There wasn't much more to take from Lynn in life, but Lynn did have some assets. She owned her condo and our wonderful broadcast associate, Mariah Johnson, found a Facebook post where Jesse had posted in just weeks after Lynn's death, trying to clear out her condo for sale. And, you know, it's down to the pots and pans, right? Make me an offer. Lynn's friends alleged that she was trying to just sell anything that she could make money on. Well, according to a court filing, Krzyzewski tried to pawn some of her more valuable items. It was a gold bracelet. Again, it speaks to this level of

greed, maybe is the right word, to get what she could early on. And again, we don't know how we'll deal with different things and situations until we're actually in them. But it's hard to really wrap your head around, especially when you wouldn't do something like that. Right. So I want to bring up some of these other things that didn't make it into the hour because they're fascinating. What's this business about exonerating evidence? So, yeah, we couldn't really have time to get into this fully in the hour because it takes a lot of explanation. But basically, you know, while Jesse was in custody during the investigation, she claimed that there existed exonerating evidence out there that that proved that lynn had um wanted to take her own life for a while and had left notes and that she'd even left a voice recording and she told every the investigators that these were

buried in a public park and if they would just let her go that she could take them there and she would show them where it was all buried now the sheriff's office did not let her go that she could take them there and she would show them where it was all buried now the sheriff's office did not let her go to go to the park what they did is they set up basically a video call where they had deputies out in this park searching around with jesse in the interview room kind of guiding them you know they're up there with shovels they're going through like brush and she's you know just kind of like ah looks different. I don't know that butch. Was that butch really there? That looks so overgrown. And it goes on for a while. And I'm sure you're going to be shocked to hear they did not find anything. found Krzyzewski guilty of first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of felony theft. But then, before she's sentenced, there's this huge twist

because it's 48 hours, so of course there's a twist. A friend of Krzyzewski's turns in an envelope containing 37 handwritten letters and documents, and they direct the friend to create various pieces of evidence, including a voice recording pretending to be Lynn. It almost felt to me like if you wanted to fake a suicide, but you forgot the suicide note and you were trying to backtrack. But what did you guys think? When we found out, we were all ready to cover the sentencing hearing. We had travel booked for

someone to be there. We had crews ready. We were going to do interviews after because people could finally talk to us. And then a week before that sentencing date was on the calendar, we started to see these unusual filings put in the court record. And the 48 Hours team was kind of like, what are these? And then we got through these documents and we were all individually reading them at the same time and texting and messaging each other, being like, what what is this? It was surprising to see pop up and we kind of had to unravel what they meant. But I just can't overstate how bizarre it was to see these pop up after a conviction had already gone through. And then on top of it, in the letter, she basically throws her lawyers under the bus.

Right. Prosecutors allege that Krzyzewski said that it was one of her own attorneys that gave her the idea. It was their idea to write those directions to her friend. Now, her attorney then has to file a motion to be removed from the case, citing ethical concerns. And prosecutors don't believe that her attorneys actually had anything to do with this, but obviously it complicates things. This leads to a delay in the sentencing, and now she needs to find new attorneys. But finally, the sentencing takes place, and the judge sentences Krzyzewski to life in prison. What was the reaction like in the courtroom? I think people became fatigued, because the first thing that we need to talk about in the sentencing is that it went on for six and a half hours. And I had mentioned earlier, I've been at 48 for a

long time, 24 years to be exact. I've sat in and watched online a lot of sentencings. This sentencing began on April 5th, 2024 at 9 a.m. Central Time. so 10 a.m. here in New York, where I was watching it online. And I thought, I'm going to be done by lunch. I was not done by lunch. There were a few brief victim impact statements from some of the folks that you've met on our own show. There were a few statements on behalf of Krzyzewski. And then the judge gave the floor to Krzyzewski herself. judge gave the floor to Krzyzewski herself. And what I could not have known is that she had in front of her on the defense table a pile of papers, which she had written out longhand,

and she spoke for two hours straight without a break, took a sip of water every now and then. Of course, she claimed innocence. Of course, she claimed that Lynn had died by suicide. She went into great detail about her friendship with Lynn. She gave vignettes from her childhood. It went on for so long that the judge then had a break for a 90-minute lunch break because everybody just needed to kind of compose themselves and get it together. And of course, the judge was then going to come back and pronounce sentence. But before she did, was then going to come back and pronounce sentence. But before she did, she gave a statement, and we've talked about this earlier, that she wondered if, in fact, Ms. Krzyzewski had been poisoning Lynn all along. But the judge gave great detail as to why she gave such a lengthy

sentence. Krzyzewski is going to be nearly 80 years old by the time that she's even eligible for parole. And the judge, she actually had a target age that she iterated from the bench that I want you to be in there till you're 80. She got 10 years for the two financial charges and she was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 30 for the homicide. I'm sure she's going to try to appeal and do whatever she can to make sure she gets out before she's 80 years old. But there are people that we've all, I feel like, covered who will say to the bitter end, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. And you're wrong. It must have been infuriating for some of Lynn's friends to listen to Krzyzewski on the stand, having given up her opportunity to testify during the trial, to then speak on behalf of their friend, their dead friend, who they loved.

I mean, did you get a chance to talk to any of the friends about that two-hour sentencing statement? Our field producer in the field, Charlotte Fuller, was there at the sentencing hearing, and she talked to several of Lynn's other friends. Afterward, there was a brief press conference that they also gave. They didn't really want to react to Jesse Krzyzewski's statement. They want to react to jesse kershowski's statement they they want to focus on lynn they want to focus on who their friend lynn hernan was they say they have gone through a lot of drama over the last five years and hearing a lot of different stories that you know evolved over time and they've had to keep up with a lot and they are done. They want to remember Lynn as they knew her, as they loved

her. They want to find ways to honor her and they don't want to focus on Jesse Krzyzewski. You know, if I took away anything personal from this story, I was kind of struck by the fact that Lynn is an only child and both of her parents have passed away because I'm an only child and both my parents are alive, but my father is also an only child and I have an only child. And I've seen relatives become very sick and their circle becomes smaller and smaller. I thought to myself, you know, if there's one thing to remember that the people who love you, they want to surround you. They want to support you. And when you make your circle that small, you can also make yourself very vulnerable

to someone who could take advantage. Very well said. I mean, we do these stories, obviously, because there's an element of interest and wow and oh my goodness. But when you can see yourself in some of these very people that we do stories on, I think it really hits home. Jerika, Susan, Lauren, this has been great

talking to you and a great 48 Hours as usual. Thank you so much. Yes, the pleasure is all mine. Thanks for having us. Yes, thank you. All right, everyone, join us next Tuesday for another Postmortem and watch 48 Hours on Saturdays, 10, 9 central on CBS and, of course, streaming on Paramount+. And if you are liking the show, please rate and review 48 Hours on Apple Podcasts and follow 48 Hours wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free on the Amazon Music and Wondery app or with a 48 hours plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.

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