48 Hours - To Catch a Genius

Episode Date: August 7, 2016

A successful wife dead from nicotine poisoning.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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If you just look at this case and you go, this is a man who killed his wife for money, that doesn't tell you half the story. Paul Curry is a self-centered, devious evildoer. I see him as a cold-blooded killer who's gotten away with it for almost 20 years. This isn't an accident. This isn't an oops. It's not a suicide. It's a homicide. She was being poisoned. She was ingesting something that was making her ill. Is there something weird in her lipstick?

Is he putting something in her fingernail polish? She died from a massive nicotine poisoning, catastrophic levels of nicotine in her system. No, she's not a smoker. She doesn't smoke. Nicotine poisoning, how common is that? Nicotine is one of the strongest poison ever. Linda was absolutely fun. We took our high heels out, we dressed up,

we fixed our hair and makeup, and we went dancing on the weekends. She was a career woman, was making good money at that time. She did call me and tell me she had met this guy at work and that he was so, so smart. People describe them as a genius. People describe them as knows everything about everything. This is Jeopardy! He was on Jeopardy?

He was. And he won. He won like $26,000, $27,000 back in the 80s. Linda said, you know, Paul and I are going to go and get married. Ends up getting in a car, going to Vegas. He wasn't the most handsome man. He was very short. He didn't have a whole lot to work with. It wasn't looks. It wasn't money.

It was the idea that I am with somebody who is so brilliant. They had been married maybe a month, and she called me one night and says, you know, Mary Paul wants to take out a million-dollar life insurance policy on me. What do you think? Are you crazy? Are you kidding me? Why would you do that? You know what happened to Linda? She starts getting sick. Weak, fatigued, just looking bad. She was so thin. A bunch of doctors had no idea why.

He's being a loving husband to his wife. Oh, honey, I'm sorry you're so sick. And in the back of his mind, he's got to be thinking, how is she not dead? How much of this nicotine do I got to give her to kill her, for crying out loud? Do you have any eyewitnesses ever seen him give her any kind of poison? No. Is there any evidence he obtained nicotine?

Direct evidence, no. There's no evidence. This is a hard case, but I have no doubt whatsoever that he did it. And I believe I'm going to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt I'm Erin Moriarty tonight on 48 hours to catch a genius Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals.

However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman?

Now, we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked.

And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. She's not going to make it if she stays with him.

I said, you've got to get away from him. He's trying to kill you. It's obvious. I said, leave. Get out of there. Linda, I've got to get you out of the house. To this day, friends like Mary Sebold... Just get out of that house.

...and Bill Sandretto... I can't believe she wants to stay there. ...can't understand why Linda Curry never left her husband, Paul. There's no doubt in my mind that she loved him. She died because she loved him. Orange County prosecutor, Brahim Betai, is taking on a case that's been unsolved for nearly two decades.

But he believes he'll be the one to prove Paul Curry poisoned Linda with nicotine. Up to the moment she died, that few minutes before midnight on June 9, 1994, in her mind, he's the loving husband who's holding my hand, who loves me, who plays music for me, who tells me all the nice stuff. So she wasn't going to believe anything about him.

She said, oh, Paul's such a good husband. He wouldn't do that. Mary Seabold was one of Linda's closest friends. It was instant bonding. The two met in the 1960s when they both worked at Southern California Edison inside the Santa Nofri Nuclear Power Plant. She was tall. I was tall. She loved to eat. I loved to eat. And we could eat in those days. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Linda? Fashionista.

Fashionista? Always a nice new outfit with shoes to match, purses to match, earrings to match, bracelets to match. The two career women started at entry-level positions, but quickly moved up. We were go-getters, and we wanted to get ahead. As Linda advanced in her career, moving from secretary to management, she divorced two husbands and began dating Bill Sandretto, a life insurance salesman. What was it that drew you to her? What was it about her?

She had a great personality, very loving. We went on trips together. We had a great time. Linda and Sandretto dated on and off for eight years, but he didn't want to get married. The only thing that was bothering me was the way she spent money. And she would spend a lot of money? She would spend it, yeah. For every dollar she made, she spent two. I used to go crazy. And Linda kept spending, buying herself a big house in San Clemente. I have never seen a more beautiful house in my whole life.

Frankie Thurber was a close friend and co-worker. Linda's house was a dream house. It's where a princess would live. And Linda thought she had met her prince when she started dating Paul Curry in 1989. He was 32 years old and she was 45. They would talk their little baby talk. Oh, Linda, my little, you know, little one, the little nicknames. It was a little bit sickening. Curry was hired as an engineer to consult at Southern California Edison, teaching the power plant's nuclear engineers about safety issues. Paul had a sterling reputation.

He was extremely smart. Mike Flower was Curry's boss. The only real complaint most people had with Paul was that he was too smart. Too smart? Too smart. But when people would say he's too smart, was that because he's arrogant too, or just because he showed everybody else up? He let people know, but in a playful way. I thought that he was very egotistical. He thought highly of himself. There was no doubt about it.

Curry bragged about winning all those thousands on Jeopardy and being a member of Mensa, the international society of people with high IQs. But that didn't bother Linda. The two got married on September 12, 1992, three years after they began dating. A passionate relationship? I don't think passion played into this relationship. I think it was a comfort, but it wasn't passion. It wasn't passion.

Linda wondered why her much younger new husband seemed so uninterested. How did you know that they weren't having any sex? She told me. And then there were the money issues. Paul and Linda had combined annual salaries of at least $140,000. But Linda noticed she had less money than ever. The reason soon became clear.

Curry was helping to support two ex-wives and three children, families he'd kept hidden from Linda. It was just those little lies that just kept coming up. Lies and suspicious behavior. Like that $1 million life insurance policy Curry asked Linda to buy, making him the beneficiary.

He comes into this marriage with practically nothing, and she's got a beautiful house, beautiful furniture, beautiful clothes, wonderful circle of friends, and what is he bringing to the table? And now he wants a life insurance policy on her for $1 million? Red flag. Linda never got that extra policy, but it hardly mattered, because as Curry knew, Linda already had several life insurance policies worth almost a million dollars. And Curry was named the beneficiary on some of them. I said, get him off. You need to change your life policy right away.

That's when she told me, I'll give it to you. And I said, no, don't give it to me. Give it to your sister. away. That's when she told me, she said, I'll give it to you. And I said, no, don't give it to me. Give it to your sister. But Linda, who had been married just half a year at that point in 1993, was torn. So she asked Frankie, who was then looking for an apartment, to temporarily move into the Curry house and spy on Paul. She was afraid that Paul didn't really love her. And she said, Frankie, would you do me a favor? Would you watch Paul and see if you think he's genuine with me, that he really cares about me? And that's when I started watching every move that he made, basically.

Frankie didn't see anything wrong. In fact, quite the opposite. And I went back to her and I said, Linda, I've watched everything. I don't see it. He dotes over you. He loves you. He can't do enough for you.

I don't know why you would be questioning that. Even Mary, never a big fan of Paul's, was impressed by the way he pampered Linda. He would prepare these exotic, wonderful new salad dressings as a test and then send her upstairs for a hot bath. Every night he would draw her a bubble bath. I mean, huge bubbles. I said, Linda, I would kill to have somebody draw me a bubble bath. Of course he loves you. I would kill to have somebody draw me bubble bath. Of course he loves you.

In July of 1993, just short of her first wedding anniversary, Linda came down with a mysterious illness. She said, I just don't feel well. I just don't feel like myself. And she couldn't figure out why all of a sudden she'd get sick. She became so violently ill that she needed to be hospitalized. When I saw Linda in that bed, honest to God, she looked like an 80-year-old woman.

Her organs were failing. They said they didn't even know she was going to make it that night. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn. And it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still

have urged it. It just happens to all of them. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction.

Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing the best idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy

about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. Linda Curry came in with gastrointestinal problems. It was July 1993. Linda Curry was rushed to Samaritan Medical Center in San Clemente. I was assigned to take care of her that evening. Sherry Bundy is a registered nurse. She was nauseated. She had some vomiting. I checked her IV. So she's connected to an IV at

the time? Yes. Why? For hydration. As she was checking that IV drip, Bundy noticed something odd. There was a overhead light and I could see the IV bag was cloudy because of the light shining behind it, which I knew was not right. How unusual is that? It's very unusual. Bundy reported the incident to Hospital Brass, and the bag was sent to the lab. Oh, my God, Linda. Among Linda's visitors was Bill Sandretto, her former boyfriend. She was just emaciated, you know.

What was the cause of this? They didn't know at the hospital. Poisoning was suspected. Linda was hospitalized for 21 days. She had a stroke and nearly died. And then lab workers discovered lidocaine, a numbing agent in the contaminated IV bag, and reported the incident to the police. They began an investigation that focused on one person, her husband, Paul. This is what's so fascinating about this case. He was a suspect in poisoning her before she died. poisoning her before she died. Back then,

prosecutor Brahim Betai was still in law school, but eventually in 2006, the case landed on his desk at the Orange County District Attorney's Office. He was surprised to find detectives at the time had audiotaped their interviews with Linda.

These are the old microcassettes that they used back in the early to mid-90s. Very unusual to have a case where you had investigators ask the victim who ends up getting killed about the conduct of the person who killed them. How old is your husband? Uh-huh. And how long have you been married? Not quite a year. Police investigators interviewed Linda in her hospital bed in August 1993

and zeroed in on the key question. Well, the only person I could think of that would have a motive to do it would be Paul. And the only motive I can think of is money, but I don't want to really even believe that or think that. Linda was candid with detectives, admitting that her new husband was sneaky about money issues and had lied about his past marriages and children. Still, there was one very big but.

Do you still love Paul? Yeah, I love him very much. Do you believe he loves you? I want to believe that he does. He certainly is convincing. Her friends were telling her, run. Her co-workers were telling her, run. We take all that, and she's saying,

but he loves me, and he takes care of me. And I like how I'm feeling because of what he's saying. And I like how I'm feeling because of what he's doing. And she doesn't run away. She stays. Linda stayed with Paul and recovered. In the meantime, the police investigation went nowhere. But then, just five months later, in December 1993,

she was again hit with a mystery illness. This time, Paul took her to a different hospital, but the story was much the same. She looked like death warmed over. Linda's friend, Mary Sebold, was very concerned.

Something's happening to her. They don't figure out what it is. I didn't know if she's even going to make it. And how is Paul acting through this? Caring and involved. But Linda told Mary that her IV bag had been tampered with yet again. An alarm had gone off soon after a nurse reported seeing Paul leave Linda's room. This time, the hospital staff put a clear sign on Linda's door. It would say, Mr. Curry, your husband is not allowed unaccompanied into the hospital room.

What did you think when you saw this sign on the door? Well, I knew that other people had a suspicion that perhaps Paul was doing something to his wife. In fact, the police were again called and did a second audiotaped interview. Linda told cops that Paul was running up high credit card bills, but she still remained fiercely loyal. He's a wonderful man. I love him. And he's always been good to me. The next day, detectives interviewed Paul Curry, but he stuck to his story that he had no idea why Linda was getting sick. I was completely befuddled when doctors couldn't solve the problem.

I couldn't solve the problem. With Linda still in the hospital, Mary found documents in the Curry house that fueled her suspicions about Paul. On the highboy dresser, as I walk into the room, there's a bunch of papers. Well, I just kind of glanced at them, but in big script writing, I saw the word life insurance in gold writing, and I went, oh, life insurance. And then I went, oh, more life insurance policies. Oh, they're all here. They're all out on this highboy dresser on the top of it. Now all the red flags are adding up to crimson. I mean, it's really red now.

Mary questioned Linda after she was released from the hospital. I'm asking her, did you have those things out, Linda? Is this something you're looking at? Well, she hadn't been home. No, not at all. I said, Linda, Linda, put it together. Put it together, and let's talk about what's going on there. Mary warned Linda that she believed Curry was getting ready to cash in by killing Linda. She said, you're right. There's something going on, and I need to get out of here. The next day, it was like the door slammed on me, and she said, no, Mary, no. No, I can't. I can't leave Paul.

Did she say the reason why she couldn't leave is because she didn't believe that he would do this? You know, she was in such denial. Six months went by, and then on June 9, 1994, Mary received an email from Curry that said Linda was feeling worse than ever. I said, Linda, Curry's going to die. Paul's going to finally get to poison her, and she's going to die. That very evening, sometime around midnight, Curry says he awoke to find Linda barely breathing.

Linda did not respond. He calls 911, gives her CPR. Paramedics arrive. No heartbeat, no pulse. Take her to the hospital. She dies. Nurse Bundy heard the news the next day when she reported to work at Samaritan Hospital. What did you think? My first thought was he finally did it and my second thought was somebody really dropped the ball.

I received a phone call about 1 o'clock in the morning on the night of her death. One of the first to hear of Linda Curry's death on that June night in 1994 was Paul Curry's good friend and boss, Mike Flower. Can you come to the home of Paul and Linda Curry? And I said, I'll be right there. What did you think? Linda was dead. Like everyone who knew the couple, Flower was aware that Linda had been sick. He rushed to the Curry home in San Clemente. Paul was very emotional. He cried on my shoulder for hours.

And what did he tell you had happened? I can't believe she's gone. Her sister called me. The next day, word spread to Linda's good friends. Bill Sandretto. I said, oh my God. And Frankie Thurber.

I said, what? She was like a sister to me. She just was almost even like a mother to me. Mary Sebold heard the news from her husband. I knew that all my premonitions were true. I knew that it was Paul, and I knew that no one could save her. Linda's friends wondered if Paul had poisoned her by putting something in his special salad dressings and all those bubble baths. He knew everyone was looking at him as a suspect.

Didn't you, like, think, no way would this guy actually kill her when he knew he'd be the first suspect? You know, he was such a con man and such a narcissist and such a psychopath, I just think he thought, I am so much smarter than anybody, I can do this. Paul Curry knew that there is no way he could murder his wife and not be a suspect. His objective was not to eliminate himself as a suspect. His objective was to make sure he doesn't get charged with the crime. During the autopsy, the medical examiner found an unusual mark behind Linda's right ear that could have been left by a syringe. Then, toxicology reports revealed what Linda's friends had long suspected.

She had been poisoned. And now they knew the cause. Nicotine. A lot of nicotine. People say, well, maybe she's a smoker. No, she's not a smoker. She doesn't smoke. It's not possible she could have gotten that amount of nicotine over a period of time building up in her system? Absolutely not. The toxicology reports also reveal the presence of a large amount of the generic form of Ambien, a sleeping medication in Linda's body. Her death was declared a homicide, but there was no evidence to connect

Paul Curry to the nicotine, the sleeping pills, or a syringe, so he could not be charged. The fact that he wasn't charged with a crime wasn't because somebody dropped the ball. It's because he was able to cover his tracks. Curry was about to get away with murder, free to start a new life and to claim the money from Linda's estate. He stole people. He's going to get a million dollars out of it. That was his plan. Not so fast. As it turns out, Linda had drafted this handwritten note giving her sister approximately half her estate. Curry was apoplectic. After he found out that things weren't as easy to get all the money, and he called me,

and he said, did you know anything about Linda changing, and her sister Pat is going to get, and he was like stuttering. But incredibly, despite all of Linda's suspicions, she remained faithful to Paul even in death. She left him her house and close to a half a million dollars, quote, so he'll be okay. If she thought he was killing her, why would she want to leave him money? Because she never allowed herself to believe what was obvious to anybody and everybody. And that's the power of the heart. After Linda died, Paul Curry was transferred from his old job at the nuclear power plant.

And that's when a routine security check revealed a pack of lies in his resume. He was not an engineer. He didn't even have a college degree. The brilliant Mensa member who trained nuclear engineers was a complete fraud. So I called Paul up at the end of the day and I said, Paul, I'm coming in tomorrow morning at eight o'clock and I'm going to fire you unless your resignation is on my fax. And I came in the next morning and his resignation was on my fax. But thanks to Linda, Paul Curry collected $419,000 from two of Linda's life insurance policies and her retirement plan. He also began collecting her retirement benefit of $564 every month.

But even with all that money, he let Linda's beloved house slip away. He let the house go into foreclosure and he got out of Dodge and went to Vegas and I understand that he got a job as a used car salesman which I found quite intriguing because a con artist is a really good car salesman. But it wasn't long before Curry conned his way into a new job, this time becoming a building inspector. Years went by and the police investigation into Linda Curry's murder came to a complete standstill. The case badly needed a fresh set of eyes. It was 2002. I was working in our cold case unit. Sergeant Yvonne Schull

of the Orange County Sheriff's Department inherited Linda Curry's murder from a retiring detective. I would know what it was. It was very distinct. She immediately focused on those old audio taped interviews of Linda. If somebody were trying to do something to you, if they were trying to poison you, any idea who would try to do that? Well, the only person I could think of that would have a motive to do it would be Paul. Scholl began digging into Paul Curry's background. I started with, who is Paul Curry? Everywhere I looked about Paul Curry, it was false. It was fake.

For four years, Scholl reexamined the entire case, re-interviewed witnesses. And then, in 2006, she felt she had enough to take it to Baytai. She says, you know, I have this cold case that I've been working on. So I said, bring me the file. She comes back a few hours later with about 25 binders. Betai plunged in, studying the case for three years until 2009, when he reached out to the nicotine expert who had been hired years before to analyze Linda Curry's blood, Dr. Neil Benowitz. And I said, do you remember that case? It didn't take him long to remember, oh yeah, I remember that high level. And what Dr. Benowitz had to say shocked Betai.

He said all that he needed to do is to go into a grocery store and buy a pack of cigarettes. How often have you seen nicotine used as a murder weapon? Never. I've read about it, but I've never seen it. Until now? Until now, yes. Dr. Neal Benowitz, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, is one of the country's preeminent experts on nicotine.

This was beyond anything we've ever measured. Levels four or five times higher than anything we'd ever seen before. Even after two decades, Benowitz remembers the Linda Curry case because of the catastrophic levels of nicotine discovered in her body back in 1994. How do you believe she had to have gotten that nicotine? Well, I think most likely it was by an intravenous injection. It's the only possible explanation, says Dr. Benowitz.

And remember, the medical examiner did find a puncture mark behind Linda's right ear. Can you say how soon she had to die after she got that dose of nicotine? It was my thought that death must have been within 20 or 30 minutes. Dr. Bennewitt says he does not remember discussing that time frame with the original investigators 20 years ago. discussing that time frame with the original investigators 20 years ago. But now, says Beitai, that one fact turns the entire case. The nicotine was introduced into Linda's system during this time frame, and the only other human being who had access to her is Paul Curry. Curry's story has always been

that on the night Linda died, the two of them were home alone for approximately six hours. Betai believes Curry injected Linda after knocking her out with a heavy dose of Ambien. I think she comes home, he introduces Ambien into her system,

whether it's by way of food or a drink or a salad or one of his fancy dressings. When she's out, when she's sedated, he takes that syringe that he had ready with nicotine. He injects her with the nicotine, and he waits until he is sure that she's not going to survive this one. But where would Paul Curry get so much nicotine? The answer is frightening. Curry only needed to buy a pack of cigarettes.

If you have a pack of cigarettes, you can have 300 milligrams of nicotine. And that's way above the lethal dose for a person. The case was rounding into shape. But Baytai wanted more. Sergeant Yvonne Scholl tracked Curry to Salina, Kansas, where he had a new wife, a new son, and a new job working as a building inspector. Finally, Curry would have to answer some tough questioning, and Scholl was ready to take him on face to face. I was afraid that if we told him we were from Orange County that he wouldn't talk to us.

So Prosecutor Bataille came up with a plan to trick Paul Curry into believing he was being questioned by two local detectives who had no knowledge of the case. Sergeant Yvonne Scholl would be playing the part of Marie. Paul Curry. Paul Curry. Hi, I'm Marie.

Marie, Paul Curry, nice to meet you. On November 9, 2010, the Salina police chief tells Curry that Orange County investigators are just trying to close out a death investigation. And so they requested Salina detectives to ask Curry a few questions. I'm going to shut this so we can... The chief of police said, oh, he's a building inspector. He's very smart. He's never going to talk to you. What was your reaction when he said yes?

Were you shocked? I couldn't believe it. I thought to myself, well, he's not as smart as he thinks he is. I guess this involves something with a woman named Melinda. That's my ex-wife. I mean, I was married. She passed away. We go into that interview,

and our plan was for the first part of it, let him think he is in complete control. So he's thinking, I'm going to absolutely run circles around them because they don't know anything about the case, and they're from Kansas. I am smarter than they are. But then, Scholl takes over,

and the meandering interview becomes a targeted interrogation. The night that Linda passed away, you and Linda were alone, correct? Correct. Was there anybody else in the house? Scholl is locking Curry into the story that he's told all these years, leaving him no room to back away from it later. So nobody snuck into the house. There was no burglary at the house. There was no robbery at the house. Nothing like that.

It was just you and Linda. He has now boxed himself in, and Scholl gives it to him straight. Paul, I believe that the cause of Linda's illnesses and the cause of Linda's death are at your hands. And before I ask you any other questions, I feel like I need to read you your rights. Are you arresting me? Not yet. But for such a smart guy, Paul Curry does not do the smart thing. He keeps talking. Despite the grilling, a detached Curry seems to have other things on his mind.

And when Scholl leaves the room briefly, Curry shows his impatience. Should I presume that I'm not going to make my 4 o'clock meeting today? Yes. Why is that? I don't know how long this is going to take. Well, what is this that is taking? Does this trump my obligation to my employer? It's going to be awfully hard to explain professionally.

That's the least of his worries. At this point, Paul, you are not free to leave. I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Linda Curry. My name is Yvonne Scholl. My middle name is Marie. Finally, 16 years after Linda's death, Paul Curry is called to account for her murder. What I need you to do is stand up and turn around. It felt great to pull out my badge and ID and introduce myself to him and tell him I was from Orange County and I was there to arrest him. It felt great. But the arrest is just the beginning.

Betai still has a case full of holes. Even up to today, there's no smoking gun. Or smoking syringe. Or smoking anything. He was a monster. A monster who picked his prey. And that was my best friend, Linda. He's a liar. How can you live with yourself taking this beautiful, beautiful woman and setting her up to die? In this courtroom sits a vicious, cold-blooded murderer.

Make no mistake about that. It took 20 years, but in September 2014, Assistant District Attorney Brahim Betai finally has Paul Curry right where he wants him. He thought he's smarter than everybody else. In front of a jury, on trial, for the murder of his wife, Linda. She died from nicotine poisoning. Betai admits the case is no slam dunk. My obligation is to prove it to you beyond a reasonable doubt.

You're never going to hear about how exactly Linda Curry died. Defense attorney Lisa Koppelman wastes no time pointing out the lack of direct evidence connecting Paul Curry to the murder of his wife. You're never going to hear where the nicotine came from, how it got into her. This is a case based on suspicion, innuendo, and conjecture. Curry is charged with first-degree murder for financial gain, which carries a mandatory life sentence with no possibility of parole. This defendant is as guilty as sin.

No surprise, the defense sees things differently. He is an innocent man. The prosecutor uses the word murderer, murderer, murderer. Koppelman belittles the case against Curry, questioning those hospital IV bags that appeared to have been tampered with. Come on. This is baloney. There was no poison ever found in any of those IV bags. There was no fingerprints on it. Instead, she tells the jury that Linda had a history of stomach problems

dating back to the late 60s, long before she met Paul. Throughout those years, she'd gone to many, many doctors. All that history is not going to create nicotine in her system out of nowhere. The defense argues that Linda was so desperate for a cure that she gave herself an unorthodox remedy, a nicotine enema, and it wound up killing her. One way it got in there is this, through her colon, from a nicotine enema.

Betai could barely contain himself. It's the enema defense. It's the enema defense. There is no evidence Linda ever gave herself an enema, Betai says. And even if there was, it would not explain the undisputed toxic levels of Ambien in Linda's system. Where did the Ambien come from? You know where it came from? I'm going to show you.

Follow my finger. Right there. That murderer sitting right there. Do you have any evidence he obtained Ambien? Did he have a prescription? Did she have a prescription? The answer to your question is no, no, no, no. The only pertinent fact,

Betai says, is that Linda died that June night, within 30 minutes of getting that one lethal dose of nicotine, and that Paul Curry was the only person who could have administered it. Nobody, other than this defendant, had access to Linda in the six hours before her murder. Nobody. The defendant had all the motive in the world to murder her. All of it. All of it. He had to cash that check. He had to cash the check.

She had to die. Paul Curry never takes the stand to explain himself. But Betai has a surprise in store. One of the better witnesses that I had is the one that I wasn't able to get to take the stand, Paul Curry. Because the day after I signed that piece of paper to get him arrested, he talks to his current wife then. He's on the phone telling her about what he thinks about our evidence.

I mean, big trouble. I got to tell you, it looks bad. I mean, other than the fact that there's no physical evidence saying I their ears, jurors get the case. there is nothing else that I could do. Jurors deliberate for a day and a half before reaching a verdict. Sergeant Yvonne Scholl, who brought the Curry case back to life in 2002, heads back to the courthouse.

Either guilty or not guilty. I didn't think it was going to hang. I watched the jury come in, and they wouldn't look at me, where previously they would look at me, and so I was afraid. I was holding one of Linda's earrings, and our other good friend was next to me, and I gave her one of Linda's earrings, and we just held hands and held her earrings in our hands. We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Paul Curry, guilty of the crime of murder, first degree.

Guilty of murder for financial gain. For those on Linda's side, the jury's verdict brings sweet relief. What did you feel? Peace. I wish it was 20 years earlier, because he got to enjoy 16 years of freedom. But even the guilty verdict does not answer the ultimate question. Why did Linda stay with Paul? She didn't want to admit failure. After you've waited that long, and you've gone out with that many men, you don't want to

admit that you chose the wrong guy. They're really hard to look at because they remind me of my best friend that I lost. If you could go back, would you do something differently? Oh, if I could go back, yeah. I'd have to just bodily take her out of the house. I miss her so much.

I'll see her again. I'll see her again. I'll see her again. In her will, Linda Curry left $10,000 each to 10 special friends, including Mary Sebold and Frankie Thurber. Paul Curry is appealing his conviction. Do you think Paul Curry married Linda with the plan to kill her? Chat now with correspondent Aaron Moriarty on Twitter. 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.