Dateline NBC - The Prussian Blue Mystery

Episode Date: September 18, 2021

When Brigida Uto arrives at an emergency room, she is near death. While her vital signs are fading, there are no signs of an infection or injury. Doctors, the FBI and local law enforcement are all called in to not only try to solve a medical mystery, but also a horrendous crime..Natalie Morales has chosen this episode as one of her most memorable episodes. 

Hi, I'm Natalie Morales. Brigitte Ayudo was a young mom in the prime of her life who showed up nearly dead in an emergency room. Her hair was falling out and her vital signs were fading. It was a race against time for toxicologists and the FBI to solve not just this medical mystery, but a horrific crime. This is also a story about the bonds of a mother and child and her will to survive and fight. And my time with Brigitte at the very end, nothing short of inspirational. But first, the mystery, the Prussian blue mystery. From the moment the ambulance arrived at the San Diego emergency room in March 2018, the situation was frightening and desperate. Triage nurse

Laura Comstock took one look at the young woman on the gurney and knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. She was losing her vision. She couldn't feel her extremities, her feet and her hands. She couldn't even see the water that I was giving her. The patient's name was Brigitte Yuto. She had just turned 28, yet she seemed to be near death. At that point, I mean, she was very, very sick. She was probably the sickest patient in the ER at that time. I had told my co-workers that, you know, she might code on me.

Whatever was killing Brigitte wasn't evident. There were no bruises, no wounds, no obvious signs of infection. And yet, when Dr. Jeff LaPointe examined her... She was critically ill. She was very ill. So began an unusual detective story. First, the doctors had to unravel a medical mystery. And soon enough, real detectives would be on the case too. But at that moment...

We saw someone who was almost, almost apathetic. Didn't have a personality. I mean, she could barely talk and tell us anything. It was really hard to get a history. Looking for clues, Dr. LaPointe dove into her medical records. And they were extensive. Brigitte had been suffering for months. Nausea, fatigue, excruciating pain.

She had been in and out of doctors' offices and ERs repeatedly. Her sister Olga says Brigitte's illness would come on suddenly. She was all of a sudden violently sick. Had to call out from work and just sick for days. Various doctors had come up with theories, from fibroids to cancer. There was one doctor that actually told her that, oh, you just have really bad menstrual cramps. Because she felt like one of her symptoms, she felt that her ovaries were about to fall out of her body. And she called me and she told me this and she was crying and she was upset. She's like, I don't know what to do. And I'm frustrated because no one can tell us what is wrong with her.

Brigitte had wondered if stress could be making her sick. She had a toddler to chase around, a husband in the Navy who was trying to find a new career, and a new job teaching special ed. It was thrilling, but overwhelming. So doctors put her on medication for depression. But then she got sick again. Then she kept going to the doctors. And she kept feeling worse and worse and worse.

And then she started losing a lot of weight. Brigitte's mom, also named Olga, felt helpless as her daughter's illness progressed. Were you getting more and more worried seeing your daughter waste away? Oh, yes. I guess she was getting tired of going to the doctors and them finding nothing. She says, Mom, I give up. I'm not going to go to the doctors anymore. I said, no, you can't. You have to go back. You can't give up. She was not even walking normally anymore. Just when it seemed things couldn't get worse, a disturbing new symptom.

I went next door to see her, and we ended up on her kitchen floor. And she was crying to me, and she said she had pulled out a chunk of her hair, like just in the shower. It came out. Brigitte's beautiful dark brown locks started falling out by the fistful. When you're seeing her lose her hair, she thought that that was her most beautiful trait. How concerned were you? We were very concerned. I think March 5th is when she called me in the morning and said,

Mom, I need to go to the hospital because I can hardly breathe. Brigitte lived in the country in a house right next to her parents. And yet that morning, she couldn't really see her way to their place. And the pain in her legs was so bad, she could barely get into her mother's SUV. So I tried to help her by raising her leg, but even the touch was painful. She screamed. Her mom raced her to the Naval Hospital in San Diego. She said, Mom, just drop me off as close as you can to the entrance. And

I still remember, I saw her walking, and she walked like a, you know, the walking dead. Like a zombie. Like a zombie. It was horrible. But the Navy doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong either. Brigitte's husband took her back to their family doctor, who called an ambulance when he saw how sick she was. Now, at Kaiser Hospital, she was Dr. LaPointe's mystery patient.

One of the emergency physicians who was working, he saw her and said, it's just not right. And from there, our team was called. Dr. LaPointe has board certification in medical toxicology, a rare thing in an ER. As it happened, his expertise would prove critical. As a medical toxicologist, a little bit more in the detective role. So what was causing Brigitte's hair to fall out? Not to mention the severe pain, vision loss, and weakness. The doctors, when they first saw her, said, oh, it could be lupus.

Right. She had this chronic, kind of withering, slow course. And so autoimmune stuff was on the list. Malignancies on the list, although cancer doesn't make you lose your hair. It's the chemotherapy that makes you lose your hair. Dr. LaPointe knew he had to solve this mystery fast. Brigitte was fading. The clock was ticking. When I saw her and I knew she was dying, she was in a lot of pain. She was in excruciating pain. And I remember being in the hospital room and she's like, I want to be close to my sister. And she like put herself through insane amount of pain just to turn her body so she could look at me. How close was she to dying? I watched my sister almost die.

I knew she was gone. Coming up, a race to unravel this mystery. Your daughter's getting weaker and weaker. Weaker and weaker and weaker. She was losing her vision. She was losing everything. Were her husband and young son in danger too? I have a child in the equation now.

I have a spouse. Let's make sure the child's safe. Make sure that they haven't been exposed. Here at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in San Diego, Brigitte Ayudo was so weak she couldn't even conjure up the energy to care about what was happening to her. Doctors have a term for patients in this apathetic state, la belle indifference. You've lost your hair, and you can't walk, and you're wasting away. You're so sick, you don't have the insight to go, oh, my gosh, I'm really sick. It's almost just like, oh, it's fine.

And that tells you right there, like, she was as sick as she could get and possibly was near death. I think so, yeah. Dr. Jafla Point didn't know for sure what was making Brigitte sick, but to his toxicologist's mind, her symptoms indicated she might have been exposed to a toxic chemical, and he realized she might not be the only one. There's so many moving pieces. I have a child in the equation now. I have a spouse and let's make sure that

we're observing them, make sure the child's safe, make sure that they haven't been exposed. He had Brigitte's husband and son admitted to a separate hospital for testing. And for safety's sake, he banned all visitors from Brigitte's hospital room, even immediate family. And there was a time where you didn't know what was happening with your sister. Did you think, this is it? She might be gone already and nobody's telling us? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I was like a zombie, a walking zombie, just going through the motions and hoping that she's okay. Knowing that if they hadn't called me to tell me that she's gone, it's because she's still here. Olga is two years younger than Brigitte. They've always been close. We shared a bedroom when we were little, so of course we had, like, every night was like a sleepover. We did everything together. We literally were there for each other for everything that happened. Through our childhood, teenage years, adult life, you know, she was my go-to person.

Their dad, John McInvale, had worked for U.S. Customs at the border. They'd grown up in rural San Diego County. There's no real dangers. It's a safe, idyllic upbringing for your daughters. It's safe. Every place has its dangers. I mean, over the years, we've had, you know, a rattlesnake here or there, or, you know, somebody came through and stole the pickup truck. There's dangers, but that goes with anywhere, you know. You can't protect them from everything. From their dad, the girls learned caution.

From their mom, they learned the importance of faith. I put them in a Catholic school. They teach you a lot of moral values and things that are important in life. And Brigitte would beg to go to church during the week. Is that true? During the week, yes. The little girl who begged to go to church grew into an accomplished young woman who ran cross-country and excelled in school. Did she put a lot of pressure on herself then?

Oh, yes. To be perfect? She's always been that way. Even in kindergarten, they used to get a lot of pressure on herself then? Oh, yes. To be perfect. She's always been that way. Even in kindergarten, they used to get a lot of homework. And she's the type of girl that if she made a little mistake, she didn't want to have her pages show that she had erased something. She would start all over. Near the end of her senior year in high school,

Brigitte met a young man named Race Udo, a runner like she was, a grade behind her, but ambitious and determined to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis. When did you first hear about Race? I was 16 years old. I remember she met him at a car show. She was there doing the event for her graduating class. He didn't go to our high school, but he was there, and I just remember her saying something afterwards, like, I met this guy, basically. And I was like, oh, okay. I didn't think much of it because my sister didn't really like date that much. But as Olga got to know him better, she thought race might just be the guy Brigitte needed. She was always very like into her books, very like she stuck to the rules.

He took her to that adventurous part of her life. Kind of got her out of her shell? Oh, definitely got her out of her shell. I saw a different side of her when she was with him. Race made it to the Naval Academy like he wanted, but he suffered a hernia that never healed properly, and eventually he had to withdraw without graduating. He did join the Navy, though. Then, in 2014, Brigitte and Race married. And very soon, she was pregnant with their son. Everyone was thrilled when the baby came.

We were all excited, really. We'd sit there, like when we were little, and we had a little doll. And we'd hold my nephew, and we'd take turns. And, like, you know, like, we'd take turns and like you know like I'd take care of him while she's sleeping or trying to rest and watching her learn and like experience being a mom for the first time how she wanted to be it was beautiful. Then just before her son turned two Brigitte got sick soon she could barely pick up her child. And your daughter's getting weaker and weaker.

Weaker and weaker. And she can barely walk. She was losing her vision. She was losing everything. Now, in the hospital, toxicologist Jeff LaPointe developed a chilling suspicion about what was wrong with Birgitta. We're all just like, you think, oh my God. Coming up, a rare and devastating diagnosis. Highly toxic.

Highly toxic. This was your very first case. Yeah. Growing danger at the hospital and a sudden alert at the FBI. We're notified immediately. That's something that we're very concerned about. Like any good detective, Dr. Jeff LaPointe was keeping his mind open, letting the clues lead him to a theory about what might be killing Brigitte. I just got to figure out what's wrong and get the treatment started.

Most of her symptoms could have been caused by a range of toxic chemicals like arsenic, cadmium, or cesium. But to Dr. LaPointe, one particular symptom stood out, sudden hair loss. That's the telltale sign. I mean, I think that any medical toxicologist, if you tell them that you have a young woman who has lost her hair and now can't walk because her feet hurt so bad, thallium is going to be on our list. It's like straight out of the books. Thallium is a heavy metal, atomic number 81 on the periodic table of elements.

It was discovered late 1800s and then quickly began being used medically in the early 1900s as like a depilatory agent. If you had lice or something and you wanted a child to lose their hair, they would give them thallium. Oh my gosh. Right? Dr. LaPointe also knew that for decades, thallium had another use as an ingredient in rat poison. And it was really, really good as a root denticide. And so it was,

that was outlawed in the 1970s. It's really good at killing things at the end of the day. Highly toxic. Highly toxic. Yet there was no quick way to confirm his suspicion. Hospitals rarely see patients with thallium poisoning and don't have a way to test for it. So no hospital is just going to put a drop of blood in and have it come back. Yes, thallium, right? So you have to send these things away. So now I'm looking at a two to three maybe day delay. Days that he knew Brigitte might not have. We have like a really scary situation where I have a test that's infrequently ordered that I need now that is a send out, right? And it's scary,

it's serious, it's infrequently done, and it's exotic. You're in a race against time when it comes to trying to save her life. Yeah. So I'm like trying to advocate to all these different people, lots of hours on the phone, just trying to get someone on the phone and be like, this woman's going to die. So as soon as we sent the test, we said, how do I get the antidote? He wanted it ready to give her as soon as results came in. What is the antidote? So the antidote is called Prussian Blue.

You've probably seen Prussian Blue in paint. Yes, paint. It's been used as a pigment since the 1700s. You can see it here in Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone. But it wasn't until 1965 that scientists discovered Prussian blue could be used as an antidote. It works by speeding up elimination of certain poisons, such as thallium. But while you can buy blue paint in any art shop, pharmaceutical-grade Prussian blue is nearly impossible to find. And so we started calling pharmacies around town at different places. We started calling the Navy or, you know, we called our local public health people. We got in touch with the CDC, and we finally found a storage. You know, they're all like confidential storage sites,

but we found one up in Los Angeles. Prussian Blue is so hard to get because it's also an antidote for radiation poisoning. The U.S. government keeps it under close guard, stockpiled in case of a nuclear attack. So no one really wants to give me an antidote before I've proven it, right? Because we don't just throw around Prussian Blue, but keep them in stores in case there's a dirty bomb. We have several trip wires set up. In this case, the patient was here in San Diego, and we were notified immediately of the Prussian order. John Gill is a special agent with the FBI in San Diego. His focus is weapons of mass destruction. A request for the antidote to thallium poisoning put his office on alert.

In the past several decades, there's been instances where thallium has been used as an assassination weapon against former spies and former dissidents. So that's what you're thinking when you get this call first is, uh-oh, what is happening here in San Diego, right? Right. That's something that we're very concerned about in the United States. All this just as President Trump was days away from a trip to San Diego to talk about the border wall. You triggered all kinds of alarm bells. I triggered all kinds of alarm bells, yes. Coming up... So when you're seeing this...

We're like, oh my gosh. A deadly substance in Brigitte's system. But how? I sit there and I think I have a poisoning case. And I'm proceeding like this is an intentional poisoning until proven otherwise. Brigitte's mom couldn't visit her daughter in the hospital. No visitors were allowed. So she waited and she prayed. That's all she could do.

30 miles away at Kaiser Hospital, Dr. LaPointe was waiting too. Three days had passed since he sent out Brigitte's samples, Brigitte in pain the whole time. Finally, the lab results came back. Just as he suspected, it was thallium, a lot of it. Brigitte's husband and young son seemed to be clear of the toxic metal, but she was in serious danger. Her levels were off the charts. Yeah, they're really high. More than a thousand times the acceptable level. Wow, that's unbelievable. A hospital staffer had driven through the night to get hold of Prussian blue pills. Dr. LaPointe started Brigitte on them immediately.

But with so much thallium in Brigitte's system, Dr. LaPointe worried Prussian Blue would not be enough to save her. He also put her on dialysis to filter her blood. It was a slow process. When FBI Special Agent John Gill arrived to question her, Brigitte was still desperately ill. How would you describe her condition at that point in time? It was a very serious condition.

She struggled with answering simple questions. Sick as she was, he knew he couldn't wait. She looked very bad and is concerning. At that point, we didn't know if she was going to make it. He needed to figure out quickly how she'd been exposed to thallium. Brigitte did her best to help. She brought up several points where she thought she could have been exposed to thallium. She had received holistic medical treatments in Mexico.

Or maybe, she said, she could have been exposed at the school where she worked. It was an old army base. There might be traces of old rat poison there. So some of these older school structures, they were used during World War II, and that's the time when they used volume-based rodenticides. Investigators followed Brigitte's leads.

The holistic treatment, nothing there. San Diego Sheriff's Detective Brad Farr checked out the school. And I talked to some other teachers that work in the same area she worked. There had been some rumors that the previous year there were some teachers that went out sick a lot, so I had to look into that. It turned out to be not in any way, shape, or form involved with this. Meanwhile, a hazmat team searched the Udo house, but found no thallium. And they considered another possibility.

We also had to explore the fact that sometimes in these cases, a person may try to poison themselves if they're struggling with depression or crying out for attention. Brigitte had been depressed around the time she first started getting sick, but Brigitte and everyone who knew her told him no way was she suicidal. I told the detective, I know my sister more than anybody. She always wanted to be a mother. She always wanted to have

a family. She wouldn't throw it away like that. As they eliminated all the other possibilities, the detectives, along with Dr. LaPointe, came to a sinister conclusion. I'm proceeding like this is an intentional poisoning until proven otherwise. Why would somebody choose thallium? Someone would choose thallium because it looks like a medical mystery. It presents as someone just having a slow decline and withering away and dying that you would associate with a chronic illness. It's poison to get away with it. The next step to solving this mystery was figuring out how Brigitte had been poisoned.

Dr. LaPointe did his own kind of detective work. And you see this kind of really bright spots everywhere, like all throughout. Those little white flecks. Yeah, those little white flecks. The little white flecks are thallium in Brigitte's digestive tract. So when you're seeing this... In the context of what we're seeing, we're like, oh my gosh. Telltale sign.

If it's in her gut, what does that tell you about how she was getting it? Yeah, I mean, food is right. Somebody's feeding it to her. Yeah, she's eating it, someone's giving it to her, yeah. It was what Dr. LaPointe had feared when he took that unusual precaution that left Brigitte's family in the dark. I cleared everyone out of the room because everyone was bringing gifts and food, everything out, everyone out.

A lot of people get poisoned, come to the hospital and get worse if someone else is bringing them more poison. So I just want all the variables off the table. So far, Dr. LaPointe had done a lot of things right, but he knew against thallium, that might not be enough. In a lot of these cases, people don't recover. A lot of these cases, people can't feel their legs again or they never grow their hair back. Even if Brigitte survived, there was no telling if her life would ever be the same. Coming up, who could be behind this? Your circle is narrowing. You're

looking at her family, you're looking at her sister, and of course you're looking at her husband. Absolutely. Dr. Jeff LaPointe believed someone was determined to commit the perfect murder by feeding bits of the highly toxic metal thallium to his patient, Brigitte Udo. For tense hours and days, the doctor and his team fought to save Brigitte's life. She'd consumed more than enough thallium to kill her. And yet... I don't know why I'm here. I don't know why I'm still alive. And that's scary. Meet Brigitte. She's still with us. Did you feel like you were dying? I did. I did, but I was too afraid to admit it to myself.

What kept you alive in that time? My son. Wanting to see my son. As the antidote took effect, Brigitte, in essence, woke up. She found herself in a hospital bed with only wisps of hair on her head. But she couldn't walk or really see, and doctors couldn't really tell her what to expect. They pretty much were very open about not knowing what was going to happen. But then, one day, her cell phone came into focus. Days later, she caught sight of something else. I was really excited because I could see the TV,

like what brand the TV was across the room. While Brigitte continued to make a slow physical recovery in the hospital, she also had to face the hard truth that someone had plotted against her. We asked her, is there anyone that has an agenda against you or anything? And she vehemently stated that, no, I don't think there's anyone in my life that would attempt to poison me. But Agent Gill knew that intentional poisoning was usually personal. Statistically and historically speaking,

when you do have a poisoning, it's either a close family member or a close friend. Sitting alone in her hospital room, Brigitte found herself terrified at the thought of doctors lifting their ban on visitors. Did you start to become more fearful as you started to then realize that this was intentional poisoning? Yeah. I started getting fearful. I started thinking about what would happen when I got out of the hospital, if I got out of the hospital, and who would I have to protect myself from. And I imagine at this point, your circle is narrowing as to who could have done this. You're looking at her family, you're looking at her sister, and of course you're looking at her husband.

Absolutely. They talked to everyone, including Brigitte's husband, Race Udo. He was a very friendly, very cooperative individual throughout the entire investigation. Was he at all concerned about his wife? When we first talked to him in the hospital, he did have some tears, and he kept saying, I just wish I could do something to help her. He said the right things to detectives,

but Special Agent Gill learned quickly that something about Race Udo seemed off. Some of the medical staff had expressed some concern over Mr. Udo's behavior at the time. It came out that he wasn't acting as a concerned husband should be acting. He was asking the wrong kind of questions. He didn't seem concerned about what was happening to her. Suspicious as detectives were, Brigitte couldn't go there. At this point, are you suspecting your husband at all? No. Anybody who had suggested that idea had started, why would you think that my husband would do something like that? I don't know. He's the one that brought me here. How does that make any sense? It was true. Race was the one who took Brigitte to the doctors that day she was transferred to the hospital.

To Brigitte, that was an act of an innocent man. She also remembered how Race cared for her as she fell ill. As you were getting more and more sick, did he show that he was concerned by bringing you food? Was that part of his way of taking care of you? That was his way of taking care of me. When I started staying home, he would bring me breakfast sandwiches in bed. He would make sure that I had food. And you're thinking, wow, he's showing a side. He's taking care of me.

Yeah, he's taking care of me. He really loves me. He really cares about what happens at this point. But Brigitte also told the detectives something else about her husband. It turned out Race had a very strange hobby, collecting the types of plant seeds that are used to make poisons. And when you hear this, are alarm bells going off? Absolutely. This isn't a normal amateur hobby to have.

So obviously it's very concerning for us. Sixteen days into Brigitte's stay at the hospital, detectives had enough evidence to get a search warrant for the Udo home. Race was there to greet them. He was wearing these dark sunglasses. No reason for anyone to wear sunglasses, especially inside your residence. He was fidgety, but seemingly candid.

We asked him, well, if we image your phone, is there anything in your search history that is going to be of any concern to us? And he said, no, not at all. By the way, I'd recently erased all the search history that is going to become any concern to us and he said no not at all by the way i'd recently erased all the search history of all my electronic devices that made the detectives even more suspicious they took his electronics they scoured the house the garage and then they got to his car and then within the hole for the spare tire, we find an odd mix of materials, a canister of acetone,

packets of exotic seeds. Still barred from visiting, Brigitte's family was at home. Sister Olga called the detectives over. Earlier that day, her mother had seen Race toss out a black trash bag. I was like, okay, I'll go get it. She's a great junior agent. She actually went dumpster diving.

What did you find in that black bag? Some of the more serious things. So we found receipts for some of the exotic seeds that he had ordered. We saw some of the crude filtering mechanisms that he had. We found solutions in which to purify and refine some of the poisons. Agent Gill says they found evidence Race had tried to grind up castor beans to make the poison ricin. He says they also found rosary peas like these, a seed that makes another deadly poison, and seeds like these from something called the suicide tree of India. And on Race's

electronic devices that he thought he'd wiped clean, they found two books, Criminal Poisoning and The Poisoner's Handbook. As bad as it all looked, there was one thing they didn't find. Thallium. Not a trace of it. Without that, detectives felt there wasn't enough evidence to make an arrest. At the end of the search, Race Udo remained a free man. But Detective Farr knew he needed to warn Brigitte. So I went to the hospital and we had a very long talk and I showed her some of the stuff that we found and basically lay it all out for her that if you get out,

you need to not go back to your husband. Coming up, would investigators get the proof they need? Were you involved in poisoning your wife? No. Did you poison your wife? No. Did you poison your wife? No. I think he thought he had it beat. And a haunting, terrifying moment.

He had made a breakfast sandwich for me, and my son climbed up and wanted a piece. By now, the doctors and nurses and law enforcement all believed they had to protect Brigitte from her husband, even if Brigitte still couldn't wrap her mind around it. I finally had gotten to the point where I told investigators, fine, you know, continue with the investigation, but I need proof. So did law enforcement. They kept digging and learned Ray Sudo had a secret life. There was a girlfriend who thought his wife was dead. He had taken his son with them on so many of their dates that the son was actually calling her mom. Mr. Udo painted this picture

like he was a former Navy SEAL. And he specifically mentioned he wanted to work for the FBI in the poisons department. Kind of like what you do. That's very ironic. Then they found another girlfriend. He specifically told that girlfriend that he wanted his wife to get hit by a bus and for her to die so he can get sole custody. Investigators decided it was time to confront Race. They asked Race to take a polygraph. He said, absolutely. he's the person that seems to have gone through life by talking himself out of situations it started off easy almost a casual chat then he got more serious. Can you pass this test if I ask you if you're poisoning her?

Yeah. I wouldn't hurt her. The censors were strapped on. All right, so we're going to get started. His demeanor during the first half was confident. I think he thought he had it beat. Paul Rison was the prosecutor on the case. It almost looked like, all right, I got this.

I'm getting through this, we're good. Please remain still, the test is about to begin. Are the lights on in this room? Yes. Regarding poisoning your wife, do you intend to answer truthfully? Yes. Were you involved in poisoning your wife? No.

Did you poison your wife? No. Please remain still, the test is about to end. Nine times the investigator asked the same questions, and every time, Race Udo assured him he did not poison his wife, and he seemed sure he passed. As continued testing went on, the polygrapher eventually stopped, let him take a break, came back in. You have a seat in the regular chair. Sweet. He confronted him and said, I don't believe anything you're saying.

So you failed your test. Not only did you fail the test, you failed miserably. And that's when he confessed. Right then and there. Right after the polygraph. Race broke. The details of how he tried to kill his wife began tumbling out. When did you start doing this stuff to her? I can tumbling out. Race told the investigator that the first time he fed thallium to Brigitte, it was in a sandwich.

And the second time, walk me through what you did. I just threw it in with a soup. Race told law enforcement he doled out the poison based on Brigitte's weight, starting with one gram of thallium in late summer 2017. You thought that based off her weight and what you read, one gram would kill her the first two times? I a lethality kind of level. Brigitte got sick, but she obviously didn't die. So he upped it the last time. He upped it up to five grams. He thought that was going to do it. It should have been a lethal dose, but Race didn't factor in his wife's will to live. All the doctors, the nurses, the detectives say it's your quiet strength that allowed you to pull through. You believe that too?

Um, yeah, I struggle with that. Don't be humble. Don't be humble. Thank you. I mean, I would hope so. I would hope that I have that to give to my son. But I think it's all the work that they did together that has helped me be here now. You are going to be arrested today. Police arrested Race immediately after his confession. Do you have anything you want to tell? Eight months later, Race Udo pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted murder. He's serving 21 years to life. My parents saw him as their son at one point.

I saw him as a brother, and he took advantage of us wanting to be open and caring with him. It was upsetting, and I couldn't believe it for a while. I said, how can this be? Right under her nose, he was doing all this to our daughter. And I thank God that they're right next door, because I think if they had been living someplace else, she would have died. I'm sure of that. So then you start going back in your head, and you're replaying all the times he brought you food, made you food.

Was there an instance that stands out in your mind? He had made a breakfast sandwich and taken it to the bedroom for me. And my son climbed up and wanted a piece. And immediately his reaction is, no, don't give him any of it. I think about that all the time. That sandwich, Race mentioned in his confession, could have killed their son. Emotionally, how are you doing? It's rough it's still hard to stop and think about what happened the amount of deception i can't really trust people and what i've discovered is you know

trusting myself is difficult too before they were married brigitte told Race that as a Catholic, she believed marriage was forever. How do you feel about divorce now? Um, yeah. I love the idea. This strong woman, who once couldn't walk, is now running again. It's been hard when at first I couldn't even walk without a walker. So it's been a very slow, slow progress. Is this your therapy though? Yeah. Yeah.

I remember being in the hospital and finding everything out and being so angry that I couldn't get up to go for a run. Right now, though, Brigitte's focus is on embracing life and all its thrills. I've gone skydiving. I mean, I've done different things. You're living life to the fullest now. Absolutely.